Diary

Dear Diary:

I used "forthwith" in an email today.

Old School Baseball

In the 8^th inning of a 1-0 Red Sox Indians game, Eduardo Nunez swung and missed a pitch from Corey Kluber.

NESN Broadcast and former MLB player, Jonny Gomes said that Nunez took a big swing or swung for the fences or whatever parlance-of-our-time you prefer.

On the next pitch, Nunez was hit in the elbow.

Jonny Gomes said this was “old school baseball.”

This implies that Kluber hit Nunez on purpose.

Which raises questions like:

Was Kluber personally offended that Nunez swung hard?

If so, why?

Would Kluber have been personally offended if Nunez swung medium or light or instead of swinging for the fences (plural) only swung for a fence (singular)?

Or would Kluber have been offended if Nunez swung for a gork or a groundball with eyes to quote Crash Davis?

Why would any kind of swing personally offend Kluber?

Maybe the swing didn’t offend Kluber but instead, disrespected the game?

And this is why, per old school baseball, Kluber intentionally hit Nunez.

How does any kind of swing disrespect the game of baseball?

Is a bunt swing disrespectful? If so why? How?

Does any kind of swing disrespect competition?

I don’t know but I do know this, because Kluber’s intentionally hit batter took first and Brock Holt took second and then scored on a swing of some sort which apparently offended no one and not the game of baseball.

Help me understand how a swing disrespects anyone or anything.

I ask to learn.

Because after Gomes said that this was old school basbeball, implying the bean ball, I thought he was incorrect.

I thought that the competitor in Kluber knew that Nunez’ swing, be it hard or soft or medium or light or tepid or colossal or monstrous or hackneyed or uppercutted or Dave Kingman-like, is irrelevant.

Kluber the competitor knows that the real competition is with himself and locating his pitch, calibrating a baseball, on a level that an infinitesimally small proportion of the world’s population can do, into a catcher’s mitt 60 feet 6 inches away at speeds we mere mortals can’t really fathom.

But I’m wrong.

Kluber hit him on purpose.

And the Indians lost.

Busker Wants You To Appreciate Jazz and Rats on Your Run - This Is Your Nation's Capitol

Visited the nation's capitol this past week with the fam.

Good trip: the boys loved the zoo and the museums and the hotel pool.

I thought the National Gallery of Art was outstanding - on a par with Getty.

Two highlights (or lowlights depending upon your prerogative):

1. Upon leaving the National Museum of American History we strolled by a busker blowing his sax. My ears did not deceive me when I heard jazz. My eldest pokes his head out from the bottom tier of the stroller and says "You're doing great!"

Mom and I laugh and walk on but a couple of steps when I hear the busker say:

"Yeah I'm doing great. But none of you have the common sense to give me a dollar!"

He was truly upset but I rolled laughing. Johnny Jazz blowing diminished scales is irate because the tippers want to hear Brittney Spears and Mmm Bop.

2. Sunday morning at 5am I stroll out of the hotel for a run. It was still dark out as I ventured down 10th street for the National Mall when I quickly learned I would have to dodge fat, bulbous bottomed, greasy tailed rats on most of 10th -at least until E street.

On the plus side, my pace was a little faster than usual.

Make Me A Masshole!

I am now willing to have someone rewire my brain so that I don't care.

So that I don't give one iota when I see a mile of signs telling me that there is construction ahead and that I need to merge right.

Yep, go ahead doc, get in there and cross wires, have synapses sewn, dendrites deactivated, myelin mangled, neurons nuked, and axons axed...whatever you need to do so that I don't care.

I don't want to care when I see a sign lit up like an xmas tree begging me to merge right.

I want to be careless...

just like the rest of the massholes that just ignore the miles of orange signs and blinking arrows and just sit in that left lane until...

of course they cut someone off and make them jam on the bakes and the brakes behind them and behind them and SLOW everybody up at best and kill someone at the worst.

But I can't take it anymore.

Please doc, cut me open, carve me up, make me not give two shits.

I'm begging you doc, make me a masshole!