Neither Nor

“EXCLUSIVE” meaning that I’m writing this solely for my Tumblr, and not my blog proper.  And by “writing,” I of course mean “repurposing previously published content.” To explain: thanks to the largess of The Awl, David Roth and I were able to shoot the shit about baseball via GChat every 2 weeks over the course of this past baseball season, and publish said results on The Awl.  

To say these chats were the highlight of my writing year would be a gross understatement.  It’d be more accurate to say that I eagerly looked forward to these rhetorical throw-downs with middle-aged girlish glee.  They were the perfect way for me to unwind from my two jobs (the one that covers my rent, and the one that covers my debilitating food-delivery habit), and any opportunity I have to shoot my mouth off about baseball is one I’ll take 11 times out of 10.  

To be honest, despite being the one that pitched Mr. Roth on the idea (as I was inspired by his Awl football yaks with Jeff Johnson) (which have now graduated to GQ.com, in case you weren’t aware), I was a little gunshy about rising to the challenge of keeping up with one of my favorite writers (about sports, pizza franchise magnates, etc).  But once I got over my stage fright and performance anxiety issues (thank you, herbal supplements), I think I did all right.

So, to celebrate the recent conclusion of this MLB season, I figured it’d be fun to go back through our Yaks (17 in total) and pull some choice exchanges from these hoe-downs.  And since the next month will feature MLB doling out their awards (an award every week), I figured it’d make sense to parcel out these “best-ofs” in a similar fashion.  But without the fancy hardware and incentive bonuses.  Unless The Awl 401K contributions are more robust than what I was lead to originally believe. 

I’m going in chronological order, starting with the very first chat on April 1st, before the names of David Freese and Mike Napoli and Sam Fuld were seared into the mind of the world.  And, of course, I’m including links to the actual Awl Yaks, in case you can’t get enough of this kind of gentle comedy.  If you’re reading these for the first time, or coming back for seconds, many thanks (&, assuming you’re so inclined, please leave a comment or some sort of “like” thing). The rerun fun begins after the proverbial jump.

THE ANIMAL COLLECTIVE OF THE AL EAST

DAVID ROTH: One thing I remember from going to Yankees games when I was a kid were guys selling “Baltimore Blows” t-shirts outside Yanks/O’s games. Which just hardly seems worth it at all. I almost wish I’d bought one, now. Not because I think Baltimore blows—although every American-born player on their team seems pretty reprehensible, and Luke Scott seems a slump away from doing something unwise with an assault rifle—but because it would prove the shirt really existed.

DAVID RAPOSA: This was back when the Orioles were worth a blow, wasn’t it? Or at least a quick handjob?

DAVID ROTH: It was just so witless. Maybe there were “The Royals Are Not That Good” t-shirts for sale, too, and I missed them. These were decent-ish O’s teams, though. They could’ve gone with Deveraux Blauxs. (“Ripken Is A Fuckface” was, of course, already redundant.)

DAVID RAPOSA: I think they were starting with alliteration and working towards slant rhymes. If Albert Belle’s hip didn’t crumble, who knows what kind of poesy would’ve been unleashed?

DAVID ROTH: Horrifying. The prospect. And also Albert Belle in general. It’s always kind of amusing to me how, despite the desultory “Mark McGwire Was/Was Not Robbed of Hall of Fame Honors” columns every year, no one seems all that bothered by the fact that Belle is not in the Hall only because he is an a-hole of terrifying, world-historic proportions.

DAVID RAPOSA: That would be an acceptance speech worth bronzing. Or maybe not. Unless he went aggro prop comic on Cooperstown.

DAVID ROTH: Smashing melons for sure. I imagine Belle crying up there, and then explaining that it was because there were so many people he hadn’t punched yet. “I see Peter Angelos out there. I want to punch him a lot. And all my old teammates, Eddie Murray and Harold Baines. I would punch the shit out of them.”

DAVID RAPOSA: Maybe he could have Jason Grimsley crawl across the stage and slip him some brass knuckles. And then give Bud Selig a hotfoot as he slithered off, stage left.

DAVID ROTH: Teamwork. That’s how you win.

PLAYING SEGA GENESIS WITH MANNY RAMIREZ

DAVID RAPOSA: I think some Baseball Prospectus writer once suggested that no one should draw any conclusions about the way a season looks until at least the second or third week of the season. As a Red Sox fan and Rays bandwagoneer, I’d definitely appreciate any and all dopes adhering to that edict.

DAVID ROTH: Yeah, I was going to say.

DAVID RAPOSA: Though, on the Rays tip, I did appreciate hearing for the 384,782th time that they’re not going to be good because they couldn’t afford to overpay Carl Crawford. cf. a blort by the wholly impartial Peter Golenbock.

DAVID ROTH: Isn’t Peter Golenbock the guy that wrote the never-released Mickey Mantle novel that had tons of threesome scenes?

DAVID RAPOSA: I was going to ask you that! If any guy deserves the Zalman King treatment, it’s the Mick.

DAVID ROTH: Mad saxophones. (Also: that was Golenbock)

DAVID RAPOSA: Tasteful yet erotic soft lighting.

DAVID ROTH: A gratuitously shirtless Phil Rizzuto.

DAVID RAPOSA: Ken Singleton giggling behind a Japanese screen.

DAVID ROTH: I like the idea of Michael Kay in the David Duchovny narrator role. Am I allowed to admit to knowing that The Duch was in Red Shoe Diaries? Am I allowed to admit that because of Red Shoe Diaries, I spent a lot of my life thinking that sex only happened when people were surrounded by candles and gauzy drapes?

DAVID RAPOSA: I thought sex was something that happened between two indistinct rainbow-colored blobs.

ASK YOUR DOCTOR ABOUT BENZINGER’S DISEASE

DAVID RAPOSA: Hey, here’s an MLB reality-show pitch: “BEST SHAPE OF YOUR LIFE.” You get your Cabreras and your Jobas together at some exotic locale during the off-season, put them through their paces, get a Jillian Michaels knock-off to rip them a new one every time they smuggle in some Archway molasses cookies, etc.

DAVID ROTH: Hosted by Rich Garces and Summer Sanders.

DAVID ROTH: “They all eat hot dogs like Tic Tacs, but only one of these contestants will be able to report to Spring Training and say… ‘I’m in the best shape of my life.’”

DAVID RAPOSA: CASH MONEY.

DAVID ROTH: License up those fake versions of Spoon songs that Bravo uses during “Top Chef,” get Kevin Kennedy and Mitch Williams in a studio with Andy Cohen and it’s on. The MLB Network needs more competitive reality shows. Right now it’s just that version of “Top Chef” hosted by Bengie Molina, and the bar is way too low on that.

DAVID ROTH: I don’t know if anyone has been eliminated yet. The last episode I saw, someone won $10k for making something called “Buffalo Drywall” and serving it with 18 ounces of blue-cheese dressing.

LUKE SCOTT’S AMERICAN HISTORY K

DAVID ROTH: I wonder what’s next for Milton [Bradley]. I mean, the obvious immediate answer is “The Bridgeport Bluefish.” But after that. He and Elijah Dukes could form a Franklin & Bash-style sports agency?

DAVID RAPOSA: He’s gotten dinged for spousal abuse nonsense, right?

DAVID ROTH: Yeah, which obviously makes him totally unsympathetic. But otherwise you can see him as a short-tempered dude who didn’t take well to getting racial slurs yelled at him by the home fans during his flameout with the Cubs.

DAVID RAPOSA: That’s a dude I can get behind. Especially if said dude gets put on the 60-day DL reaching down to pick something up.

DAVID ROTH: That always killed me about the way his Cubs years got covered. All the Tribune and Sun-Times guys being like, “Well, you know how the bleachers are. A few dozen beers and they start saying some really racist shit that they obviously mean.”

DAVID RAPOSA: “They can’t HELP but be racist shitbags. It’s Milton’s fault for not rolling with the punches. If you’re still upset after the 50th N-word, the problem is you, am I right?”

DAVID ROTH: The punches being repeated slurs from a bunch of yuppie bigots. Or… I don’t know. My understanding of Cubs fans is basically that they’re the characters from About Last Night or Vince Vaughn. I don’t know who sits in the bleachers at Wrigley, really.

DAVID RAPOSA: The other Belushis.