Tag: general silliness

A Silly Baseball Statistic for Really Silly People

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

War! What is it good for? Absolutely nothin’!  –Edward Starr, 1969

Let’s face it: baseball just ain’t the national pastime anymore. What with player strikes, steroids, expansion, league-shuffling, stratospheric ticket prices ($272 a pop for seats in Yankee Stadium that we used to get for $15), and no more games on free TV, it’s become just another thing not to care about.

And so baseball’s answer to public indifference is… war.

No, not the real kind, like in the Edwin Starr oldie. This is a new statistic, WAR, short for “Wins Above Replacement Player.” It’s supposed to be a formula showing how many wins a player is worth to his team by comparing him to a “replacement player”–to wit, a bum.

You’ve gotta see the formula for calculating WAR (see http://wikipedia.org/wiki/Wins_above_replacement ). It looks like the mess Sam Jaffee had on his blackboard in The Day the Earth Stood Still. But, heck, you have to expect some complications when you’re wondering how much better the Yankees do with Derek Jeter at shortstop than Perez Hilton.

But the WAR statistic enables us, or so we’re told, to compare players from all eras. So you can find all-time rankings of players according to their WAR. And what do these rankings tell us?

That Rickey Henderson (#19) was a little better than Mickey Mantle (#21) and a whole lot better than Joe DiMaggio (#67).

Presto! A completely useless statistic! A quintessential product of our current age! What could possibly be more representative of today’s state of civilization than this? Not only blatantly wrong–but arrived at only after tremendous trouble and toil.

Remember, way back, when you’d get a word problem in arithmetic that went like this? Johnny came to bat 10 times and got 3 hits. What is his batting average? So now you can’t appreciate baseball unless you’ve got a Ph.D. in statistics and a hand-held computer? If Willie Mays is replaced in center field by Michael Moore and the Giants never, ever win another game forever, calculate Willie Mays’ WAR?

Lemme outta here!

The $10 Million Catnap

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

One of the news stories that surfaced while my computer was out of the saga was this gem.

At a July 4 game at Yankee Stadium, a fan fell asleep in the stands. As is the custom in baseball telecasts, ESPN’s cameras sometimes did sweeps of the fans. So they found this guy snoozing away, and the announcers had some gentle fun at his expense.

A few days later, the gavone sued ESPN, the Yankees, and Major League Baseball for $10 million dollars. He claimed he was the target of an “unrelenting verbal crusade” and an “avalanche of disparaging words.” The announcers called him names, he claimed, and ruined his reputation, etc. (See http://finance.yahoo.com/news/snoozing-yankees-fan-sues-espn-050856813.html )

The actual video of the broadcast is easily viewed on the internet (especially if the link I gave you works!), and anyone can see that this lawsuit has no merit whatsoever.

What was this guy thinking? Didn’t he know the whole thing would be on tape? Obviously the announcers never said any of the things he claims they said.

I couldn’t help thinking of Judge Wapner on the old The People’s Court TV show, patiently explaining to one idiot after another that the court system was not set up as a get-rich-quick apparatus for simpletons. You don’t get $100,000 because a guy sold you a couple of bad spark plugs.

Gee, what would I do if I were a judge and some clown came into my courtroom seeking a $10 million payday in a lawsuit based on easily exposed lies? Would I be sorely tempted to jail both him and his shyster lawyer for flagrant contempt of court?

Yeah, I think I would.

The Centaurs Strike Back

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

I have been getting a lot of flak from centaurs lately, email from all over the country.

“You are completely wrong about us centaurs,” writes Tomble Gezunt from Montana. “The centaur community is mad at you for depicting us as animals and savages. You seem to have got us mixed up with taurcents, which are backwards centaurs–horse up front, human behind. We don’t appreciate it!”

What about the objection that, even with genetic engineering, a centaur is impossible because the horse half would grow so much faster than the human half? Mrs. Haffa Horsy, from right here in New Jersey, answered that one.

“What do you know about it, buster? So the horse half grows faster. So what? Eventually the human half catches up. My horse-body was full grown while my lady-piece was still a baby. Don’t you think my parents knew how to deal with that? To us centaurs, that’s no big deal at all! In fact, it’s normal.”

From Washington, D.C., came this angry comment from a centaur named Roy Patterson.

“You make out like we are just a bunch of drunks, as bad as satyrs. But you don’t know ****. In my neighborhood we got centaurs who are lawyers, public servants, and even one who is a veterinarian. It’s them satyrs who run around drunk all the time. Centaurs are too busy earning an honest living!”

Well, who would’ve thought it? Apparently there are a lot more centaurs out there than I imagined. I wonder why it’s so unusual to see one.

A Gruesome Discovery

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Wouldn’t you know it? As we discuss allowing kids to be kids, and play outside, on their own, along comes this little cautionary tale from Dayton, Ohio ( http://wtvr.com/2014/06/17/mummified-corpse-hanging/ ).

Yup–a boy decided to explore the abandoned house on his block, and what do you think he found? He opened a likely-looking closet, and there, gently swinging back and forth, he found the mummified body of a man. Authorities said the poor sod had been hanging there for five years, having apparently committed suicide. Gee whiz, you off yourself and no one even notices? “Yo, have you seen so-and-so around lately? Nah, he must of moved or somethin’…”

Yipes. My friends and I loved going into abandoned houses! Our imaginations generated plenty of excitement.

But if we had ever actually found some poor guy hanging in the closet, turned into a mummy…! Yeah, that would’ve given me the heeby-jeebies for a while.

On the plus side, though, this kid from Dayton is going to be the star of stars among the other kids. “That’s Danny–the kid who found the mummy! Wow!” They’ll all be jealous. He’ll be able to tell this story for the rest of his life, and probably will. “Grandpa, tell me again about the time you found the mummy hanging in the closet!”

Of course, you can always keep your kid tightly under wraps–kind of like a mummy, come to think of it–and never let him do anything at all on his own. That way he won’t have any experiences you haven’t planned for.

I have discovered that there are a few nuts out there who think that’s a good idea. It must be more than a few, or people wouldn’t be raising their kids like bee larvae.

God help us.

A Bone to Pick with the Mummy

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

Not that this is a burning issue; but then I’d rather not get involved with burning issues on the Lord’s Day.

No–this concerns mummy movies. Not the newfangled ones with computer-generated cheesy effects, body builders, and whatnot. I love the old mummy movies, in black and white, from the 1940s. The original, starring Boris Karloff as The Mummy, from 1932, is a classic work of cinematic art. The sequels are, well, mummy movies. I make no apology for liking them. The ones with Lon Chaney Jr.,  The Mummy’s Hand, The Mummy’s Tomb, The Mummy’s Ghost (even though there’s no ghost in it)–a wonderful addition to our culture.

Nevertheless, there is one thing about all these mummy movies (except the first one) that kind of bugs me.

How do people ever manage to get themselves caught by the Mummy?

I mean, the Mummy’s not exactly Carl Lewis, is he? He shuffles, wobbles a bit, and is so, so sloooooow. If you sent him to the corner store for groceries, you’d starve before he ever got back.

In addition to being slow, he is also clumsy and awkward. He never has full use of his left arm, so he shuffles toward you with his right arm extended so as to strangle you with one hand. And no one ever gets away! You’d think someone would eventually get the idea to take a sword or something and chop off the one arm the Mummy can use. What could an armless mummy do to you?

But no–a mummy victim never has a chance. Most of the victims just raise their hands, even though the Mummy has not said “Stick ’em up,” and back up into the wall, or fall down, and just get strangled. Like, why not, uh, run away? Even Chris Christie could ran away from the Mummy. The few victims who do try to run away, always make a beeline for the nearest blind alley, from which there is no escape.

Again, it’s not a burning issue. It’s just a little thing that bothers me, as Columbo would say.

Ah! For the day when I can settle back and watch Columbo vs. the Mummy…

 

The Best Movie You’ll Never See

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Yesterday it rained all day and all night, and it’s raining now, and my brain is tired. Besides, I’d rather not do battle on the Sabbath day.

So I thought I might review a movie, instead.

Here is a forgotten gem from 1970, produced by the one-time-only team of Leonard Bernstein, Ingmar Bergman, and Elston Howard–My Brother, My Soul, My Granola. You can buy a copy from that guy over there in the raincoat.

Arnold Stang plays a Swedish politician who gets wise counsel from rutabaga farmer Charles Bronson. But Stang is no sooner named secretary general of the United Nations when he discovers a plot by bad-guy professional wrestlers (masterminded by real-life wrestler, Mr. Fuji) to take over the world.

In desperation, he calls on retired Intercontinental Heavyweight Champion Farnsworth Chillingham Smythe–played to a T by real-life wrestler Sgt. Slaughter–now a professor of philosophy at Harvard. Smythe has to set aside his cap and gown and go out and beat down the bad guys, one after another.

The action tends to get a bit confusing, so the screenplay (rumored to have been written by Tom Wolfe and Spiro Agnew) intersperses it with talking-head scenes of discussions between John Houseman and Gloria Steinem. In their chats, they explain what’s going on in the rest of the movie. This was shortly before Houseman shot his agent. (Remember that trial? He was acquitted.)

The soundtrack is a continuous loop of John Lennon singing “Imagine.” If you can stand that, you can stand anything.

I recommend you see this movie. After you’ve seen it, everything else you see will seem so much nicer.

[Note: Back in 1975, my very first column for the now-defunct Bayshore Independent was a review of a non-existent movie, under the headline that I’ve used today. Permit me this bit of nostalgia. I’ll get back down to business tomorrow. Meanwhile, I hope you had a chuckle or two.]

Are Centaurs Real?

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

Reader Basil Dimwittie emailed me last night to ask, “Are centaurs real? I think I seen one in my back yard while it was snowing.”

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_t5NiD0yr2Uc/S8THZOtoMNI/AAAAAAAAAE8/ABJrja4UgXA/s1600/centauro.jpg

Well, Basil, the answer is “Yes.” According to the federal government’s Institute of Useless Studies, who spent $400 million of our tax dollars to prove it, the centaur is an extremely rare horse-and-human hybrid caused by a combination of Global Warming and Homophobia. Those few centaurs who survive their difficult childhoods–the horse half grows much faster than the human half–are housed in a secret facility operated by the Administration for Sustained Silliness.

Researchers find that adult male centaurs are almost uncontrollably aggressive, with a penchant for bad puns and a thirst for alcohol. Adult females are almost as bad, but smaller.

Centaurs are not to be confused with senators. If you have trouble telling them apart, just remember that a centaur has a functioning, sort-of human brain, and a U.S. Senator doesn’t.

In ancient times, centaurs lived in environmentally responsible groups, far from human towns and villages. They have become rare because most people refuse to believe in them, and that makes them down-hearted.

Nowadays it is almost unheard-of for a centaur to escape from the A.S.S. Centaur House. Confidential sources report that the government is currently trying to breed centaurs with pug dogs in order to spend more money on inane and pointless projects.

If you do see a centaur, the safest response is to offer it a bottle of Jack Daniels and hope it goes away. Do not attempt to contact the authorities. They won’t take kindly to your having seen a centaur.

The Top 5 Things Not to Say at a Fancy Dinner Party

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

I’ve been watching a lot of Agatha Christie’s Poirot lately on youtube, and can’t help being impressed by the high society of the 1930s, in which Hercule Poirot finds his milieu. The formal dinner jackets, the lavish gowns, the jewelry, those long, long dining tables heaped with silver and crystal… And I’m so afraid that I’ll embarrass myself, if I ever get invited to one of those wingdings.

To guard against my making a fool of myself, I have prepared a list of five things never to say at the dinner table. If I can just avoid these, I ought to do all right in high society.

1. “So what is the best treatment for toenail fungus?”

2. “Gee, I bet this stuff cost a fortune!”

3. “I saw this great midget wrestling match once…”

4. “Are you really going to eat that? I tried it once, and I was on the pot all night! And if that weren’t bad enough,” etc.

5. “I was reading about this famous autopsy…”

You can be sure none of these remarks would ever issue from Poirot’s lips.