Flanigan Loveless raced to Dewey + Truman Advertising Agency’s Conference Room E in a futile effort to outpace his brain. “People, we are deep down in the gutter drain,” Loveless began after a long swig of warm water. “We got to get in front of this drain…” A second gulp. “Fast before we sink. It…
The rain had started around midday, and it couldn’t have matched the mood more accurately. Bryce Harper‘s return to Washington had been anticipated so much by local fans in a cold, sad way. With no motivation to root for their former star, Nationals fans had enthusiastically embraced Harper’s new villainous role, with many using duct…
Call me a nut, because what I missed most of all were the sounds of baseball. The crack of the bat. The ground rules to enjoying a game, as explained by the hometown players so you know they are not making stuff up. An echoed Deborah Kerr asking “Do you think it will ever take…
Where extra does not mean free, just longer, and the outfielders have lost the brisk skip of earlier innings, a unit concludes only with a win and loss. Weeknights especially, more cost than boon to stay longer. Keith Law says no such thing as free baseball, only the unit known as a single game. This…
The chant begins the second he steps from the batting cage after his final round: I-chi-ro. I-chi-ro. It comes from Japanese fans who have traveled hundreds or thousands of miles to be here; from American fans wearing worn Ichiro All-Star jerseys; from professional autograph hounds to small children who only know that he is a…
Comedian Brody Stevens died last week of an apparent suicide. He was 48. Stevens was one of a kind. The phrase “comic’s comic” actually applies with him. Not even Dick Van Dyke himself could tell if Stevens was killing or bombing during sets. It wasn’t just Van Dyke and other popular comedians who commented and…
At some point in every artist’s life, they find a purpose or meaning that forces their hand to make something new, something inspiring. To create something so unique that when people see it for the first time, their imagination lights up. For me, that inspiration started by taking ordinary items that people throw away and…
The Simpsons. I know you have heard of this television program. FXX runs the show five days a week. Half the time the four-hour blocks are connected by some tenuous, begrudgingly appreciated theme (tonight’s theme: Moe). Tuesdays are weird. I’m not going to bother explaining what they do on Tuesdays. Mondays and Fridays are six-hour…
(English translation: No Exit from Arbitration) SCENE A conference room in Deadball Era style. A massive bronze pitch clock stands on the mantelpiece. ARENADO [Enters, accompanied by Tony Clark]: Hm! So here we are? CLARK: Yes, Mr. Arenado. ARENADO: [Taking in the surroundings] And some get used to this? Even after the tweets? CLARK: Tweets?…
A woman stops at a market near Brooklyn’s McCarren Park. She buys mini-quiches and carrots on her way to visit her mother. They settle in front of the television to watch the game and grieve. A Yankees fan for 80 years, her father died last winter, so this is the first year that he won’t…
Yesterday, in introducing Jed Lowrie, not Manny Machado nor Bryce Harper, as the newest member of the New York Mets, GM Brodie Van Wagenen said the following: “I fully expect us to be competitive and to be a winning team and our goal is to win a championship and it starts with the division, so…
Last Saturday, female and male recruits started training together aboard the Marine recruit depot at Parris Island, South Carolina, a first for the Corps. This is a red-letter moment for women. The Marine Corps is the only service branch that hasn’t fully integrated its recruit training, and while the separate training policy hasn’t officially changed,…
Some families have more tragedy woven into the fabric of their family tapestry than others. The Grimaldis are said to be cursed in love, the Guinnesses cursed by cars, the Hemingways cursed by dark thoughts coupled with substance abuse. The Kennedys are just plain cursed. The Furcal family might be baseball’s most cursed family. Silvino…
“Is this it?” Your friend walks up and stands beside you. “Yup.” You look, aghast, at the immense pit of mud and fencing in front of you. Though the fencing separates you and the pit, as you continue to stare at it, you feel like it’s expanding, like it might swallow you up at any…
Every year at Christmas I made my dad lebkuchen, a spicy, chewy German cookie. That description makes them sound good, so let me assure you they are not: They are, in fact, the world’s worst cookie. The dough is sticky and unmanageable, and very finicky: I ruined a whole sheet this year by daring to…