Short Relief

Short Relief: Not What It Seems

In what can only be described as extreme algorithm malfunction, for the past week I have gotten a relentless stream of promoted tweets for Chanel’s new Camélia line every time I open Twitter. The copy, which can charitably be called sense-adjacent, is written in that bizarre tone that must function as Galton’s whistle for the...

Short Relief: A Change of Scenery

by Kate Preusser, Beth Davies-Stofka, and Roger Cormier 5/01

Baseball has been played professionally in San Antonio since at least the late 1880s, when the city was a charter member of the Texas League. The history of chili in the city is much harder to trace, with many travelers coyly referring to “stews” that will “make one malodorous for days,” as one lady traveler...

Short Relief: Losing Track

by Mary Craig, Demetrius Bell, and Patrick Dubuque 4/30

It’s a widely held belief that the best way to enjoy baseball is by listening to it on the radio. It best captures the timeless nature of the sport, narrating present day events while imparting the feeling of a lazy summer day spent sitting by the dock at your grandparents’ cottage. It provides the perfect...

Short Relief: Out of Sight

by Holly M Wendt and Mike Bates 4/29

In 2005, my spouse worked third shift, and in those overnight hours, our little house was very quiet. Near the end of a dead-end street and abutting a deep stretch of woods on the very edge of Binghamton, NY, the house was peaceful as I could want in the daytime. Overnight, it was just as...

Short Relief: Once and Never Again

by Krystal Languell, Kazuto Yamazaki, and Matt Sussman 4/26

Peppering the air with cracker jack tossing it by the handful into the bullpen I think we made a mistake Everybody on the elevator did Haven’t heard a helicopter around home lately Back east it was often Middle west it’s aw shucks A hat with a fish on it A fish with a hat on...

Short Relief: Power and Pain

by Roger Cormier and Kate Preusser 4/25

When Christian Stephen Yelich, his oak tree strength forged in, fittingly enough, Thousand Oaks, California, hit another towering home run, or dinger, or tater, first coined as another word for home run by Phernum Terance “Sleepy” Rosewater in a Somerville, Tennessee Taco Bell in 1971, despite the fast food establishment never serving tater tots, according...

Short Relief: Time Conquers All

by Matt Ellis, Beth Davies-Stofka, and Nathan Bishop 4/24

The last perfect game in Major League Baseball was thrown by Félix Hernández, on August 15th, 2012. Barack Obama was the president of the United States, and Mitt Romney was vying to become the next one. The top grossing film was The Avengers, but the first one, not the second or third or fourth or...

Short Relief: Breaking Down

by Demetrius Bell, Patrick Dubuque, and Mary Craig 4/23

One of my favorite things about baseball is that just when you think things are starting to get even a tiny bit mundane, something will happen during a game that will remind you of just how much fun this game can get when things enter into the arena of absurdity. We ended up getting two...

Short Relief: Just Trying to Help

by Mike Bates, Holly M Wendt, and Shakeia Taylor 4/22

June 16, 1976 To: Juan Moreno, Asst GM, Minnesota Twins From: Mike Bates, General Manager, Minnesota Twins Re: Red Sox Trade I received your memo dated this morning, about our impending trade with the Red Sox, sending Bert Blyleven, Tom Burgmeier, and Randy Bass for Carlton Fisk, Dwight Evans, John Tudor, Don Aase, and Bruce...

Short Relief: Unspoken

by Kate Preusser, Roger Cormier, and Justin Klugh 4/18

Despite pouring money into improving the product in the off-season, MiLB.tv remains charmingly low-rent, which is exactly how I like it. Give me broadcaster chatter and Power Point slide art and wonky camera angles any day over slickly produced MLB.tv content or that godawful Imagine Dragons song being shouted at me every half-inning through a...

Short Relief: SOS

by Beth Davies-Stofka, Nathan Bishop, and Matt Ellis 4/17

Hi. I’m a philosophy professor and department chair, and I have an SOS for you. Things aren’t going well. There are far too many students who don’t understand the art of written communication. I get emails that are so garbled, I can’t work out what they say. I recently read an essay that failed to...

Short Relief: 15th and 42

by Mary Craig and Demetrius Bell 4/16

Symbols provide hope to the powerless. They connect people who are isolated, universalizing experiences and silently voicing calls to action. From the raised fist of the IWW to the rainbow flag, symbols have been at the forefront of social and political movements throughout history, anchoring concrete plights and aims to universal characters. But the passage...

Short Relief: What We’re Given

by Mike Bates, Shakeia Taylor, and Holly M Wendt 4/15

My 12 year old was in an opera in Cedar Rapids this weekend about Grant Wood. They needed some kids to sing and dance and be part of Wood’s grade school class for a scene from his life as a teacher, before he got successful, and my son jumped at the chance. He’s very into...

Short Relief: In The Moment

by Matt Sussman and Patrick Dubuque 4/12

Twenty years ago Jay Bell had a career year for the Diamondbacks: a 131 DRC+ highlighted by a career-best (and team-best) 38 home runs. He helped Arizona reach the playoffs in their second year of existence, but one home run changed everything for a family. You may not remember the Diamondbacks, as in those Diamondbacks....

Short Relief: Misjudged

by Roger Cormier, Beth Davies-Stofka, and Kate Preusser 4/11

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...

Short Relief: Now or Never

by Sydney Bergman, Nathan Bishop, and Matt Ellis 4/10

We’re more than a week into the 2019 baseball season and Trevor Rosenthal has yet to record an out, leaving him with an ERA of literal infinity. His job has an astonishingly simple description – get outs – though like most things that can be described simply, it’s of course infinitely more complex than that....