Short Relief

Short Relief: Finding Wins Where One Can

by Mary Craig, Sydney Bergman, and Kate Preusser 9/25

On Saturday, the Mariners won 13-0 against the Texas Rangers for their 85th win of the season, and were officially eliminated from postseason contention. On Sunday I woke up very early (for me, a child-free person who works late at night) and drove to Kent, about half an hour outside Seattle, to watch my friend...

Short Relief: Summer Fades

by Holly M Wendt, Jason Wojciechowski, and RJ McDaniel 9/24

The stalks of the tomato plants have turned black and grown too tall, spindly Dalí horrors visited by one kind of vegetal blight or bacteria or another. On the heels of this wet summer, the green of their leaves glows virulent, and the heirloom tomato produces softball-sized fruits that have only flirted with ripeness before...

Short Relief: Opening, Cycling and Gormbo-ing

by Mike Bates, Matt Sussman, and Patrick Dubuque 9/21

I am a 40-year-old man who still plays video games. I say that (both parts of that, actually) with a not-insignificant amount of shame. I know I thought, at several points in my adult life, that I should probably give them up, but then I also discovered a level of disposable income, occasional free time...

Short Relief: Space Oddities

by Beth Davies-Stofka and Roger Cormier 9/20

The Astros are blazing with power and flair, Bregman, Altuve, and Cole has his share, An ace with a 5.2 WAR and a Dragon, They’re hitting and running and stealing and tagging. The Astros could be a new dynasty, yet For my part, I’d rather see Betts. The Brewers have Miley and Yelich and Cain,...

Short Relief: Flights of Fancy

by Justin Klugh, Matt Ellis, and Nathan Bishop 9/19

You know, baseball was once a game we respected. We’d spit our orange tobacco juice on the dirt and set each other’s cleats on fire and then sigh and look at the horizon and say, “Ah, yes. Truly, this is the sport of kings.” Together, we’d say that as a team, in unison. Haunting, people...

Short Relief: A Million Ways to Be a Ballplayer

by Laura Shir, Kate Preusser, and Mary Craig 9/18

It was a letdown, when this year’s Women’s Baseball World Cup ended, to go back to watching men’s. Much has been written about the hard baseball details of the women’s tournament: the match-ups, the spin rates, the turf, the rain, the sharpness of the double plays and the joy of the home runs. The athletes...

Short Relief: R.I.P. Statistical Revolution

by Holly M Wendt, RJ McDaniel, and Jason Wojciechowski 9/17

NEW YORK—The landmark criminal case against alleged heinous serial killer Stats took a turn yesterday as United States Attorney Geoffrey Berman, taking the rare step of handling the matter himself, watched a noted sabermetrician whom he had called as a witness hand the defense a gift-wrapped package of reasonable doubt for the jury. Russell A....

Short Relief: Vanishing Acts

by Patrick Dubuque and Matt Sussman 9/14

I remember when the adults told me we might run out of bananas. Of note: the first-person plural, the inclusion of blame — we might — as if a six-year-old boy was complicit in the extinction of a breakfast staple. I don’t know if they explained why, but I imagined a world just eating too many...

Short Relief: Gettin’ Old-School Rowdy

by Justin Klugh and Roger Cormier 9/13

Baseball’s hieroglyphic system is a point of pride to pass on from nerd to nerd, usually between those who share a bloodline. Being able to trace the action of a full nine innings through the scribbles of a scorecard is a source of pride and satisfaction. “I can just check the box score online,” you...

Short Relief: Wrong and Boring

by Nathan Bishop and Matt Ellis 9/12

When I was a child we went and visited some friends. The family had three children: two boys, and a girl. Playing two hand touch in the front yard, the daughter proved the most gifted athlete, prompting the father of the family to loudly exclaim “Three kids and the one athlete I got was the...

Short Relief: The Letting Go

by Sydney Bergman, Mary Craig, and Kate Preusser 9/11

It’s been raining in D.C. for either 72 hours, or possibly 40 days and 40 nights. We haven’t rounded up two of every relief pitcher for the ark quite yet, but it’s been a wet couple of days. There’s something biblical about this kind of constant, soaking rain, particularly in a city with poor drainage,...

Short Relief: Into the Woods

by RJ McDaniel, Holly M Wendt, and Jason Wojciechowski 9/10

By the baseball diamond, behind the bleachers and dugouts and the rusting fence, there used to be a forest. You spent a lot of time there as a kid. You picked up plants and old bones, pretended you were a wolf-person. In your memory you are always very young, and yet somehow always alone; it...

Short Relief: Chair Guevara

by Matt Sussman, Holly Wendt, and Patrick Dubuque 9/07

Short Relief is taking the probably necessary measure of keeping a source anonymous as it details its involvement in the longstanding cold war between announcer Mario Impemba and analyst Rod Allen, which boiled over in a physical altercation. The source wished to be identified as an office chair with close ties to the announcing crew....

Short Relief: Missing the Old Ways

by Beth Davies-Stofka and Roger Cormier 9/06

He spoke directly, individually, and personally to them. Not to a mass audience, but to them, right there in their home… [Godfrey] launched his revolutionary notion by saying into the microphone the simple phrase, “How are you?” (Dick Cavett, Brief Encounters, 2015) This simple phrase helped Arthur Godfrey become one of the most influential legends...

Short Relief: Trading Places

by Nathan Bishop, Justin Klugh, and Patrick Dubuque 9/05

I think many people, including myself, learned to love baseball because of its dependability. It’s not a new or original idea that, in a world that regularly reminds us of our insignificance and helplessness, we find comfort and safety in what we perceive to be bigger than ourselves. I imagine divinity, from Jesus to Zeus,...

Short Relief: What’s in a Name?

by Kate Preusser, Sydney Bergman, and Mary Craig 9/04

It’s a common thing for those of us who follow the minor leagues or college baseball to sigh over particularly deliciously named players; I myself have written a “D-II baseball player or YA hero?” quiz for these very electronic pages. It’s all in good fun, but it’s also a reminder that the landscape of names...