Even More Baseball...

You're cringing now as you find yourself reading yet another baseball post. Don't worry, the season will soon be over...

But in the meantime, I have to brag about the Phillies’ amazing sweep of those kings of the NL, the filthy New York Mets. Each successive game in this series just got more and more intense, and I swear I almost peed myself tonight (I taped the 1:05 day game) when Chase Utley hit that walk-off RBI that sent Iguchi home for the win. Game 1 on Monday was a blowout, Game 2 was tight but low-scoring. Game 3...well, don't think we didn't catch you trying to cheat, New York (*cough* Reyes and Wright *cough*), but you lost anyway. As for tonight, all I have to say, giddily, is: Billy Wagner, you sucked, and bad. You forget that when you are an ex-player, we know all your secrets, and that really came back to bite you in the butt tonight. Enjoy the ride back up I-95, suckers (as well your cross-town rivals’ sweep of the Red Sox)!

Aug. 28: Wright, Heilman, and Lo Duca stare in disbelief at a swinging bunt that's rolled fair.*

Aug. 28: Ryan Howard after his winning homerun.*


Aug. 29: Marlon Anderson freaks after interference is called on him and the Mets lose.*


Aug. 30: Shane Victorino jumps on Tadahito Iguchi after Iguchi comes home for the win.*

In other baseball news: Yes, I am still madly in love with Carlos Ruiz. In the exciting aftermath of today’s game, I imagined Carlos rushing into the dugout and, in the heat of the moment, kissing me passionately. I sent the rookie catcher a fan letter a few weeks ago (no comments please), in which I suggested that sending back an autographed picture would be good karma for the playoffs. Now that the Phillies are behind the Wild Card and division leaders by only two games, I think Carlos has no choice but to show me some love. (Picture at right: "Bay and Carlos")

Last but not least, I have decided to….quit my job and aspirations and become a professional baseballer. After going to the batting cages for the first time in my life this past weekend, I now see the light. And it has nothing to do with educating little black kids or winning a Pulitzer. It’s all about bending your knees and wiggling your butt in the summer sun, and swinging a bat to the euphonious crack of a well-hit liner. No matter that I was just facing the slow-pitch softballs – that feeling is pretty damn good all the same.

*Photos courtesy of Yahoo! Sports.

...Most Verdant?

While watching the Phillies take out the Dodgers tonight (let's go Wild Card!), I started pondering: Who would win if MVP stood for...

Most Voluptuous Player:
Rod Barajas. By far the fattest player on the team. Guy, you lost out starting catcher position to a rookie, and during your single at bat in the last several weeks you strained a groin muscle. Weak.


Most Vivacious Player:
Shane Victorino. Be it his shaving-cream-pie-in-the-face antics or goofy but lively run-garnering trips and falls, Shane is not only fun to watch but just plain fun.



Most Vociferous Player:
Jimmy Rollins. "The Phillies are the team to beat this season." Comments such as this have earned JRoll the honor of being the team's most outspoken player. Sure, it pisses off our rivals, but he just tells it like it is.


Most Versatile Player:
Carlos Ruiz. This is the rookie player who replaced Barajas. He's got a 100% fielding percentage, 40+ RBIs, 5 homers, and is an overall dependable player. Ruiz is also my personal favorite (hubba hubba), which counts for more than all his stats combined. I love you.

Most Visible Player:
Ryan Howard. This one's a no-brainer. Being last season's actual National League MVP and winner of the Homerun Derby, Howard is the household name of the Philadelphia Phillies.


Most Victimized Player:
Chase Utley. I wish I could give the closest thing to a Philly hero a more honorable title, but the man is the most hit-by-pitch player in the National League! As is, he's on the DL for having a hand broken by a bad pitch.


Most Vigorous Player:
Aaron Rowand. I'll lay it out for you: May 11, 2006. Rowand voluntarily smashes into the center field wall at high speed and comes away with a broken nose, lacerations to his face, and Xavier Nady's deep fly ball. That's one more home run robbed by AaRow. He embraces the hustle.

Most Villified Player:
Pat Burrell. Once nicknamed Pat the Bat, Burrell is on-and-off the most hated Phillie for his shameless womanizing and inconsistent at-bats. On this team of beloved players and all-around nice guys, that's all it takes to get a homecrowd to boo.


Most Veteran Player:
Jamie Moyer. At 44 years of age, Moyer has been with 7 different major league teams and is the Phils veteran pitcher.



Most Virginal Player:
Kyle Kendrick. On the opposite end of Moyer, this is pitcher Kendrick's rookie season with a 6-3 win-loss record. Not too shabby. Add to that the fact that he's the Phillies youngest player (22 years of age as of today). I'm glad to say that his MLB cherry was popped by Philadelphia. I'm sorry, that wasn't necessary.

Most Vindicated Player:
Brett Myers. Myers started out as, well, a starter for the Phightin' Phils in 2002. And the last few seasons, he has...sucked pretty bad. You'd think it was the end for this distinctive Bert look-alike, but after being placed in the bullpen this season, we made the amazing discovery that Myers is a hell of a closer. That's 11 saves out of 12 opportunities. That's routinely striking out the side. Watch out, Rivera and Papelbon.

Most Virulent Player:
Tom Gordon. I have little to say about this, except that he was placed on the DL for half the season for an unexplained illness. That is all.



Most Vermillion Player:
Kyle Lohse. Stop reading now if you are easily offended. Not the most PC thing to say, but as a person who recognizes minorities who step up, I have to call out Lohse for being one of only four Native American players in the MLB. Plus, he's hot.


Most Victorious Player:
Cole Hamels. Of course I had to save the best for last! This kid is a phucking phenom, no questions asked. The ace of the team, Hamels is giving the best NL pitchers a run for their money. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I love the Cole Hamels strikeout montages on CSN.

Honorable Mention:
Tadahito Iguchi. Okay, so I couldn't find a V-word for the clutch player, but I just want to say that when we lost Utley to the dreaded DL, Iguchi filled in like no one could. Excellent fielder, just excellent.


Did I leave anyone out? Leave a comment if you can think of anything other players, Phillies or otherwise, that would satisfy the MVP with a V-adjective I haven't yet used.

Back to School

Work started yesterday. I have been avoiding August 20th all summer, and was successful for a couple of weeks. (I know that wasn't really funny, but it's what work does to me.)

So it's one more year at West Oak Lane Charter School. I've yet to mention my teaching experience on my blog. It's difficult to know where to start talking about it, since it is a very broad and farreaching experience with a plethora of accompanying attitudes, but I will say now (for those who don't know) that at the end of last year I did join the union at WOLCS. While I enjoy teaching and love my students, dealing with the school's administration and jumping their hoops is one perk I - along with the rest of the WOLCs faculty - do not enjoy. Take the current school year, for example. The first two weeks are a slow and painful trek through hours after hours of "Professional Development", sessions which are meant to improve us as teachers but really just waste time and demean our intelligence. Today we spent upwards of 4 hours practicing analyzing student data to inform our teaching. Have we not all been to college? Do we not know how to interpret a graph? My group accomplished our data analysis in 30 minutes, and the rest of the time was just wasted as we sat around "learning" things we already knew.

The plus side to all this is that being really bored allows me to create some fun doodles. These are Alien Astronaut Kitty and Hipster Snake-Man.



But back to the union.

We have 7 or 8 members of the administration (yes, that many, and no, they are not running a small country, just a school) who enjoy pretty loaded paychecks while the teaching staff is left to subsist on a below $40K salary with a measly 2% yearly raise regardless of teaching experience or education level. The excuse we are given for not getting better pay is that the money goes into maintaining our facility as it is newly painted and does not smell like urine. (Quite a bar, huh?) While our Chief of Staff rountinely gives us lectures about how lucky we are to be at WOLCS and how teacher retention is a big part of maintaining stability in a school, in the same breath she will turn around and remind us that she sees a teacher's time at WOLCS to be a stepping stone to bigger opportunities. (Let me remind you that it is cheaper to constantly hire new teachers than to keep an experienced teacher happy with pay raises.)

This list of offenses continues, but suffice it to say that the teachers last year were unhappy enough that the union membership went from 5 to the 30s, a solid majority of the teaching staff. While the school day tomorrow will only bring more mindnumbing hours of "Professional Development", I will be looking forward to the results of the afternoon contract negotiations, in which our union rep will be bargaining for a step-scaled salary and paid maternity leave. Wish us luck - we friggin' deserve it!

Review and Then Some: The Simpsons Movie

Congratulations, Simpsons - you are finally legal!

What I mean by that is that having been the most well-known television family in history and having pervaded every aspect of American culture (pop, humor, comic, commentary, and whatever else you've got), the Simpsons have become so much more than what they started out as, to the extent that it is easy to forget that they premiered 18 years ago, in 1989. While the opinion of this reviewer (and hardest-core fan) is that the show peaked in the late 1990s and has gone steadily downhill in quality since, one must nevertheless keep in mind that by this point, it is difficult to simply think of the show as, well, just that. Even though creator Matt Groening has said that there is seemingly no end in sight for the yellow-skinned fivesome, I think it does no harm to think of The Simpsons: The Show as having come to a comfortable and dignified end by season 10 or so, and the remaining seasons as simply an extension of The Simpsons: The Phenomenon, something that has taken on a life of its own. Accordingly, then, the writers and producers more than deserve to rest on their laurels. And with The Simpsons: The Movie, they have done so.

Is The Simpsons Movie perfect? No. But ask again if it is hilarious, epic, well-written, and satisfying, and the answers are yes, yes, yes, and yes. More than just a long episode, the film definitely has a full, "movie-ish" feel to it, and it does justice to the Simpsons family that has grown and developed over the past two decades. The plot is ambitious without being ridiculously over the top (for a cartoon, at least), and with the main characters more than filling out their roles, it coheres better than expected. The celebrity guests are kept to a bare minimum (one musical group and one actor) to prevent the movie from being a sell-out extravaganza, and this helps give it a cozier, homey feel. While the jokes are certainly not as clever as they were in the early seasons of the show, they are without a doubt laugh-out-loud funny. Bart's brief full-frontal, easily the funniest part of the movie, is a good example of the writers' attempt to keep things fresh without being gratuitous. Another high point is the only curse word in the film. Once you see it, you'll see why it's funny. In short, The Simpsons Movie does a good tribute to the show without unnecessarily seeking to take it to a whole new level. And let's face it - The Simpsons have done more than their share of breaking from tradition. The writers are smart to let the movie just be itself.

So what keeps the movie from being perfect? Only one minor thing for this reviewer: not enough inside jokes. As a longtime fan who can recite quotes from heart and recognize self-references within self-references, I would have appreciated some more nods to the diehard demographic. There are a couple, but a few more subtle winks would have really been a delicious reward. Of course, the flipside is that if you've never seen the Simpsons before (is this really possible at this point?), you won't feel that anything is going over your head.

Once again, Simpsons, congratulations. You arrived over a decade ago and your self-homage is the glaze on an already tasty doughnut. Nobody else could have done it better. Kudos.

What did you think of The Simpsons Movie? Leave your opinion in the comments section.

Lightning Round: Part IV

I haven't done the Lightning Rounds in over a year...enjoy the easy reads:

For the 1st Time: Grundton and Nicholas
Haven't introduced the cats yet on the blog. Here are some pictures. Don't snicker at me. I know it's ultralite and you know you love it. Grundton is over a year old and in the marble stripes; Nicholas is almost 10 and looks like an owl.





Absurd Thoughts on Baseball
They say that baseball is a gentlemen's sport, but it's also the only major sport* in which the players are required to wear caps and they chew and spit.
* * * * *
If I were the commissioner of baseball, I would definitely create some kind of yearly game - just for fun, of course - in which all the players take other player's positions...a kind of switcheroo, in effect. So you've got the regular batting lineup doing the pitching, and the regular starters and the bullpen would become batters and fielders. Just imagine, in the National League, the weak part of your lineup would be every player except for the pitcher! I don't know how it would translate to the American League; either the DH becomes obsolete or you have eight of them. Anyway, I just figured that this way, everybody's bad at what they're doing, and it would just be a hilarious time for me. But of course, you'd need to truncate the game to about 3 innings or so, because otherwise it would probably go on with no end in sight.**

*I do not consider golf a sport; it has no offense/defense.
**If you do not understand this, then you need to watch more baseball.

Coming Soon...
I am currently working on a piece about racism in humor. It's not as black and white (or Asian - har har) as you think. Check back before August 20th.

People-Watching Creates Coincidences

Chris and I were downtown today for about three hours because I had a craving for Chinatown pho, and I also wanted to take him to the Mutter Museum of medical anomalies. It was a pretty good day for this, since the trip required a moderate amount of walking and it wasn't too hot outside.

After the Mutter Museum, which is a few blocks from 30th Street Station (west side of downtown Philly for the out-of-town readers), it was pretty much a straight shot to Chinatown (east side and a mile and a half away) to get our pho. Now I really enjoy walking, and the business district of downtown Philly was a prime place to stroll and observe people walking by. Chris and I saw and commented on several unique personalities, including a strung-out looking man with rubber bands tied at five different places on each arm, and a middle-eastern dude who gawked at a handicapped guy zipping by in a scooter. But there was one person who especially caught our eye. Imagine a tall, relatively good-looking guy in his mid-20s, walking in a normal fashion. Now imagine that he's wearing...vertical black-and-white striped leisure pants with a poofiness factor approximately 2 notches below that of MC Hammer's parachute pants. Much zanier now, huh?

Okay, it wasn't supremely zany, but the story doesn't end there. After passing this guy by, we continued toward Chinatown, stopping at the Reading Terminal Market to admire exotic foods. Then we got and ate our big bowls of pho and caught a train at Market East Station to go home.

So we got on our train, and the door's open for a few more seconds waiting for the stragglers to get on. Then, at the last moment, the final Market East passenger boards right at our door, and who should it be but - yes, you guessed it: Stripey McPoofpants! As if this wasn't enough to tickle Chris and me pink, Stripey McPoofpants gets off with us at Overbrook Station, and proceeds to walk into our building and share an elevator with us! At this point, you'd think the odds that he lives on our floor would be higher than a hippie in a hot air balloon, but he actually got off on the 12th floor, one level above us.

(And yes, I was able to, inconspicuously, snag a photo of the incriminating pants after getting off the train.)

Chris wove this whole event together perfectly: the fact that some random guy we saw downtown happened to live in our exact building is much weirder than the black-and-white striped pants he had, but without those black-and-white striped pants, we never would have recognized him as the same guy we saw downtown! There's a stoner moment for you. The universe is full of such beautiful mysteries, where oddness begets oddness.

Anyway, I henceforth dub this the McPoofpants Paradox, and encourage all readers out there to keep a sharp eye open and embrace the weird things that happen in the world. Next time you encounter a jibbering derelict, say hello - he just may be your neighbor*.

*Not responsible for derelict-related injuries.