10/19/05

Softball: The Essence of Who We Are

Dear People,

Yesterday evening I was sitting around trying to understand how my team pulled off one of the most sublime rallies in the history of our community, or perhaps from a more pertinent perspective, how Jonny’s contingent was able to dominate for so long, only to implode in a 9th inning 11-run bacchanal of multi-error ineptitude. Sure, the easy answer is tragically feckless leadership, and no athletic historian would be faulted for simply writing "Jonny’s team went down in flames 27-22. Given their crushing lead and sassy ’tude as they took the field for the final time, responsibility for the calamity that followed clearly rests with Jonny, and Jonny only."

Such analysis is obviously accurate, but I found myself thinking that this doesn’t really tell us anything, and that there must be a more satisfying explanation. Sure enough, I was resigned to a gnawing ache of unknowingness when NOVA’s excellent documentary on the latest developments in String Theory popped up on PBS. As I’ve alluded to before in previous missives, many of the world’s most totally stoned physicists now believe that the entire universe is made of oscillating sub-particulate stringy things that actually link gravity and electromagnetism as well as weak and strong nuclear forces in one all-encompassing Aerobic Theory of Everything. Talk about practical!

What I didn’t realize until yesterday, though, is that most of the leading stoners now believe that literally everything that happens can be truly explained by the underlying mathematics of the theory in question, and while I personally didn’t get beyond 4th grade fractions, I think I get the gist of this. Thus, for example, when Kim marked his debut as catcher by proudly grabbing a flubbed four-foot grounder and then stepping on homeplate even though there was no runner at 3rd (thereby allowing the hitter to scamper safely off to first), he didn’t do this because he was "confused" or "Danish," but rather because his vibratory 5th dimension vector holes confused his little Danish brain.

Or for that matter, when Nanci made ALL THREE OUTS in the 7th inning (!), it wasn’t because she had suddenly become "good," but rather because her non-peturbative superstrings were both photon-like in nature and clearly not from Copenhagen. The point is that we now have precise trigonometric tools with which to calibrate Jonny’s ceaseless managerial failures, and therefore there will be a game at San Pablo #2 this Sunday at 11AM, IF I get enough commits by this Friday morning…Ray



10/20/05

Softball: Schadenfreude Soon

Dear People,

There will be a game at San Pablo #2 this Sunday at 11AM, and as of now, there are still four slots left.

Please bring $3 for the field, which for this week only includes a delightfully mysterious pre-game reading of the official multi-count indictment of Karl Rove, a few days before it’s actually issued!…Raymond 845-7552

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