Fruit o’ the Loon
’07 Installment # 12
If I fail to offend everyone, I’m sorry.
LIST OF CONTENTS;
Newspapers, I love em’.
Notable quotes.
Loon’s Mini-Book Report.
Suspicions confirmed.
Who are these imposters?
Preview of coming attractions.
NEWSPAPERS, I LOVE ‘EM
The Loon is privileged to cruise around the country half of each year, and get to read oodles of newspapers. Some of them are good; some are not, but the worst to them are a damn sight better than the best TV news. And the not-in-real-time newspaper ads can easily be ignored. And, you can take the newspaper into the bathroom. And, you can clip items out of the newspaper and annoy your friends with the clippings. Is the Loon starting to sound like Andy Rooney? He hopes so, and he should as the Loon is the current secretary of the Old Goats Society, nee Old White Billy Goats Philosophy and Garage Door Repair Society, a small but powerful national brotherhood of curmudgeons. Andy doesn’t belong, but he should.
While in Dayton Ohio, the Loon read both the New York Times and the Dayton Daily News every day. What a difference; if he stays away from all politically-freighted news and cherry-picks the editorials, the New York Times doesn’t tick him off, and it offers a wealth of interesting, well written and deeply researched features, items, stories, and editorials. The Dayton Daily News does not. The NYT in Dayton is free of slick paper ads, and the DDN is not. The NYT covers the world well; the DDN covers a couple of counties well. The NYT cost a buck, the DDN a half-buck. Of course, scoring a free DDN at the Loon’s mother-in-law’s house makes bearable the extravagance of a daily NYT. But, as bad as the DDN is, the Loon has to read every paper he gets his hands on, because you never know what you may find in any paper. To wit:
The Loon glommed a copy of “The Onion” (A National Weekly devoted to outrageous satire and wry humor), and he found the following startling headlines and lead lines.
“White-On-White Crime Claims Life of Accounts Receivable Supervisor”.
“Extra Slanty Italics Introduced For Extremely Important Words” and “demi-semibold type-face for writers who ‘kind of, but not really’ want to accentuate subheadings.”
“NFL’s New Code of Conduct” contains the following provisions: ”To discourage players from associating with known felons, the Bengals-Ravens games has been cancelled, and neither will play the Raiders. Although the code of conduct will be extremely strict, players will be required to fabricate stories about their potential for violence in order to maintain the NFL’s street cred.
Today’s free-association ramble (with religious overtones) is prompted by the NYT sports page: The Yankees are getting a long over-due comeuppance, Joe Torre is probably going to church every day, and someone should quick put a BP cuff on George Steinbrenner to keep him from prematurely entering MLB owner’s heaven—where ever in the hell that might be. .The Cardinals beleaguered pitching staff has permanently lost a pitcher to an auto accident—would a kind God further conspire against the Card’s repeating as World champions? Shaq can take a rest, as an up-start hustling Bulls team, fed full-up with devout prayers, sent Shaq for a short vacation. Would a God-fearing NBA Commish allow the next season to start the Tuesday following the end of the NBA's at-long-last super-duper final championship series? The devil incarnate, Randy Moss, is on the road again, to offer his adroit malevolency to yet another team—a word to Randy—“Yo' shit won’t sell in Christian New England. NASCAR rednecks are outraged that Jeff Gordon disrespected their Deity, Dale Earnhart, by out-winning him. Care to guess how this makes Richard Petty feel? A Notre Dame quarterback has been nicked $20M in the latest NFL draft from what he had hoped he would get, and the Catholic God is reported to be highly annoyed.
Of course, the Loon could have discovered the same stuff in the DDN, but it would not have been any fun, nor likely goosed him into writing this nonsense.
BTW, MLB’s current premier flake-case, Manny Ramirez, is offending the New England faithful, but as long as the Bosox remain in first place, Mammy’s sacred blanket dispensation remains open-ended.
File this under “baseball fans are insane” Francisco Giants fans believe Barry Bonds is baseball’s second coming; Babe Ruth being the first. Where does that put Hank Aaron?
The Loon is now in MN and must read the Strib (Minneapolis Star Tribune) because? He is so far west of Minneapolis they don’t sell the St. Paul Pioneer Press, and you could never buy a NYT in the wee burgs hereabouts. The Strib is not much of a newspaper right now, and they have recently vowed to cover more local news—yawn!
But, back to baseball—the Loon’s mind is in a temporary thought cul-de-sac. Found in a recent copy of “Pulse” a minor alternative-press weekly freebie newspaper was an editorial entitled “Stadium 1, Democracy 0”. See, Carl Pohlad owns the Minnesota Twins baseball team. Carl Pohlad is rich (sorry about the redundancy). Carl has “about” $2.5B which places him about # 70 on the Forbes list of the 400 richest people in America. Carl wants a new baseball stadium with more fancy high-ticket sky-boxes (what else), and he wants it paid for by the people (naturally), BUT, the people have been dragging their feet. In all referenda so far the people have told Carl, Not just, "No!” but "Hell No!” Seventy percent don’t want public money going to build a stadium for Carl. Politicians, noting the results of these referenda, have run on the promise “no public money for a new stadium for a billionaire”, but you how politicians become weak in the promise-knees when wooed by contributions for their re-election funds, and so, the wobbly-kneed Pols have tried, time after time, to sneak a public-financed stadium past the nodding people, but, every time, the people have awakened and screamed when they found that Carl’s fingers were in the public till. That is, until now, the Carl/Politico Cabal has recently slipped a new stadium past the people. It is reported, that Minnesota has a law which requires a public referendum for projects over $10M. It may be a bad law, but it is a law. The new stadium will cost $550M, and the 30 year notes the people will have to retire may push the number to $1B for the people’s house built for Carl, and this was done without a referendum. The Loon is pissed. There jus’ ain’t no justice
=
NOTABLE QUOTES
“Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.” De Suess
“The statistics on sanity are that one out of every four Americans is suffering from some form of mental illness. Think of your three best friends. If they are okay, then it’s you.”
Rita Mae Brown
And a paraphrased corollary,”Think of your three best friends. If at least one of them is cuckoo, then you’re okay.” Ron Kerans
“…he seems to have been blessed with an incapacity for shame, a gift for which he had many occasions to be thankful.” Robert Greenfield describing Timothy Leary
“…psychiatry became one of the instruments of soft coercion which liberal societies use to keep their citizens in line.” Eli Zaretsky
LOON’S MIN-BOOK REPORT
(CAUTION: If you are not a baseball fan, skip this, or you will be bored our of your gourd)
The book is “This Ain’t Brain Surgery: How to Win the Pennant Without Losing Your Mind” by Larry Dierker. Larry was a damned good pitcher for 13 years for the Houston Astros, a color-guy announcer for seven years for them, and, the Astros field manager for 5 years. He had a winning record as a pitcher, and once was voted the NL MVP. And, while managing, the Astros won their division all but one year, and he was once voted the NL Most Valuable Manager. Even though he regrets that he didn’t get into the Hall of Fame, he admits that he didn’t have the numbers. Nor did he get in a World Series, and he regrets that too, but he is lucky to have stayed in Houston for all but one year of his 40 year long career in baseball, and, as a result, he is revered there. And rightly so, he is a very intelligent but humble man, and, I believe exemplifies everything which is good (no nonsense and workmanlike) about Houston Baseball. The Houston Astros did retire his number—good for them. I believe that, no one, before or since, has put more of himself into Houston Baseball than Larry Dierker….however, Craig Biggio’s name does come to mind.
Last month Rudy and the Loon had dinner with Larry and his wife, Judy. Larry pestered the Loon, so what could the Loon do? Actually, we had dinner with my daughter’s friend, Ray (and his daughter), and since Ray is a friend of the Dierkers, they joined us. If the Loon had not said to Larry “I grew up in St. Louis. I’m a Cardinals’ fan. So you don’t have to be nice to me if you don’t want to.” the Loon doubts that the subject of baseball would have come up during our two hours at dinner. As it was, only a few sentences were spoken about our national pastime. Larry is very pleasant company, and has the biggest hand ever the Loon has shaked, er, shaken (or is the “shooken”?). Anyway, he could probably palm the Loon’s head, and, big as Larry is, lift the Loon off the floor. He wears Hawaiian shirts, and drives a woodie (look it up).
The book is a delightful read. Larry has a deft command of the language, with a breezy style and sense of humor which made the book read like a can’t-put-it-down novel. A list of chapters and their epigrams are instructive and fun:
Spring training—it sucks, but there are places in Florida which will serve beer to underage players. .
Opening Day—is exciting, like opening presents on your birthday.
Pitching—“You pay all that money to great big fellas with lots of muscles and straight stomachs. And they (pitchers) give them a little bit of this, and a little bit of that, and swindle ‘em. Casey Stengel. For the Loon, this is the most edifying chapter of the book. Larry explains some of the mechanics of pitching and much of his philosophy, and, for a baseballphile, these are holy writs because they contain not easily obtained information; he explains well, and he makes perfect sense.
Managing—“Of the basic managerial skills, passion, character, brains and wisdom—the least valuable, at least as a guiding virtue, is intelligence.” In baseball, as in the rest of life, brains are a good servant but a poor master.” Thomas Boswell. Great quote, but the Loon doubts the entire quote came from Boswell as he died in the 19th Century. Here again, the Loon was fascinated as Larry explains with abundant examples, his philosophy (and rationale) of managing, including managing people as well as managing situational baseball.
Broadcasting—“Last night I failed to mention something that bears repeating.” Ron Fairly (Former outfielder and broadcaster). This chapter is full of wit, and lists some of the dos and don’ts of broadcasting—an art in itself. Larry thinks the best ever baseball announcers and interviewers were Vin Scully and Jack Buck
Umpires—“When I am right, no one remembers, when I am wrong no one forgets.” Doug Harvey, National League Umpire. Larry is fair with the umpires who try to be fair, but exposes the weaknesses inherent in the art as it is practiced.
Scouts—they are like bass players. They don’t get no respect, but almost every band worth a damn has to have a good one. They, in no small part, provide the bedrock of raucous baseball humor.
Farm System—“Rickey had both money and players. He didn’t like to see the two of them mix.” This was said by Chuck Conners, baseball prospect and actor, about baseball executive, Branch Rickey
Trades—“The reason why it is so hard to make a deal is everyone wants to give you a biscuit for a bag of flour.” Ellis Clary, Veteran Scout.
Cheating—“The tradition of professional baseball has always been agreeably free of chivalry. The rule is, ‘Do everything you can get away with.’” Heywood Broun. The Loon suspect this was penned, not by the father, but rather, by the son, Haywood Hale Broun. The Loon met the son once; he was a principal in the game of American Squash, and a principled man of the first order. He irrevocably resigned his life membership in the United States Squash Racquets Association after he had a dispute with a monumental asshole (and lawyer) who headed up the organization.
La Vida—“In baseball, you are supposed to sit on your ass, spit tobacco, and nod at stupid things (the manager says.)” Bill “Spaceman” Lee. This chapter is about the arcane life of baseball, a subset of irrational behavior perpetrated by well-paid athletes. BTW, Bill Lee is the spiritual father of Manny Ramirez.
The Big Seize—“Open a baseball player’s head, and you know what you will find? A lot of little broads and a jazz band.” Former baseball manager, Mayo Smith. In this chapter Larry describes when he had a seizure in the dugout due to mini-blow-out in a vascular tangle in his brain. The surgeons went in, and fixed it, but they didn’t find any little broads nor a jazz band, and they said they only boogered up a part of the brain which doesn’t control any vital function. Hmmm!
Out of it—this epilogue relates how Larry was dismissed after a notably successful run of 5 years of managing, and, to Larry’s credit, it is told without malice.
This is one of the best baseball books the Loon has ever read, and he has read way more than a few. It has a liberal sprinkling of wit spread over the top of cogent explanations of the behavior of athletes playing a very difficult game The answer is “NO”, Larry didn’t promise the Loon anything if I thumped the tub for his book—Hey! the Loon didn’t even know Larry wrote books until after the dinner, nor did the Loon even imagine any baseball player ever wrote a book all by hissef’.
No, you can’t have the book….now. It has been sent to a most fervent baseball fan, and the Loon’s grade school classmate and childhood baseball teammate, Nate Goldstein. If you want it bad, but are too cheap to buy it off Amazon.com, then snivel and whine some, and the Loon will have Nate mail it to you.
SUSPICIONS CONFIRMED
A. Traffic ticket distribution ain’t fair*
1. An out-of-town driver stopped by local police has a 51% chance of being fined, vs., 30% for a local driver, and the fine for an out-of-town driver is $5 higher.
2. The State Patrol tickets out-of-State drivers 28% more often than in-State drivers.
3. Women are more likely to get off with a warning, but the gender advantage disappears around age 75.
* Based on a study of 29,752 tickets issued during two months in Massachusetts—(Massachusetts is a small State. Doesn’t that seem like too many tickets?)
B. People’s eyes really are bigger than their stomachs. This from a book entitled “Mindless Eating” which is a primer on behavioral economics, or something like that.
If given free, five-day-old, stale, rubbery popcorn at a movie, the people who got the biggest tubs of popcorn ate the most.
People will eat more Tomato Soup if the bowl is large, and people will eat even more if the bowl is rigged with a secret tube at the bottom which keeps replenishing the Tomato soup.
3. People eat more food off big plates than small ones, and drink more from short wide glasses than tall ones.
WHO ARE THESE IMPOSTERS?
The internet sez that “Allen” is the 240th most popular given name; Hall is the 26th most popular surname, and there are a total of 530 other Allen Halls in the United States.
PREVIEW OF COMING ATTRACTIONS
A Loon’s mini-book report on “The God Delusion” by Richard Dawkins.
Allen Hall, a.k.a. The Loon
May 17, 2007, on Lake Sylvia
’07 Installment # 12
If I fail to offend everyone, I’m sorry.
LIST OF CONTENTS;
Newspapers, I love em’.
Notable quotes.
Loon’s Mini-Book Report.
Suspicions confirmed.
Who are these imposters?
Preview of coming attractions.
NEWSPAPERS, I LOVE ‘EM
The Loon is privileged to cruise around the country half of each year, and get to read oodles of newspapers. Some of them are good; some are not, but the worst to them are a damn sight better than the best TV news. And the not-in-real-time newspaper ads can easily be ignored. And, you can take the newspaper into the bathroom. And, you can clip items out of the newspaper and annoy your friends with the clippings. Is the Loon starting to sound like Andy Rooney? He hopes so, and he should as the Loon is the current secretary of the Old Goats Society, nee Old White Billy Goats Philosophy and Garage Door Repair Society, a small but powerful national brotherhood of curmudgeons. Andy doesn’t belong, but he should.
While in Dayton Ohio, the Loon read both the New York Times and the Dayton Daily News every day. What a difference; if he stays away from all politically-freighted news and cherry-picks the editorials, the New York Times doesn’t tick him off, and it offers a wealth of interesting, well written and deeply researched features, items, stories, and editorials. The Dayton Daily News does not. The NYT in Dayton is free of slick paper ads, and the DDN is not. The NYT covers the world well; the DDN covers a couple of counties well. The NYT cost a buck, the DDN a half-buck. Of course, scoring a free DDN at the Loon’s mother-in-law’s house makes bearable the extravagance of a daily NYT. But, as bad as the DDN is, the Loon has to read every paper he gets his hands on, because you never know what you may find in any paper. To wit:
The Loon glommed a copy of “The Onion” (A National Weekly devoted to outrageous satire and wry humor), and he found the following startling headlines and lead lines.
“White-On-White Crime Claims Life of Accounts Receivable Supervisor”.
“Extra Slanty Italics Introduced For Extremely Important Words” and “demi-semibold type-face for writers who ‘kind of, but not really’ want to accentuate subheadings.”
“NFL’s New Code of Conduct” contains the following provisions: ”To discourage players from associating with known felons, the Bengals-Ravens games has been cancelled, and neither will play the Raiders. Although the code of conduct will be extremely strict, players will be required to fabricate stories about their potential for violence in order to maintain the NFL’s street cred.
Today’s free-association ramble (with religious overtones) is prompted by the NYT sports page: The Yankees are getting a long over-due comeuppance, Joe Torre is probably going to church every day, and someone should quick put a BP cuff on George Steinbrenner to keep him from prematurely entering MLB owner’s heaven—where ever in the hell that might be. .The Cardinals beleaguered pitching staff has permanently lost a pitcher to an auto accident—would a kind God further conspire against the Card’s repeating as World champions? Shaq can take a rest, as an up-start hustling Bulls team, fed full-up with devout prayers, sent Shaq for a short vacation. Would a God-fearing NBA Commish allow the next season to start the Tuesday following the end of the NBA's at-long-last super-duper final championship series? The devil incarnate, Randy Moss, is on the road again, to offer his adroit malevolency to yet another team—a word to Randy—“Yo' shit won’t sell in Christian New England. NASCAR rednecks are outraged that Jeff Gordon disrespected their Deity, Dale Earnhart, by out-winning him. Care to guess how this makes Richard Petty feel? A Notre Dame quarterback has been nicked $20M in the latest NFL draft from what he had hoped he would get, and the Catholic God is reported to be highly annoyed.
Of course, the Loon could have discovered the same stuff in the DDN, but it would not have been any fun, nor likely goosed him into writing this nonsense.
BTW, MLB’s current premier flake-case, Manny Ramirez, is offending the New England faithful, but as long as the Bosox remain in first place, Mammy’s sacred blanket dispensation remains open-ended.
File this under “baseball fans are insane” Francisco Giants fans believe Barry Bonds is baseball’s second coming; Babe Ruth being the first. Where does that put Hank Aaron?
The Loon is now in MN and must read the Strib (Minneapolis Star Tribune) because? He is so far west of Minneapolis they don’t sell the St. Paul Pioneer Press, and you could never buy a NYT in the wee burgs hereabouts. The Strib is not much of a newspaper right now, and they have recently vowed to cover more local news—yawn!
But, back to baseball—the Loon’s mind is in a temporary thought cul-de-sac. Found in a recent copy of “Pulse” a minor alternative-press weekly freebie newspaper was an editorial entitled “Stadium 1, Democracy 0”. See, Carl Pohlad owns the Minnesota Twins baseball team. Carl Pohlad is rich (sorry about the redundancy). Carl has “about” $2.5B which places him about # 70 on the Forbes list of the 400 richest people in America. Carl wants a new baseball stadium with more fancy high-ticket sky-boxes (what else), and he wants it paid for by the people (naturally), BUT, the people have been dragging their feet. In all referenda so far the people have told Carl, Not just, "No!” but "Hell No!” Seventy percent don’t want public money going to build a stadium for Carl. Politicians, noting the results of these referenda, have run on the promise “no public money for a new stadium for a billionaire”, but you how politicians become weak in the promise-knees when wooed by contributions for their re-election funds, and so, the wobbly-kneed Pols have tried, time after time, to sneak a public-financed stadium past the nodding people, but, every time, the people have awakened and screamed when they found that Carl’s fingers were in the public till. That is, until now, the Carl/Politico Cabal has recently slipped a new stadium past the people. It is reported, that Minnesota has a law which requires a public referendum for projects over $10M. It may be a bad law, but it is a law. The new stadium will cost $550M, and the 30 year notes the people will have to retire may push the number to $1B for the people’s house built for Carl, and this was done without a referendum. The Loon is pissed. There jus’ ain’t no justice
=
NOTABLE QUOTES
“Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.” De Suess
“The statistics on sanity are that one out of every four Americans is suffering from some form of mental illness. Think of your three best friends. If they are okay, then it’s you.”
Rita Mae Brown
And a paraphrased corollary,”Think of your three best friends. If at least one of them is cuckoo, then you’re okay.” Ron Kerans
“…he seems to have been blessed with an incapacity for shame, a gift for which he had many occasions to be thankful.” Robert Greenfield describing Timothy Leary
“…psychiatry became one of the instruments of soft coercion which liberal societies use to keep their citizens in line.” Eli Zaretsky
LOON’S MIN-BOOK REPORT
(CAUTION: If you are not a baseball fan, skip this, or you will be bored our of your gourd)
The book is “This Ain’t Brain Surgery: How to Win the Pennant Without Losing Your Mind” by Larry Dierker. Larry was a damned good pitcher for 13 years for the Houston Astros, a color-guy announcer for seven years for them, and, the Astros field manager for 5 years. He had a winning record as a pitcher, and once was voted the NL MVP. And, while managing, the Astros won their division all but one year, and he was once voted the NL Most Valuable Manager. Even though he regrets that he didn’t get into the Hall of Fame, he admits that he didn’t have the numbers. Nor did he get in a World Series, and he regrets that too, but he is lucky to have stayed in Houston for all but one year of his 40 year long career in baseball, and, as a result, he is revered there. And rightly so, he is a very intelligent but humble man, and, I believe exemplifies everything which is good (no nonsense and workmanlike) about Houston Baseball. The Houston Astros did retire his number—good for them. I believe that, no one, before or since, has put more of himself into Houston Baseball than Larry Dierker….however, Craig Biggio’s name does come to mind.
Last month Rudy and the Loon had dinner with Larry and his wife, Judy. Larry pestered the Loon, so what could the Loon do? Actually, we had dinner with my daughter’s friend, Ray (and his daughter), and since Ray is a friend of the Dierkers, they joined us. If the Loon had not said to Larry “I grew up in St. Louis. I’m a Cardinals’ fan. So you don’t have to be nice to me if you don’t want to.” the Loon doubts that the subject of baseball would have come up during our two hours at dinner. As it was, only a few sentences were spoken about our national pastime. Larry is very pleasant company, and has the biggest hand ever the Loon has shaked, er, shaken (or is the “shooken”?). Anyway, he could probably palm the Loon’s head, and, big as Larry is, lift the Loon off the floor. He wears Hawaiian shirts, and drives a woodie (look it up).
The book is a delightful read. Larry has a deft command of the language, with a breezy style and sense of humor which made the book read like a can’t-put-it-down novel. A list of chapters and their epigrams are instructive and fun:
Spring training—it sucks, but there are places in Florida which will serve beer to underage players. .
Opening Day—is exciting, like opening presents on your birthday.
Pitching—“You pay all that money to great big fellas with lots of muscles and straight stomachs. And they (pitchers) give them a little bit of this, and a little bit of that, and swindle ‘em. Casey Stengel. For the Loon, this is the most edifying chapter of the book. Larry explains some of the mechanics of pitching and much of his philosophy, and, for a baseballphile, these are holy writs because they contain not easily obtained information; he explains well, and he makes perfect sense.
Managing—“Of the basic managerial skills, passion, character, brains and wisdom—the least valuable, at least as a guiding virtue, is intelligence.” In baseball, as in the rest of life, brains are a good servant but a poor master.” Thomas Boswell. Great quote, but the Loon doubts the entire quote came from Boswell as he died in the 19th Century. Here again, the Loon was fascinated as Larry explains with abundant examples, his philosophy (and rationale) of managing, including managing people as well as managing situational baseball.
Broadcasting—“Last night I failed to mention something that bears repeating.” Ron Fairly (Former outfielder and broadcaster). This chapter is full of wit, and lists some of the dos and don’ts of broadcasting—an art in itself. Larry thinks the best ever baseball announcers and interviewers were Vin Scully and Jack Buck
Umpires—“When I am right, no one remembers, when I am wrong no one forgets.” Doug Harvey, National League Umpire. Larry is fair with the umpires who try to be fair, but exposes the weaknesses inherent in the art as it is practiced.
Scouts—they are like bass players. They don’t get no respect, but almost every band worth a damn has to have a good one. They, in no small part, provide the bedrock of raucous baseball humor.
Farm System—“Rickey had both money and players. He didn’t like to see the two of them mix.” This was said by Chuck Conners, baseball prospect and actor, about baseball executive, Branch Rickey
Trades—“The reason why it is so hard to make a deal is everyone wants to give you a biscuit for a bag of flour.” Ellis Clary, Veteran Scout.
Cheating—“The tradition of professional baseball has always been agreeably free of chivalry. The rule is, ‘Do everything you can get away with.’” Heywood Broun. The Loon suspect this was penned, not by the father, but rather, by the son, Haywood Hale Broun. The Loon met the son once; he was a principal in the game of American Squash, and a principled man of the first order. He irrevocably resigned his life membership in the United States Squash Racquets Association after he had a dispute with a monumental asshole (and lawyer) who headed up the organization.
La Vida—“In baseball, you are supposed to sit on your ass, spit tobacco, and nod at stupid things (the manager says.)” Bill “Spaceman” Lee. This chapter is about the arcane life of baseball, a subset of irrational behavior perpetrated by well-paid athletes. BTW, Bill Lee is the spiritual father of Manny Ramirez.
The Big Seize—“Open a baseball player’s head, and you know what you will find? A lot of little broads and a jazz band.” Former baseball manager, Mayo Smith. In this chapter Larry describes when he had a seizure in the dugout due to mini-blow-out in a vascular tangle in his brain. The surgeons went in, and fixed it, but they didn’t find any little broads nor a jazz band, and they said they only boogered up a part of the brain which doesn’t control any vital function. Hmmm!
Out of it—this epilogue relates how Larry was dismissed after a notably successful run of 5 years of managing, and, to Larry’s credit, it is told without malice.
This is one of the best baseball books the Loon has ever read, and he has read way more than a few. It has a liberal sprinkling of wit spread over the top of cogent explanations of the behavior of athletes playing a very difficult game The answer is “NO”, Larry didn’t promise the Loon anything if I thumped the tub for his book—Hey! the Loon didn’t even know Larry wrote books until after the dinner, nor did the Loon even imagine any baseball player ever wrote a book all by hissef’.
No, you can’t have the book….now. It has been sent to a most fervent baseball fan, and the Loon’s grade school classmate and childhood baseball teammate, Nate Goldstein. If you want it bad, but are too cheap to buy it off Amazon.com, then snivel and whine some, and the Loon will have Nate mail it to you.
SUSPICIONS CONFIRMED
A. Traffic ticket distribution ain’t fair*
1. An out-of-town driver stopped by local police has a 51% chance of being fined, vs., 30% for a local driver, and the fine for an out-of-town driver is $5 higher.
2. The State Patrol tickets out-of-State drivers 28% more often than in-State drivers.
3. Women are more likely to get off with a warning, but the gender advantage disappears around age 75.
* Based on a study of 29,752 tickets issued during two months in Massachusetts—(Massachusetts is a small State. Doesn’t that seem like too many tickets?)
B. People’s eyes really are bigger than their stomachs. This from a book entitled “Mindless Eating” which is a primer on behavioral economics, or something like that.
If given free, five-day-old, stale, rubbery popcorn at a movie, the people who got the biggest tubs of popcorn ate the most.
People will eat more Tomato Soup if the bowl is large, and people will eat even more if the bowl is rigged with a secret tube at the bottom which keeps replenishing the Tomato soup.
3. People eat more food off big plates than small ones, and drink more from short wide glasses than tall ones.
WHO ARE THESE IMPOSTERS?
The internet sez that “Allen” is the 240th most popular given name; Hall is the 26th most popular surname, and there are a total of 530 other Allen Halls in the United States.
PREVIEW OF COMING ATTRACTIONS
A Loon’s mini-book report on “The God Delusion” by Richard Dawkins.
Allen Hall, a.k.a. The Loon
May 17, 2007, on Lake Sylvia
posted by Allen Hall at 3:31 PM
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