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Happily, whenever I run out of words—no, really; it’s much harder to write my own blog than impersonal blogs or third-person articles. Self-presentation, avoiding total self-indulgence, etc.—my anonymous commentator steps in with another installment of Futility Watch, your source for all criticism of really stupid ballgames. I reprinted the aptly numbered FW#13. Here’s the follow-up, with recap.
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FW#31*
* continuation of futility watch – episode 13 (5/5/09)
yesterday felt like christmas.
you know the feeling…you wait…and wait…and wait…and IT’S FINALLY HERE!!!!
for those who might have forgotten (although i don’t know how you could)…i will try to jog your memory.
think back to may 5th…astros v. nationals…ring a bell?
how bout this:
astros reliever chris sampson: “I had a bad day. I’m human. Everybody out there’s human.”
or this:
nats manager manny acta: “A couple plays that we didn’t make cost us six runs total. When your pitching is struggling, you have to catch the ball.”
still nothing???
ok, ok…this is how i put it 2 months ago:
i can’t even begin to describe how pathetic this game was.
i mean… normally i’d cite old friend julian tavares (1/3 inning, 3 earned runs) or chris “i’m human” sampson (7 batters, four walks, 3 runs forced in)
sadly, that only begins to give you the flavor of this one.
houston took the lead, then washington took the lead (i mean houston gave away the lead), then houston took the lead again (i mean washington gave away the lead), then washington took the lead again (i mean houston gave away the lead again), then houston took the lead again (i mean washington gave away the lead again), then washington took the lead again (i mean houston gave away the lead again), then houston tied it (i mean washington gave away the lead again).
then…the rain came and the poor saps who had sat at nationals park watching this crap for over 3 hours were told (after another 75 minutes sitting in the rain) that the game was being suspended.
the nats had a man on first with one out in the bottom of the 11th.
any nats fans who want to see if the hometown nine can push across the winning run will have to wait until july 9th when the game is resumed.
oh…one caveat…the nats fans will have to travel to houston because that’s where they are finishing the game.
so…fast forward to last night.
now you would think that fans fortunate enough to have tickets to the regularly scheduled nats/stros game would be thrilled to show up an hour early to catch the resumption of that may 5th classic.
thinking of those lucky fans took me back to my youth when i hopped the subway to the bronx to catch the end of the pine tar game…i believe it’s the only time ron guidry played center field…
sadly…when this game resumed at 6:08pm local time in houston…the crowd consisted of the houston owner (in a lovely pink button-down shirt) and a cub scout group from katy, texas…that’s about it.
pathetic.
no wonder houston reliever latroy hawkins had trouble finding the intensity necessary to get the job done.
in fact…he seemed kinda confused…it took him 7 minutes to throw the 8 pitches needed to complete this historic contest.
recall…the game was being picked up with one out and a nats runner (elijah dukes) on first…bottom of the 11th…tied at 10.
before latroy’s first pitch, nats mgr manny acta called on milwaukee brewer nyjer morgan to run for dukes…the nats couldn’t seem to find elijah…understandable since he was in triple a playing with the syracuse chiefs.
nyjer seemed a little confused as well…”I’m not even supposed to be here.” (yup…he really said that)
on latroy’s third pitch, josh willingham singled…moving nyjer to second.
scheduled up next was pittsburgh pirates reliever, and futility watch stalwart, joel hanrahan.
this posed a problem for acta…joel was 1500 miles away in philadelphia so it was unlikely that he could drive home the winning run.
further…almost all of his bench had been used on may 5th.
further still…the one guy he could use as a pinch hitter, josh bard, had a pulled muscle some time between may 5th and july 9th and would probably take til july 10th to make it to first base if he hit a fair ball.
but with limited options…acta called on bardsy.
wouldn’t ya know it…josh hit a taylor made 4-6-3 double play ball…and, since he couldn’t run, the stros had all day to turn it.
what????
no one told miguel tejada that bard couldn’t run????
is that why he rushed the play and threw the ball…on a fly…into the houston dugout?
awesome.
josh bard crawled to first as nyjer raced home with the winning run.
a perfect ending to this instant (if you call “instant”…2 months and 4 days) classic
and…to top it off…joel hanrahan gets his first win of the season…on an off day…sitting in a hotel room in philadelphia.
nationals 11 astros 10
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I certainly couldn’t forget “When your pitching is struggling, you have to catch the ball.” Reminds me a little of what someone said to me last night… “sometimes, businesses have to fail.” But that’s the other category of futility, the one I’m not blogging about today.
xx
djd
Filed under: sox | 1 Comment
Tags: astros, baseball, black comedy, errors, louisiana lightning, nats
Fishing
A few weeks ago my Berklee boss told me, quoting some probably otherwise useless self-help writer, that our mind’s biggest job is to convince us that this moment’s thought is the most important thought we have ever had. Now I am tormented by fleeting would-be-clever quips that seem crucial to share but are in fact, I realize now, not. At all. Example: @MF_Diz @martinobeat—wait. Now I am tormented by the realization that if I give the example I will have shared it.
So I’ll shaddap and point you towards my Globe styles story explaining last week’s Harvard Square sidewalk campers. Turns out they were fishing for the rare “Blue Lobster” sneakers.
xx
djd
p.s. To double-underline, I didn’t post the quip on Twitter. Restrained myself.
Filed under: my brilliant career | Leave a Comment
Tags: flash mob, harvard square, nike, sneakers, think of the children
A real-life food revolution
Edit, 1:30 p.m.: Of all the posts to write the day Food, Inc. opens in Boston….
I’m trying to tread carefully here, because I am committed unto death to my farm share. I realized this for sure Wednesday—eighth year of CSA membership—when I bullied a friend into not buying potatoes or cucumbers because when you have a farm share you cook from the farm share and you do not buy other vegetables, excepting onions, garlic, and herbs. God am I a pain.
Also, professionally, I have several pitches out at the moment for local food stories, though it’s worth noting that my definition of traditional food includes the Dairy Queen by the Ipswich Clam Box.
That all said, I glanced at the top headline in my beloved NYT food section this week—“Urban Farming, a Bit Closer to the Sun”—and immediately my stomach revolted at reading a SINGLE NOTHER LOCAL FOOD/FARMING STORY. (I skimmed it anyway, just in case it covered something up here.)
All these stories in the Times, the Globe, the Atlantic, the Washington Post, etc. suddenly seemed like a dozen people trapped in a sealed room talking at each other. The NYT food-section reader doesn’t need another article on this topic. I quit after the first chapter of The Omnivore’s Dilemma because I’d already read Pollan’s argument in magazine excerpts, op-eds, and interviews. It’s become a rote chant of organic local small artisanal flavorful local sustainable. KRISTINA, I’M CALLING ON YOU HERE.
Yesterday, a Boston Localvores post made me think that maybe the snake’s eating its own tail. Evidence: last Sunday’s NYT magazine “Cooking with Dexter.”
Note that I find this entire column impossibly twee. This week, the author discloses that he can no longer afford to buy $35 chickens. The story revolves around a bizarre set of assumptions:
- If you support local/organic food, you should eat that and nothing but.
- You can’t buy this stuff without it costing an arm and a leg.
- You, reader, share this problem.
Until recently, whenever we went to the farmers’ market, we would lug home $50 pork roasts and $14 gallons of milk.
I’ll pause until you’re done giggling and/or gagging. Post-recession,
it’s supermarket milk for us, but so far we’re holding the line and sticking with organic.
Wells labels his new part-this-part-that shopping “schizophrenic” (a term, incidentally, neither polite nor accurate). Does he think that’s unusual, or wrong? No one follows Alice Waters-style scowling admonitions. Who doesn’t buy ordinary conventional items at an ordinary store? News at 11!
Not only is an all-or-nothing attitude obnoxious, out of touch, and off-putting, but it doesn’t spread the gospel healthier food. The goal, I thought, was to put EBT card-readers in farmers’ markets and supermarkets into lower-income areas. To get fresh food to people who barely eat it, not give the 95th percentile that last little boost. (Hey Bostonians, did you know isolated Eastie has only one supermarket? News to me.)
Finally, articles like this obscure the fact that you can find some inexpensive local, organic food. One Salon writer, as a Localvore commenter posted, even did it on the food-stamp minimum. Duh-huh, meatballs cost less than big hunks of pork. Yo, did I buy the Stillman’s leaf lard in part because it cost a whole lot less than the roasts? Of course I did.
Similarly, farm shares are way cheaper than buying produce at a farmers’ market. Red Fire costs $26/week for more vegetables than three adults can eat.
Two summers ago, I sat in my sweltering kitchen in a damp tank top eating lunch and listening to NPR. The commentator said, “… and then I drizzle the nuts with a really good honey.” I immediately imagined myself saying, in those same soothing tones, “… and then I drizzle the nuts with the honey from the plastic bear I got at Market Basket.” Ever since then I have joked that someone should give me a food column based on that philosophy—call it “Farm Share + Market Basket.” (If you agree and have a column to give, uh, y’know, don’t keep it to yourself.)
Red Fire opened the Boston shares back up, by the way. If you want to join the farm share + Market Basket revolution.
xx
djd
p.s. To non-locals (ha), Market Basket is famous for being wicked inexpensive.
p.p.s. Details from that NYT Alice Waters interview. Still rankles two years after I read it.
Most recipes seem to be built on salt, black pepper, olive oil, fresh herbs and garlic. But they have to be specific kinds, like chunky gray sea salt for boiling water…. [Waters says] it’s useless to coat frozen chicken nuggets with whole-wheat bread crumbs.
Funny, Somerville schools are doing pretty much that and are quite excited about it to boot.
Filed under: it's what's for dinner, media | 2 Comments
The infamous wrestling story
I usually forget to tell people about my articles, but I love this one. Every so often I write a story I feel no one else would find. When I decided to check into what happened to the wrestling shows that used to run at Somerville’s Good Time Emporium, this… is definitely not where I thought I’d end up.
First, the ref disarmed wrestler “Psycho” of his hula hoop.
The other Chaotic Wrestling fighters wore Lycra shorts and knee pads. Psycho, a reported 192 pounds and 5 feet 10 – plus a few inches of hot-pink hair – wore a straitjacket under a yellow singlet stamped with a happy face….
- Somerville/Good Times sidebar
You haven’t truly lived until you’ve spent a weekend night watching live local pro wrestling.
xx
djd
Filed under: my brilliant career | 1 Comment
Or, at least, the amount of take I’m willing to express publicly. Take it for what it’s worth.
Kinda knew this would happen.
I’ve never been a Globe staff writer. I’ve contributed regularly to the paper for a few years, mostly for the sadly now-defunct City Weekly section. Obviously the union members were in an impossible position, rock v. hard place; I have no interest in judging their decision.
What I do wonder is this: How many people in the union came of age during the death-of-journalism career era?
Take my experience. I started covering music in 2002, a few years out of college. After a year, I decided to stick with journalism. The unanimous response from editors and reporters: Dude, it’s hard. The industry was already in the ICU.
My experiences proved them right. Friends, even very experienced reporters, permalanced for news outlets; some got hired, some didn’t. (And they were the lucky ones, with 40 hours/week of paid non-benefited work.) Some got hired then laid off when the program, section, or paper closed. Freelancers abounded. Lotta people in this boat. Hard work often didn’t lead far. I called it the sweatshopping of the media world.
So I took an optimistic view of freelancing: I could write about anything. (Mostly not music anymore.) This, along with my fantastic part-time university writing job, worked quite well until the March Globe crisis.
How many Guild members understand the modern-day career trajectory? Do they know what it’s like outside the masthead? This is a genuine question, not a sneer. When I’m around print-journalism-lifers, even young ones, there’s a disconnect. Many don’t seem to realize that the rungs of the career ladder have broken, how many journalists don’t have staff positions. Some say they’ve never had to cold-pitch a story.
Has the freelancer perspective been represented in the Globe/NYT dealings and decisions? Should it be? (Another genuine question.) I love the paper. And obviously it hits our finances too.
Immediately, for me, the vote probably means yet more uncertainty of the sort that leads editors not to return emails. They don’t know what space they have to assign, only that it continues to shrink.
For the profession, so-ci-ety, the human condition, etc., I don’t think anyone expects objectivity from me on this front, so: dear death of journalism: fuck you.
xx
djd
Filed under: media | 14 Comments
Tags: boston globe, death of journalism
Monsterpiece Theatre
with your host Alistair Cookie.
Twin Beaks:
xx
djd
Filed under: obsessions | 2 Comments
Tags: cookie monster, monsterpiece theatre, twin beaks
