Dave The Dastardly

You can always appeal.

I was one who supported the idea of keeping Kepler in the lead-off spot when this was discussed here a few weeks back. I have now seen the Light! Hallelujah! Let us Arraez!

I had momentum once. It was all downhill from there.

I can do 9/14 if it's still open.

1. The Ribeye Yankees? Nope, have to go with New York. 2. Ribs - I like bacon but you can create a woman with ribs. Not that women don't have ribs... You know what I mean... it's in the Bible some place. 3. Both. Just ribbing you. 4. Mashed - like my lips.

Where does the Portly Panamanian, aka "Senior Smoke" rank?

It is better to be inebriated than ill-informed. Choose wisely.

I bought him a beer on Tauras 9 once. Riker and Data were trying to get him out of the bar before he got into trouble. He kept telling the waitress to "make it so" and asking her if she wanted to engage. His last words as they dragged him out the door, "Get Away Team!" Left me alone with Deanna Troy... Trouble was, she knew what I had in mind. PS. I met the real Rain Man once.

Reminds me of the last time I was in a bar...

Your legs on the stools?

There's been a warp in the space-time continuum

Disclaimer: The above video was posted strictly for the readers' entertainment. My wife and I have been happily married for 35 years (if you count the two years we lived in sin) and she in no way resembles the wives in the video; though there is a strong resemblance to the blonde walking the dog. But she's not that tall, and she has auburn hair, not blonde. And we don't have a dog. Otherwise, that's her. Oh, and she's not right now staring over my shoulder. Baking, actually...

Fractionally Speaking My wife, who is a freaking genius when it comes to baking, has a helluva time with fractions. So whenever she runs into a new dessert recipe she wants to try, but only after she makes her personal “adjustments”, I have to convert any fractions used in the original recipe to match her planned adjustments. I gave up trying to teach her how to convert fractions about 30 years ago; about the same time she gave up trying to teach me how to bake. So we reached a typical fractional husband/wife compromise on dessert responsibility; 4/5 for her, 1/5 for me. Speaking of fifths, remember when whiskey was sold by fifths? You could buy a pint if you were a little short of cash, or you wanted to hide the bottle in your coat pocket (we had big pockets back then because we had more stuff to put in them) or you bought a fifth. So you could go into a liquor store and “plead the fifth”, you know, trying to impress the bartender who knew damn well you weren’t old enough to buy as much as a drop. If you were lucky he didn't incriminate you. Speaking of fractional whiskey, back when I was tending bar during my college days an American shot of booze was also called a jigger. But if you were in the United Kingdom where fractions were still king (reached for that one), an English shot was 1/4 of a Gill; a Scottish shot was 1/5 of a Gill - that sounds kind of fishy - and the fun-loving Irish were busy pouring a 1/4 of a naigin. Okay, okay. What’s all this fractional stuff got to do with today’s baseball game? Well, for one thing my wife will be trying a new dessert today. For another, the way the Twins have been playing (or not) lately - they are now tied with Cleveland for the divisional lead - I may need to run out and buy another fifth of Jameson just to sooth my nerves during today's game because I think it's going to be a seat-edger. But I don't believe the Indians have a 1/5 of a Gill at beating the Twins today so when it comes to fractionally overtaking the Twins for the Division lead the jigger is up. And as far as my responsibility for today's dessert experiment, I've already adjusted the fractions and my wife is no longer naigin me. And that, boys and girls, once again proves that everything in life can be tied to baseball... and whiskey. Let us celebrate that affirmation with a wee dram… Over The Hump For the Twins "Smelly" Jake Odirizzi 12-5 3.61 ERA 120 K On The Bump For the Tribe Adam "Plunk 'Em" Plutko 4-2 4.55 ERA 36 K

I hear ya. You don't get better beating the Franciscan nuns. I had to throw the Franciscan nuns in there because everyone is always beating up on the Little Sisters of the Poor. The Franciscans, by the way, played a mean game themselves, especially Sister Goretti. She had a habit of using a little chin music to keep you from crowding the plate. You never went to bat against her without saying a little prayer first. True confession.

Fugue - a state or period of loss of awareness of one's identity, often coupled with flight from one's usual environment, associated with certain forms of hysteria and epilepsy. Sounds like the typical Twins fan.

Replied to your notification but will also answer here just to be sure. I'll take the Aug 10th.

It's in the Minnesota water I tell you. There's some kind of let-down virus in it. It's like Minnesota Kool-Aid...

After careful consideration and suggestions from the training staff; Buxton's new uniform.

1. Princess Bride 2. Yogi 3. Bugs 4. Neither

Waaaaaaay before 2000. The dinosaurs were gone but you could still see their footprints.

I dated Patience. She had no virtue.

Yankees: The Twins Nemesis? I may have mentioned in past writings on this site how much I despise the Yankees. Then again, maybe not. I tend to hold things in… like my gut while trying to slip into an old pair of jeans, or my honest opinion of my blonde sister-in-law’s cooking, or the gas from politely eating my blonde sister-in-law’s cooking. My Yankee despisement (is that a word?) goes back to those thrilling days of yesteryear when every kid in Little League had a favorite team. Mine was the Dodgers (the Twins hadn’t been invented yet). My nemesis at the time was another kid who was a self-proclaimed Yankees fan. His old man was the high school principal, who, as I grew older and developed a knack for torking off semi-irresponsible adults, also found his way onto my List of Nemesises (Nemesi?). He was also a man who spoiled rotten his Yankee-loving kid. While the rest of our Little League team (appropriately enough we were called the Dodgers) dreamed of someday owning a “real” baseball cap with a major league team’s logo emblazoned on it, my Nemesis proudly wore an official Yankees cap to all our games. And in the dugout between innings he’d regale us with how to properly don a “real” baseball cap. Even going so far as to demonstrate the proper technique for lifting and resetting an “official” cap before stepping into the batter’s box. Apparently the thing came with instructions. The kid was insufferable. And he struck out a lot. Which was why he spent most of the game in the dugout. Until the coach sent him in to pinch hit for somebody in the last innings, most often me. That’s how he got to be my nemesis, I couldn’t understand why our coach would bench me, arguably our team’s best hitter, and send in this obnoxious kid who, after making a big show of lifting and resetting his Yankees cap, would promptly strike out, flailing at pitches out of the zone like a blind man. It wasn’t until I became a coach myself and learned to not run up scores on hapless opponents and to give every kid a chance to play that I appreciated my old coach’s wisdom. Regardless of my failings as a youth, what brought things to a head was the kid’s old man bought my Nemesis a real Yankee jersey. The rest of us were happy if we could wear T-shirts without holes in them to games, which was tougher than it sounds back in the days when kids actually played outside, climbed, and fell out of, trees, fought king-of-the-hill battles on mountains of jagged rock piles, raced bikes down gravel roads and endured the ensuing crashes without a trip to the doctor to remove small rocks imbedded in the palm of our hands and bloodied knees and on a weekly basis battled neighborhood bullies who tended to be older, tougher and meaner. Ah! Those were the good ol’ days! Anyway, the Nemesis was soon torturing my teammates and myself with instructions on how to properly wear a “real” major league jersey; something to do with the buttons. The team diplomatically pointed out to the Yankee Nemesis that wearing a Yankees cap and jersey while playing on a Little League team named the Dodgers was a baseball, if not an ethical, faux pas. Or words to that affect. The punk laughed in our faces and said we were all jealous and really wanted to be Yankee fans like him, but couldn’t because our dads were either too poor, or we were too dumb. So, as often happens when diplomacy has been exhausted, the Nemesis got bum-rushed and pummeled by his teammates. And his Yankee jersey somehow got torn. And his official Yankee cap was, uh, mislaid. Which brought the punk’s old man out to the ballpark where he insisted the Little League Dodgers, currently leading the division, be forced to forfeit a game as punishment, even though we’d roughed up one of our own teammates, not one of our opponents. Fortunately our “coach” at the time was a WWII Marine vet and had already endured all the BS he was willing to endure in life and told the principal where he could stick his forfeited game demand. Which impressed us kids as up until that point in time we had no idea unreasonable demands could be stuck up there. Truly a valuable life’s lesson. Unfortunately the League Powers-That-Be, several of whom were teachers under the principal’s command, capitulated to the irate principal, over-ruled our coach, and moved one of our wins to the loss column, which placed the Division-leading Dodgers in a tie with the dreaded Cardinals and therefore forcing a one-game playoff to determine the Division winner. And with another “brilliant” decision, the Powers-That-Be also transferred the Yankee Nemesis from the Dodgers and reassigned him to… the Cardinals, setting up the obnoxious kid for a chance to “play” on the, hopeful, championship team and exact revenge. You can imagine how our game with the Cardinals went. Our coach pulled out all the stops and we massacred them. 10-Run Rule by the 4th inning. Which prompted the Cardinals to beat up their new Yankee-equipped teammate before they slunk from the dugout in shameful defeat. The Cardinals, however, were not punished for beating up their new teammate. Apparently RedBirds aren’t held to the same moral standard as mere Dodgers. And that, boys and girls, is how I came to be a Yankee Despiser, an avocation that has only grown stronger over the years as the Yanks have repeatedly proven that they are the Twins Nemesis. But the belief that the Yanks have become unbeatable for the Twins is one of those ideas that, as I learned many years ago, should be stuck right up there where the sun doesn’t shine. So let’s go Twins, keep playing like you’re capable and pummel the damn Yankees! I will be in the backyard listening to the game, chanting voodoo curses and burning the Yankee stuff I picked up at a garage sale for just that purpose over an open fire. Oh, and if you get a chance to "mislay" a Yankees cap... go for it. Tonight’s Hurlers For the Twinks Gibbler the Nibbler 9-4 4.02 ERA For the Despicable Yankees Domingo German 12-2 3.38 ERA

Can't argue with your rationale, but wither goest Kepler? My fear, probably irrational, would be throwing Kepler off his game by moving him to a less familiar spot in the batting order.

A graduate level course on whiskey? Who says you can't learn anything on TD?