Haven't read it yet.

But just a week after Lidle, I don't much care for headlines like that.

I recall reading the first chapter of Faulker's Sound and the Fury.

This was harder to read, and I don't have to write a term paper on it, so...

I recall reading the first chapter of Faulker's Sound and the Fury.

This was harder to read, and I don't have to write a term paper on it, so...
Page 1 of 1 pages

So, Derek Jeter's inner monologue is analogous to a retarded Southern man-child's?

I can go with that.

I only have one question after reading that:

What the ####?

It's a metaphor. It's a bed. No, it's a metaphor. What's a metaphor? It explains how I feel in my new Red Wing boots. It's a bed. GET BACK TO WORK!

So, Derek Jeter's inner monologue is analogous to a retarded Southern man-child's?

Not sure why "Southern" is a negative. ;-)

Everybody's inner thoughts are going to be incomprehensible on the page if faithfully transcribed.

The impressive thing is that this hack got anyone to pay him for this garbage.

Faulkner? Nah, I'm more reminded of early Steve Martin:

I know doctors and lawyers, etc, etc ...

...but the most amazing thing to me
is I get paid for doing this.

So, Derek Jeter's inner monologue is analogous to a retarded Southern man-child's?

Not sure why "Southern" is a negative

not sure why he wrote "retarded Southern", since that's a redundancy

(ducks)

The impressive thing is that this hack got anyone to pay him for this garbage.

Indeed--it makes one want to produce something and throw it over Esquire's transom and see what happens.

The impressive thing is that this hack got anyone to pay him for this garbage.


let's give him the benefit of the doubt and assume it was supposed to be a parody


(or not)

Jeter never should have written this article.

Indeed--it makes one want to produce something and throw it over Esquire's transom and see what happens.

Somewhere in my pad, I have a rejection letter from the New Yorker.

"I wish my wife weren't such a slut."

This is the second time in two issues Esquire has had lousy luck with headlines. Last month it was "Merv Griffith: Dead or Alive?" Well, alive when he gave the interview they published but dead by the time it ran, oops. Now this with story with the Lidle thing. Bad luck.

Anyway, apparently this guy was given only the title and told to write fiction on it. I don't know if the instructions were to produce a poorly written, obtuse steaming pile of pretentious claptrap, but if so, mission accomplished!

Somewhere in my pad, I have a rejection letter from the New Yorker.

Harsh. I subscribed to it for a year several years ago. I counted one decent short story in all that time, and that was from an issue devoted to new voices. What they thought was a good story would be my parody of a liberal arts professor's wistful angst-ridden memoir of an autumnal love affair with a comely student. Can't you just hear the Leonard Cohen disc playing in the background? Um, um, um, um, um.

Anyway, apparently this guy was given only the title and told to write fiction on it.

I wouldn't have guessed that it was hack writing. Geez, the submissions they get must be horrible. Are folks unwilling to be edited now that they can blog their thoughts unfiltered?

Griffith died? I know that Mike Douglas did.

Actually, I kinda liked it.

Merv Griffith might be dead; Merv Griffin is very much alive

Griffith died? I know that Mike Douglas did.

Apparently, he did not. I could've sworn someone they just did a "Dead or Alive" cover with did. Maybe I'm just crazy.

Anyway, I've had a piece turned down from Esquire (one featuring an interview with Phil Coorey no less!) but having read this, I now have deal doubts about my talent as a writer

Actually, I kinda liked it.

you should get together with Dr. Memory's liberal arts professor

I used to co-edit an unpopular amateur fiction anthology during my college days. If y'all think THIS was bad, you're just soft. One year, we had a serious discussion about whether to run the submission mailed from prison, or the one written in Portuguese that nobody on the staff could read.

I now have deal doubts about my talent as a writer

How many sentences were like this? ;-)

One morning, Derek Jeter awoke to discover that he had transformed into a giant cockroach. The clutchest cockroach ever. He rolled out of bed, ignoring the screams from the nubile Maxim covergirl lying next to him, and quickly donned his uniform as best he could in his current condition. Today was opening day and he had to go to Yankee Stadium to play against the Tampa Bay Devil Rays.

A quiet murmur circulated through the stands as the Yankee fans contemplated Derek fielding practice grounders before the game. The only indication that this was, in fact, the Yankee captain that they had grown to know and idolize was the familiar "2" on the back of his jersey. In the press box, Michael Kay looked down at the giant cockroach and felt a certain kinship that he couldn't quite explain.

The game began. The Yankee fans began their usual roll call of the players, but instead of "De-rek Jet-er" they chanted "Gi-ant ####-roach." Obviously, they had decided to go with it. Derek discreetly tipped his hat, revealing two long antenna that bounced around slightly in the cool April breeze that blew through Yankee Stadium.

The leadoff hitter for the Devil Rays, a short, unhappy man who secretly desired to be a concert pianist, grounded a ball sharply up the middle. In the past, this had been Derek's only weakness, the groundball that required him to range to his left and dive. Now, however, as a giant cockroach, diving was no longer necessary. Derek deftly scuttled to his left, cleanly picked off the ball with his glove, and fired a strike to first, beating the runner by half a step. As the crowd roared its approval, Derek fist-pumped three of his legs. It was going to be a good season.

#25 is better than anything in the linked article.

#24: very harsh. Funny, but harsh. 8-)

#25: absolutely brilliant.

How many sentences were like this? ;-)

Hopefully, something of a minimum. Although it magazine-piece length, anyone curious to at least see that I can string together a few coherent sentences can look here

Incidentally, #25 is brilliant

I don't know how to respond to #25 but the words just might be "freakin' brilliant."

Guapo, just so you know, what clinched it as a keeper was, "Derek fist-pumped three of his legs." That's just going to get funnier in my mind as the day goes on.

you realize of course that Guapo has now inadvertantly started a contest

Jeter as written by Kafka

who wants to take:

Hemingway

Dr. Seuss

Ann Coulter

Robert Frost

Gabriel Garcia Marquez

e.e cummings

Jmac66, nobody should even try. Fold up your keyboards and go home. Guapo is The Man.

In 25, I loved "It was going to be a good season."

Well done, well done.

Guapo, I bow before thee.

25 was definitely good enough to come out of the Lounge for.

He was a young man who manned third base in Yankee stadium, he had gone eighty-four days now without getting a clutch hit. In the first forty days Jeter had been with him. But after forty days without a clutch hit Jeter’s manager had told him that Rodriguez was now definitely and finally salao, which the worst form of unlucky, and Jeter had deserted him and went 5 for 5 in the first game of the series. It made Jeter sad to see Alex come into the dugout after each at bat with his shoulders hunched and he always went over to him to help carry either his bat or gloves and helmet. His bat was weathered and dirty, and when held it look like a stick of permanent defeat.

The comedy of #25 just went way over the top with the inappropriate Nannying in the third paragraph.

First, I think this link title should say "fiction". Too many people can be jolted by seeing this thread on Hot Topics or on the main page, which doesn't include the original poster's comments. Second, the name of the author should be expanded so as not to be confused with Art Martone, who writes pretty well for the Providence Journal.

Somewhere in my pad, I have a rejection letter from the New Yorker.

You think that's bad... I have a rejection letter from them also, and I was only trying to subscribe!

One morning, Derek Jeter awoke to discover that he had transformed into a giant cockroach. The clutchest cockroach ever.

Clutchest or clutchiest? Either way, it's a fun word.

Clutchest or clutchiest?

I believe it was clutchiest in the orginal German

"kumsthruinrispichkeit"

I really like the idea of seeing Jeter scuttle. Id even cheer for that. Good work Guapo.

Well now Al it is a contest to see who can write a story about Derek Jeter like Jeter is talking only he talks like a famous writer. So here is my story DEREK JETER by Jack Keefe.

DEREK JETER

Well Al here I am leading off for the Yankees my name is Derek Jeter we are at Yankee Stadium and playing the White Sox and Johnny Demon is on second and the pitcher is a tall handsome drink of water I do not reckognize at first but as he turns his back to go into his motion I see his name KEEFE which looks very crisp on his road greys Al. Now when I try to swing at Keefe's first pitch to hit a home run like I always do it breaks past my bat and I am oh and One and then I take a pitch high but the umpire is a Sox fan so I am 0 and Two. I choke up a little and get set to powder the next pitch but it is a changeup and I am so far out in front I fall to earth and give a little noise and Mr. Torre comes out and stands over me but I am not dead Al I am thinking of a way to stand back up and punch that Keefe in the nose for making me look bad in the story I am writing about my self well I guess I have to go back into the club house and blame it on my 3rd Baseman off the record Al.

This topic makes it okay that Esquire itself sucks.

In my younger and more vulnerable years my manager gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since.

"Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone," he told me, "just remember that all the people in this league haven't had the advantages that you've had."

He didn't say any more but we've always been unusually communicative in a reserved way and I understood that he meant a great deal more than that. In consequence I'm inclined to reserve all judgements, a habit that has opened up many curious rookies to me and also made me the victim of not a few veteran retread bores. The abnormal mind is quick to detect and attach itself to this quality when it appears in a normal person, and so it came about that in the minors I was unjustly accused of being a politician, because I was privy to the secret griefs of wild, unknown pitchers. Most of the confidences were unsought -- frequently I have feigned sleep, preoccupation or a hostile levity when I realized by some unmistakable sign that an intimate revelation was quivering on the horizon -- for the intimate revelations of young ballplayers or at least the terms in which they express them are usually plagiaristic and marred by obvious suppressions. Reserving judgements is a matter of infinite hope. I am still a little afraid of missing something if I forget that, as Joe Torre snobbishly suggested and I snobbishly repeat, a sense of the fundamental decencies is parcelled out unequally in the amateur draft.

And, after boasting this way of my tolerance, I come to the admission that it has a limit. Conduct may be founded on the infield dirt or the outfield grass but after a certain point I don't care what it's founded on. When I came back from the Yankees this autumn I felt that I wanted the world to be in baseball uniform and at a sort of moral attention forever; I wanted no more riotous excursions with privileged glimpses into the human heart. Only A-Rod, the man who gives his name to this book, was exempt from my reaction -- A-Rod who represented everything for which I have an unaffected scorn. If baseball is an unbroken series of successful statistics, then there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life, as if he were related to one of those intricate machines that register pitch speeds a hundred feet away. This responsiveness had nothing to do with that flabby passivity which is dignified under the name of "plate discipline" -- it was an extraordinary power stroke, a swing of smoothness such as I have never found in any other person and which it is not likely I shall ever find again. No -- A-Rod turned out all right at the end; it is what preyed on A-Rod, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and short-winded elations of baseball.

well done, Jack

Tom Robbins

When he was a small boy, Derek hid a baseball bat in an old, rotten tree trunk. It drove woodpeckers crazy. Ignoring tasty bugs all around them, they just about beat their brains out trying to get at the bat. Years later Derek used the bat experiment as a model for understanding capitalism, Communism, Christianity, and all other systems that traffic in future rewards rather than in present realities.

That was a poor Tom Robbins. A good Tom Robbins would have had me unable to read past the first 15 words.

So we beat on, OneAlou. RDF.

This is fun picking the book.

#45
A-Rod who represented everything for which I have an unaffected scorn. If baseball is an unbroken series of successful statistics, then there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life, as if he were related to one of those intricate machines that register pitch speeds a hundred feet away.

Gatsby? anyway it is well-done, (Great?)

Finnegan's Derek

Lowly, longly, a ball went forth. Pure Yawn stay low and outside. On the mead of the pitcher’s mound lay, heartsoul dormant mid shadowed land- shape, brief resin bag to his side, and arm loose, by his staff of citron maple, tradition horsehide-mashing-on. His dream stadium introduction was over, of cause, but his drama parapolylogic had yet to be, affact. Most distressfully (but, my dear, how successfully!) to wail Derek did, his locks of a lucan tinge, quickrich, ripely rippling, unfilleted, those lashbetasselled lids on the verge of Mariano time, whiles ouze of his sidewiseopen mouth the breath of him, evenso languishing as the cluchiest triple treacle or sunflower seed chewchow purse could buy. Yawn in a semiswoon lay ARod and (hooh!) what helpings of honeyful swoothead (phew!), which ear- piercing Sterlingness! As were you suppose to go and push with your bunting-bat forward pin in hand upinto his fleshasplush second bases of some chubby boybold love of an angel. Hwoah!

One Alou,

Great job, chap.

Someone do A Clockwork Orange. I would, but, well, I can't.

The thing with A-rod is, if he wants to grab for the golden ring, you have to let him do it, and not say anything. If he falls off, he falls off, but it's bad if you say anything to him.

A-Rod was in the center of the diamond by now, and he held his hands out desperately as the pinstripers moved in on him. "It isn't fair," he said. A ball hit him on the side of the head. Old Man Steinbrenner was saying, "Come on, come on, everyone." Derek Jeter was in the front of the crowd of Yankees, with Michael Kay beside him.

"It isn't fair, it isn't right," A-Rod screamed, and then they were upon him.

I am going to be tolerant to the Esquire article (haven't read it yet), but thanks to Guapo for #25. It is a Primey contenda.

For me to compete, I have to change the game. Not that this is competing, anyway. What do you want, all I have is pbrush.exe.

feeble Jeter cartoon

#55: what, no rock in little Jeffrey Maier's hand?

Diving Into the Stands on a Bosox Evening

Whose stands these are I think I know
His house is in Tampa, though
He will not mind me diving here
To make the catch without a throw

The BTF crowd may think it queer
To dive for no real reason near
Between the line and infield rake
Loudest ovation of the year

I give my uniform a shake
Climb out, dust off, position take
The only other sound's the sweep
Of sterling/waldmyn’s play retake

The stands are lovely, dark and deep
But I have backhanded flips to keep
And starlets to #### before I sleep
And starlets to #### before I sleep

The Short Happy Career of Alex Rodriguez

It was now playoff time and the Yankees were all sitting in the dugout pretending that nothing had happened.

“Will you have andro or TGH?” the trainer asked.

“I’ll have a greenie,” Giambi told him.

“I’ll have a greenie, too. I need something,” Sheffield said.

“I suppose it’s the thing to do,” Arod agreed. “Tell him to bring three greenies.”

Giambi's trainer had started handing them out already, pulling the bottles out of the canvas medicine bags that filled the lockerroom with a pharmaceutical odor well known to the Yankees clubhouse.

“What had I ought to give them?” Arod asked.

“A hundred would be plenty,” Giambi told him. “You don’t want to spoil them.”

“Will Conte distribute it?”

“Absolutely.”

Alex Rodriguez had, half an hour before, been carried to the lockerrom from the field in triumph on the arms and shoulders of Posada, Cano, and several other Yankees . Mariano Rivera, Derek Jeter and Bernie Williams had taken no part in the celebration. When the other Yanks put him down in the locerroom, he had shaken all their hands, received their congratulations, and then gone over to the bench and sat by his locker until Jeter came in. He did not speak to him when he came in and he left his locker at once to sit in the whirlpool in the training room.

“You’ve got your pennant,” Torre said to Arod, “and a damned fine catch too.”

Jeter looked at Arod quickly. He looked at Torre and Jeter as though he had never seen them before.

After everyone moved toward the press conference, Arod asked Jeter, "You aren't going to tell them are you?" "No, don't worry, on the Yankees no one ever strikes out and everybody always makes the catch. I'm not going to tell them." Jetes replied back while his steely blue man eyes glistened beneath the floursecent lights of the lockerroom. "But I didn't make the catch, you made it when we dived in the stands. I just took the ball out of your glove." bemoaned Arod. "We've got a world series to win. We'll worry about that later." Jetes told him.

The Yanks continued on through the postseason against the hated Dodgers. Both Jeter and Arod had historic moments and the Yanks stood even with the Dodgers as the teams took the field for a historic game seven.

In the bottom of the ninth, the Yanks were down by one run with two outs when Arod marched to the plate like a soldier from a bygone war. The first pitch gored him in the knee and he took first base limping down the baseline. As the ferocious Dodger pitcher hurled another fastball toward Jeter, Jeter pulled in his hands and sent a shot into the gap in left center. Arod limped around third heading for home. The ball came screaming to the catcher, and Arod scampered back toward third. Jeter had already reached third and touched the inside corner of the bag to head home.

Seeing Jeter, Arod turned toward the catcher, limping with all the energy he could muster on one leg. A violent collision between Arod and Navarro put Arod out and writhing on the ground in pain, his knee no longer able to hold his manly weight ever again.

As the Yanks took the field to congratulate the victorious Dodgers, Torre said to Jeter, "I understand what you did. I might would have too. You know he was going to take your shortstop position next year."

"Shut up, just shut up." Jeter replied.

"Don't worry. It will be unpleasant, but I have it in with the reporters; I'll tell them I waived you around third and it was just a big accident. Its a shame, because I was starting to like the guy."

"Just shut up, please shut up."

"Well, okay, if you say please that is different."

Is 55 Lord of the Flies?

Is 55 Lord of the Flies?

The Lottery.

Derek Jeter's
defunct
who used to
flip a backhand-pearlwhite
spheroid
and hit onetwothreefourfive clutchies justlikethat
Jesus
he was a handsome man
and what i want to know is
how do you like your browneyed boy
Mister Steinbrenner

For Joe,
I'll get you started Joe


A clockwork pinstriped

There was me that is Alex, and my three droogs, that is Jetes, Giambi Boy and Sheffie. And we sat in the Bronx Milk Bar trying to make up our babblygook on what to to say to the press that evening. The Bronx Milk Bar was what we called the training room. It had milk plus - milk plus Androstenedione or THG or winstrol which is what we were drinking. This would sharpen you up and make you ready for a bit of the old Ultra-Choking.

'Twas Selig, and the slithy gloves
Did Mickey, Dimaggio and the Babe;
All Bronxy was the borough,
And the home run out of play.
'Beware the Jeterwock, my son!
The bats that hit, the gloves that catch!
Beware the Blue Jay bird, and shun
The frumious Halladay!'
He took his maple bat in hand:
Long time the fastball foe he sought--
So rested he by the batting tee,
And stood awhile in thought.
And as in clutchish thought he stood,
The Jeter, with eyes of flame,
Came swinging with the Louisville wood,
And dribbled foul it came!
One and two! One and two! And through and through
The maple bat went snicker-smack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went a-trotting back.
'And hast thou slain the Jeterwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'
He chortled in his joy.
'Twas Selig, and the slithy gloves
Did Mickey, Dimaggio and the Babe;
All Bronxy was the borough,
And the home run out of play.

That is a good start. Now I want it to include Steinbrenner getting tolchocked across his cranny til he creeched like bezoomy, preferably by Sheffie. I don't know why him.

And Jeter, never flinching, still is hitting, still is hitting
One to the pallid bust of Ruth just above the outfield wall;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming,
And the lamp-light o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
And ARod's soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted - nevermore!

Viddy well, little brother, viddy well.


Start spreading the news

[sheffie lifts his Louisville tolchock and brings it crashing across Steins crannies]

I'm leaving today

[Giambi boy starts going after Cashman]

I want to be a part of it,

[kick by Jetes to Steins nads]

New York,

[kick by Sheffie to the Stein's nads]

New York

[kick by sheffie and jetes to Stein's crannie]
These vagabond shoes

[double stomp on the steins feet]

Are longing to stray

[Giambi boy slaps Cashman]

And make a brand new start of it
[kick by Jetes to Steins nads]

New York,

[kick by Sheffie to the Stein's nads]

New York

[kick by sheffie and jetes to Stein's crannie]

I want to wake up in the city that never sleeps

[Giambi boy knees Cashman in the stomach]

To find I'm king of the hill,

[Tolschock to the cranny by Sheff]

top of the heap

[giambi boy knee to Cashman's torso]

These little town blues

[Sheffie tolshocks Stein's left knee]

Are melting away

[Sheffie tolshocks Stein's right knee]

I'll make a brand new start of it

[Giambi boy grabs Tolshock from Sheffie and goes to work on Cashman's nads]

In old New York

[Sheffie and Jeter start kicking Stein repeatedly]

If I can make it there

[Another nad shot by Giambi boy to Cashman]


I'll make it anywhere

[kick by Jetes to Steins nads]

New York,

[kick by Sheffie to the Stein's nads]

New York

[kick by sheffie and jetes to Stein's crannie]
stein and cashman pass out.

A screaming comes across the diamond. It has happened before, but there is nothing to compare it to now.

It is too late. The Postseason still proceeds, but it's all theatre. There are no lights inside the Stadium. No light anywhere. Beyond Jeter sit monuments old as an iron queen, and pennants far above whose mystique and aura would let the light of moon through. But it's night. He's afraid of the way the banners will fall - soon - it will be a spectacle: the fall of a golden dynasty. But coming down in total blackout, without one glint of light, only great invisible crashing.

Inside the dugout, he sits in velveteen darkness, with no McCarver to worship him, feeling bats nearer and further swing and connect, line drives escaping in puffs, a vibration in the dugout's bench, a poising, an uneasiness... all the others pressed in around him, feeble ones, second sheep, all out of luck and time: drunks, old veterans broken down, a hustler in city clothes - the derelict, the ROD, the one who belongs to no one, the one Jeter would like to carry out and set free like an exhausted woman who pleasured him more times than it seems anyone could do. Only the nearer faces are visible at all - Bernie, Mariano, Jorge, old Joe - and at that only as half-silvered images in a view finder, green-stained MVP faces remembered riding in open-topped cars crawling through the city's steel canyons as the roar enveloped them....

A Very Good Yankee with Enormous Clutch

On the third day of the series Arods groundouts had killed so many rallies by the Yankees that Jeter had to move down the bench to give him a good talking too, because the Yankees had not on a series all century and they thought it was due to the Arod. The world had been sad since 1999. Mystique and Aura were long lost things and the roar of the Bronx, which on July nights roared like Thunder, had become a stew of boos and B-list celebrities. Liza's voice was so weak from work that when Jeter was coming back to the dugout after another loss, it was hard for him to hear what she was singing over the loudspeaker. He had become last decades thing, an old man, a very old man, sitting home in October, who, in spite of his tremendous efforts, couldn’t get another ring, impeded by Arod's enormous contract.

Derek Jeter really whoops a camel's ass.
You can really rock your ass off.
I love you a lot in the long run.
You can really rock your ass off.

DEREK JETER!!!
DEREK JETER!!!
DEREK JETER!!!
DEREK JETER!!!

Derek Jeter is excellent.
About 64500 people like Derek Jeter.
You are a clutch star.
You are a clutch star.

DEREK JETER!!!
DEREK JETER!!!
DEREK JETER!!!
DEREK JETER!!!

You make the joyride music.
You can really rock your ass off.
You are the clutch king.
You really whoop a snow lepoard's ass.

Rock over London,
Rock on Chicago.

Wheaties - breakfast of champions.

Apologies to Edgar.

Once upon a diamond dreary, while I pondered teammates weary,
Over many championships once our right of birth and such,
While I flied out, Tigers clapping, suddenly there came a snapping,
I could hear the Sterling rapping, rapping, oh he's got the touch.
To sing the praises of my glory, only he can truly touch
Derek Jeter, king of Clutch.'

How distinctly I recall in the final days of fall,
How the Bleacher Bums would call, willing a trophy for my hutch.
Eagerly I wished the yester; - without that teammate that did fester
while his skills decay from thinking - thinking that he was my crutch -
For defensive skills all true fans know I would not need a crutch -
Not the Jeter, king of Clutch.

And the Tigers, never straying, still are playing, still are playing
And the young upstarts from Queens all think that they are all too much;
And the papers have me chapping, calling me out as the captain,
saying that my ego hurts that pretty boy, I've lost my touch;
If I spoke out more, then slappy poor could never lose his touch
But the A-Rod? - Never clutch!

Autumn in New York is a magical time, and even more so when fueled by massive amounts of grapefruit, nicotine, cheap whisky, and expensive cocaine. Typically, I might be found in the Bronx solving strange women or wooing gorgeous mysteries, but tonight I was waist-high in Steinbrennian filth, for I am a Sports Writer.

Derek Jeter is a wonderful creature with god-like abilities and the looks of Adonis. He has Moonbeams for Eyes and Pit Bulls for Forearms. He once played 7 defensive positions at the same time, Bubba, and don’t you think that A-Rod didn’t Notice. October is Jeter’s territory, and he’d just as soon slit your flimsy throat than give up an inch of that turf.

Selah.

I was sitting in Steinbrenner’s private box on that fateful night. Jeter was in the middle of another 8 hit night, and the rest of his traitorous comrades were doing squat. “How long, O Lord, How long,” I shouted to the empty sky, but there was no reply, for the Bronx was being demonically consumed, first by the lay-down-and-die actions of Mussina, Sheffield, and Giambi, and then by the Detroit Tigers, who were willing and able to eat the Yankee remains.

I had seen enough. I climbed out of my seat, and headed down to the field, keeping my head down and making sure not to engage the glances of any Criminals, Liars, or Unclean Men. Reaching the field, I yelled to Jeter to come with me, and he knew what was good for him, Bubba, so he complied. A-Rod’s forked tongue shot out with its 20 foot span and pierced Derek’s skin with an unholy concoction of poison and greed. It was over.

Thank god for the kind of drugs that will erase your mind of all these memories. It was a long drive back to Las Vegas.

There was only one clutch and that was Clutch-2, which specified that a man's performance in the heat of the postseason could be evaluated only by his predetermined clutchness. Jeter could still make an error. As soon as he did, an error would no longer be bad and Jeter would be hailed for his contribution. A-Rod could get a hit and Jeter make an out, but an out would then be clutch. If A-Rod made an out, an out was bad, but if he hit a homer, a homer was bad. A-Rod was moved deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Clutch-2 and let out a respectful whistle.

"That's some clutch, that Clutch-2," A-Rod observed.

"He's the best there is," Torre agreed.

Take up the Short-Stop's burden--
Send forth the best ye breed--
Go, bind A-Rod to exile
To serve your 'leader' need;
To hit, in slot the second
'Fore slumping folk, in danger--
Your new-bought sullen teammate,
Half Mariner, half Ranger.

Take up the Short-Stop's burden--
In patience to abide,
To veil the threat of errors
And duly show your pride;
By open speech, two-fifty-
two million times made plain,
To seek Steinbrenner's profit
And work Scott Boras' gain.

Take up the Short-Stop's burden--
The savage wars of peace--
Fill full the mouth of Creatures,
October sickness cease;
And when your goal is nearest
(The end for others sought)
Watch Alex and Giambi
Bring all your hope to nought.

The-Je-ter: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. The. Je. Ter. He was clutch, plain clutch, in the morning, standing six feet three in one cleat. He was Captain in pinstripes. He was Derek to his screaming fans. He was all baseball between the lines. But in my arms he was always The Jeter.

Every Yank up in Yanktown
Liked Jeter a lot.

But the Rod who lived just
east of Jeter did not.

The Rod hated Jeter, the whole baseball season.
Now, please don't ask why. No one quite knows the reason.
It could be that his balls weren't screwed on quite right.
It could be, perhaps, that his a** was too tight.
But I think that the most likely reason of all
May have been that his Head was two sizes too small.

But,
Whatever the reason,
His butt or his balls,
He stood there on Opening Day, hating all,
Staring down from third base with a sour, Arod scowl
At Jete's warm busty girlfriends dressed in their towels.

After a short silence which succeeded the first surprise and inquiries of meeting, A-Rod asked Jeremy if he came directly from BALCO. No, he had been in New York a fortnight.

"A fortnight!" he repeated, surprised at his being so long in the same county with Jeremy without seeing him before. He looked rather distressed as he added, that he had been staying with some friends near Flushing.

"Have you been lately in the Bronx?" said Derek.

"I was at Yankee Stadium about a month ago."

"And how does dear, dear Yankee Stadium look?" cried A-Rod.

"Dear, dear Yankee Stadium," said Derek, "probably looks much as it always does at this time of year. The plaques and monuments thickly covered with dead leaves."

"Oh!" cried A-Rod, "with what transporting sensations have I formerly seen them fall! How have I delighted, as I walked, to see them driven in showers about me by the wind! What feelings have they, the season, the air altogether inspired! Now there is no one to regard them. They are seen only as a nuisance, swept hastily off, and driven as much as possible from the sight."

"It is not every one," said Derek, "who has your passion for dead leaves."

"No; my feelings are not often shared, not often understood. But sometimes they are."

Other Kyle: I recommend calling the term "Clutch-#2" instead of "Clutch-2" as it has the same cadence/flow as the original. Otherwise, brilliant.

Damn - did I really use "Jeremy", instead of "Jason"? I did...

Many years later, as he faced the New York media, Captain Derek Jeter was to remember that distant afternoon where his manager took him to discover the nature of clutch. At the time New York was a town of 22 world championships, built upon the memories of baseball legends, memorialized in left field, like ancient obelisks. The team was recently constructed and many of the players that would go on to be household names, you could only indicate them by pointing to their position in the field. Every year during the month of April, this band of men would move into New York apartments or Westchester mansions, and with a great uproar of trophy wives and Ferraris, they would flash their prowess on the diamond. First came Bernie Williams. A thin man with calculating eyes and wild hair, who introduced himself as Stick, put on a bold public demonstration of what he himself called the eight wonder of the learned men of Cooperstown. He went from talk show to talk show dragging scouting reports and spoke of how everyone was amazed to see a centerfielder who could hit from both sides of the plate and how the crack of the ball off the bat produced hit after hit, and how even opponent's flyballs that had been doubles for a long time appeared in his glove, his legs churning quickly in turbulent confusion. "Centerfielders like this don't come along very often," Stick proclaimed with a harsh growl. "It's simply a matter of building strength up the middle." The Boss, whose unbridled imagination always went beyond baseball common sense and even beyond miracles like clutch hitting, thought it would be possible to use Bernie as a trading chip for a slugger to extract his first championship in over a decade. Stick, who was an honest man, warned him: "It doesn't work like that." But the Boss did not believe in the ability of his baseball people, and he would have traded Bernie and a bag of balls for a right handed power hitter. Fay Vincent, the Commissioner, had luckily stripped the Boss of any such decision making powers, effectively serving to dissuade him. "The 80's would have been paved with gold if only one more free agent had worked out," the Boss replied. And if not for Vincent, he would have worked hard to demonstrate the truth of that idea. He would pursue free agent after free agent, even National League pitchers, throwing his money at whoever would take it reciting what he believed to be the wisdom of the baseball ages. The only thing he would have succeded in doing was to unearth Danny Tartabull, whose perfomance was soldered together by batting average and inside of whose numbers was the hollow resonance of an enormous stone-filled gourd. When the Boss and his Tampa contingent managed to see beneath this exterior after a few years in pin stripes, they found inside a calcified slugger whose remaining career would be whisper thin as a lover's hair placed gently in a locket.

so far, I like the Dr. Seuss the best, with Kafka a close second

(now THERE'S a pairing you don't often see)

It was the best of teams, it was the worst of teams, it was the age of conventional wisdom, it was the age of sabermetrics, it was the epoch of clutch, it was the epoch of choking, it was the season of the Boston Massacre, it was the season of the Detroit Massacre, it was the spring training of hope, it was the October of despair, we had our whole futures in front of us, we were at the end of the line, we were all going direct to the playoffs, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest sportswriters insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

There was a shortstop with a quick bat and clutch written on his plain face, playing shortstop for the Yankees; there was a shortstop with a quick bat and choke written on his fair face, playing at third base. At both positions it was clearer than crystal to the Lords of Baseball preserves of loaves and fishes, that things in general were settled for ever.

The Mad Yankee

I watched them churn the last championship they'll ever get from me.
They are waiting for me to die;
They want to make buttons out of my gold glove.
Where are my agents and handlers?
That tall monk Johnson there, goading my uncle Joe, he has a new cap.
And that idiot student of his, Mazzilli -- I never saw that much muffing before.
Poor uncle Joe, he lets them goad him.
How sad he is, how tired!
I wonder what they'll do with his sorry ass?

i need this thread annotated.

LISTEN:
Alex Rodriguez has come unstuck in time.

Alex has gone to sleep a serial choker and awakened with an MVP award. He has walked through a door with the New York Yankees and come out another one with the Seattle Mariners. He has gone back through that door to find himself with the Texas Rangers. He has seen his debut and retirement many times, he says, and pays random visits to all the events in between.

He says.

Alex is spastic with the bat, has no control over when he is going to strike out next, and the at bats aren't necessarily fun. He is in a constant state of choking, he says, becuase he never knows what kind of line he is going to have to feed to the press next.

Lady Chatterly's Yankees


`Why don't Jeter and Rodriguez really like one another nowadays?' Susyn asked Michael Kaye, who was more or less her oracle.
`Oh, but they do! I don't think since the trade was made, there has ever been a time when Jeter and Rodriguez have liked one another as much as they do today. Genuine liking! Take myself. I really like Jeter better than Rodriguez; he is braver, one can be more frank with him.'
Susyn pondered this.
`Ah, yes, but you never have anything to do with Rodriguez!' she said.
`I? What am I doing but talking perfectly sincerely to you at this moment?'
`Yes, talking...'
`And what more could I do if you were Jeter, than talk perfectly sincerely to you?'
`Nothing perhaps. But Rodriguez...'
`Rodriguez wants you to like him and talk to him, and at the same time love him and desire him; and it seems to me the two things are mutually exclusive.'
`But they shouldn't be!'
`No doubt water ought not to be so wet as it is; it overdoes it in wetness. But there it is! I like Rodriguez and talk to him, and therefore I don't love him and desire him. The two things don't happen at the same time in me.'
`I think they ought to.'
`All right. The fact that things ought to be something else than what they are, is not my department.
Susyn considered this. `It isn't true,' she said. `Derek can love Alex and talk to him. I don't see how he can love him without talking, and being friendly and intimate. How can they?'
`Well,' he said, `I don't know. What's the use of my generalizing? I only know my own case. I like Rodriguez, but I don't desire him. I like talking to him; but talking to him, though it makes me intimate in one direction, sets me poles apart from him as far as kissing arse is concerned. So there you are! But don't take me as a general example, probably I'm just a special case: one of the men who like Jeter, but don't love Rodriguez, and even hate him if he force me into a pretence of love, or an entangled appearance.
`But doesn't it make you sad?'
`Why should it? Not a bit! I look at Tim McCarver, and the rest of the men who have affairs...No, I don't envy them a bit! If fate sent me a national leaguer and I wanted him, well and good. Since I don't know any national leaguers I want, and never see one...why, I presume I'm cold, and really like some national leaguers very much.'
`Do you like me?'
`Very much! And you see there's no question of kissing between us, is there?'
`None at all!' said Susyn. `But oughtn't there to be?'
`Why, in God's name? I like Tim McCarver, but what would you say if I went and kissed him?'
`But isn't there a difference?'

"For sale: Shortstop glove. Barely used."

OCTOBER is the cruelest month, breeding
Upset out of the Motor City, mixing
Lack of pitching and silent bats, stirring
Petty jealousies with autumn chill.
Winter's hot stove kept us warm, covering
Fans in forgetful free agent signings, feeding
A little life with positive projections.
Summer surprised us, coming over Fenway
With a shower of wins; we stopped on Landsdowne,
And went on in sunlight, into first place,
And drank in the Red Sox collapse, and called talk shows for an hour.
I'm not a Bostonian, I'm a New Yawkah.
And when we were children, staying in Brooklyn,
My cousin's, he took me out on the D train,
And I was frightened. He said, Brian,
Brian, hold on tight. And down we went.
In the bleachers, there you feel free.
I watch game films, much of the night, and go south in the winter.

bah, should have had him staying in Queens...more aristocratic.

Oh, what the hell, one more!

LO, praise of the prowess of shortstops
of gold-gloved Yankees, in days long sped,
we have heard, and what honor the ballclub won!
Oft Derek the Jeter from squadroned foes,
from many a team, the dugout-bench tore,
awing the All-Stars. Since erst he lay
friendless, undrafted, fate repaid him:
for he waxed under welkin, in trophies he throve,
till before him the scribes, both far and near,
who house by the ballpark, heard his mandate,
gave him awards: a good captain he!

Call me Arod. Some years ago - never mind how long precisely - having little or no rings on my finger, and nothing particular to interest me in Texas, I thought I would play ball a little in the biggest, brightest part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off teams fans and relegating them to mediocrity. Whenever I find myself growing grim about my stats; whenever it is a damp, drizzly October in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily striking out in big moments, and leading in stat races that nobody cares about; and especially whenever the baseball fans get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately going into the crowd, and methodically knocking people's heads off - then, I account it high time to get to the next team as soon as I can. This is my substitute for winning and celebrating. With magnificent hustle Jeter throws himself into the crowd; I quietly slink back to the dugout. There is nothing surprising in this. If the fans but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards statistics as me.

I was going to edit Barret Browning's "How Do I Love Thee" as if it were directed towards Jeter from Tim McCarver's perspective, but I realized that, for that purpose, it stands perfectly fine exactly as it is.

i need this thread annotated.

25. Kafka, Metamorphosis
36. Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea
45. Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
47. Robbins, Still Life With Woodpecker?
51. Joyce, Finnegan's Wake
55. Jackson, "The Lottery"
59. Frost, "Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening"
60. Hemingway, "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber"
63. cummings, "Buffalo Bill"
64/68. Burgess, A Clockwork Orange
65. Carroll, "Jabberwocky"?
67/72. Poe, "The Raven"
69. Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow
70/71. [don't know]
73. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
74. Heller, Catch-22
75. [don't know]
76. Nabokov, Lolita
77. Seuss, "How the Grinch Stole Christmas"
78. Austen, Sense and Sensibility
81. García Marquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude
83. Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
84. [don't know]
86. Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five
87. Lawrence, Lady Chatterly's Lover
89. Eliot, "The Waste Land"
91. [don't know]
92. Melville, Moby-Dick

I'll give anyone in here 20 bucks if they can get Derek Jeter slouching toward Bethlehem

91 is Beowulf

75 is Rudyard Kipling, The White Man's Burden

For the ones Kirby Kyle didn't know

70 is more Gabrielle Garcia Marquez, this one from "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings"
71 is a Wesley Willis song (Rock Over London, Rock on Chicago)
75 is Rudyard Kipling's "The White Man's Burden"
84 is Gregory Corso "The Mad Yak"
91 is Beowulf

70, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings"

71. "Breakfast of Champions", Vonnegut

75. "The White Man's Burden" Rudyard Kipling

84. The Mad Yak, Gregory Corso

O CAPTAIN! my Captain! our fearful series is done,
The team has weather'd every injury, the ring we sought is lost,
The reporters are near, the cameras I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady chin, the eyes grim and daring;
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where in the dugout my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the cheers;
Rise up - for you the pennant is flung - for you the PA trills,
For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths - for you the bleachers
a-crowding,
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
Here Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head!
It is some dream that in the dugout,
You've fallen cold and dead.
My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still,
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will,
The team is anchor'd to the ground, its playoffs closed and done,
From fearful trip the victorious Tigers comes in with object won;
Exult O crowd, and ring O bells!
But I with mournful tread,
Walk the dugout my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.