By Steve Rhodes
Opening Day.
1. “The crowd was vocal. Because the subject here was baseball and the stadium was full of scholars – and historians – and soon enough I found myself engaged in learned debate with all these . . . strangers, these . . . guys.”
2. “Cursed by goats/and a guy with glasses/ our Cubs front office/run by asses.”
With apologies to Nena.
3. Like-minded ideas happen all the time in this business; I’m not saying the Sun-Times stole their limericks contest from us. But – inspired by a submission from Jerry “Bleacher Preacher” Pritikin – we published Sam Zell limericks on March 12. An outraged Rick Kaempfer writes:
The ballpark’s name Sam Zell commercializes,
So Sam Zell limericks the Beachwood devises,
Though the Sun Times stole it,
They couldn’t bankroll it,
And had lousy t-shirts to give out as prizes
4. Rick Kaempfer, by the way, is the proprietor of Just One Bad Century.
5. The Mount Lou Alert System is at Green. But remember: Molten rock can still be spit in cold weather.
6. “Beachwood Sabermetrics: A complex algorithm performed by the The Cub Factor staff using all historical data made available by Major League Baseball has determined that it will be a long season for the White Sox if Jose Contreras is the key.”
7. “Mighty Santo At The Bat.”
8. “Sometimes baseball is quirky in clever little ways and sometimes it is just flat-out weird,” writes our very own Jim Coffman. “Bring it on, baseball!”
9. Not even close to getting old.
10. “I’m just a sausage running a race.”
–
Rev. Wright’s Reward
If I say so myself.
Automatic for the Critics
“This hasn’t been an easy decade for fans of R.E.M. The favorite sons of Athens, Ga., haven’t made a beginning-to-end great album since Automatic for the People in 1992. Even guitarist Peter Buck now admits the band has been on a ‘downward slide’,” writes Jim DeRogatis.
“Mind you, that hasn’t stopped the musicians, their label or their tireless boosters from hailing every new release as the one that recaptures former glories or ‘the record where R.E.M. rocks again.’ And so goes the corporate line on Accelerate, the band’s 14th studio album, which arrives in stores on Tuesday.
*
DeRo also (rightly) reserves the right to change his mind.
Church Mice
“You can no more paint the black church with one brush as you can the white Evangelical church, the Catholic Church or any other denomination,” writes Dawn Turner Trice.
But isn’t that what liberals have done for years?
*
Will Mitt Romney please report to the white courtesy phone!
That’s Todd!
Memo to Larry Suffredin et. al.: Todd Stroger is who he is. He is impervious to reason. He has a picture of the world in his head, and that picture is not going to expand anytime soon, if at all.
Exhibit 3847: His interview with Dane Placko on Fox Chicago Sunday. The lowlights:
* On his cousin’s raise right after hiking taxes to pay for a budget still laden with patronage: “It’s not truly an increase. The [cost-of-living-adustments] came literally from Commissioner Suffredin and Commissioner Quigley coming to my office and saying we need to give raises to non-union employees.”
* “You can ride that horse, ‘she’s your cousin’ . . . ”
Placko: “Well she’s still your cousin!”
After listing her resume, Placko says: “Your dad’s niece as well.”
* “What has Commissioner Claypool said nice about me in the last year?”
* “This is really a manifestation of the system which we had where the party committeemen had to choose a candidate, and there’s still a backlash . . . ”
It was the system. Nothing Todd could do.
* Defending Dorothy Brown employing a chauffeur-security guard listed as a “systems analyst” in the budget: “The clerk is the second-largest office in county government . . a lady . . . out all night, up early in the morning . . . ”
* “People don’t get the full truth. They only get half the story.”
Isn’t that how you got the job, Todd?
Children’s Center
From Beachwood reader John Kuczaj:
If Jennifer Farrington thinks children deserve to be at the center of the city ( . . . why do I get images of children’s internment camps?) she might want to stop suggesting a site less than a mile away from the eastern border of the city is the CENTER of the city.
There Once Was A Contest . . .
Just so you know what you’re getting into if you enter the Sun-Times limerick contest.
“LIMITATION OF LIABILITY: EACH PARTICIPANT AGREES TO RELEASE, HOLD HARMLESS AND INDEMNIFY SPONSOR, AND ITS PARENT, DIVISIONS, SUBSIDIARIES, AFFILIATES, ADVERTISING, PROMOTION, AND PUBLIC RELATIONS AGENCIES, AND THE RESPECTIVE OFFICERS, DIRECTORS, EMPLOYEES, REPRESENTATIVES AND AGENCIES OF EACH FOR ANY LIABILITY WHATSOEVER FOR INJURIES OR DAMAGES OF ANY KIND SUSTAINED IN CONNECTION WITH THE ACCEPTANCE, POSSESSION, USE, MISUSE OR AWARDING OF A PRIZE OR WHILE PREPARING FOR, PARTICIPATING IN AND/OR TRAVELING TO OR FROM ANY PRIZE- OR CONTEST-RELATED ACTIVITY, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, ANY INJURY, DAMAGE, DEATH, LOSS, OR ACCIDENT TO PERSON OR PROPERTY. EACH WINNER AGREES THAT THE PRIZE IS PROVIDED AS-IS WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY, REPRESENTATION, OR GUARANTEE, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN FACT OR IN LAW, WHETHER NOW KNOWN OR HEREINAFTER ENACTED, RELATIVE TO THE USE OR ENJOYMENT OF THE PRIZE, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, ITS QUALITY, MERCHANTABILITY, OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.”
The Beachwood Tip Line: Liability-free.
Posted on March 31, 2008