Mercy Missiles Baseball Time Travel Adventure: 1990

Readers, can you stand anymore Cincinnati Reds fanfare today? I hope so, because that video up there is especially glorious, perfect for inclusion in our day-long post-division-clinching celebration here at HQ. A highlight extravaganza from the last World Series appearance by our favorite team, and boy what a lineup they had: the awesome Eric Davis, Barry Larkin (at the beginning of his long career with the Reds), Rob "Wild Thing" Dibble, and the amazing sport-goggle enthusiast Chris Sabo! Also: watch for appearances by controversial team owner Marge Schott and MM favorite Tony Perez.

Reds Win The NLC!

HURRAH!

The Reds won the Central Division last night in dramatic fashion, beating the Astros 3-2 on a bottom-of-the-ninth solo homerun by Jay Bruce! 15 years, readers: it has been 15 years since we've made it to the post-season--9 years since we've even had a winning season...gosh, & I forgot how awesome it feels! The baseball gods are smiling down benevolently on the Queen City of the West today.

And hey: Louisvillians had a thrill when Aroldis Chapman--the Cuban pitching phenom who spent most of his summer freaking out Louisville Bats crowds with his 100+ mph fastballs (& 97 mph change-ups!)--was called in to close the 9th inning. Wow, we were not disappointed: he struck out the first two batters and got the third to ground out. 3-up-3-down for the new guy; I just hope the Reds' front office has sense enough to keep him around for a good long while.

And how great is Dusty Baker?? He is now in some rare company: just the 9th manager in all of baseball history to lead three different teams to the post-season (Giants 97-00, Cubs 03 & Reds 10), a HOF manager for sure (not sure about you, but I sure don't miss Jack McKeon--the Marlins can keep that one. He's poised to take advantage of Florida's thriving retirement community and myriad early bird buffet specials). Let's all be glad the Cubs didn't know what to do with Dusty--he seems like a good fit in Cincy.

The post-season starts next week. Go Reds!

Baseball

Readers, the Reds have one game to go to clinch the National League's Central Division title! They play the Astros tonight, and hopefully we'll be celebrating at the feet of the Johnny Bench shrine. Go reds!

Tonight is also an exciting night for baseball for another reason: PBS is airing the first part of Ken Burns' Baseball: The Tenth Inning (starts at 8pm!). The doc will focus on the 90's & 00's, so get ready to hear about the player strike and steroids--it was a depressing & scandalous two decades. Anyway, that's the nerdy little documentary elf there in the photo (I didn't know you could still buy denim shirts...)

By the way: did I ever tell you about the time I came thisclose to meeting Ken Burns? It was back in June at the big annual librarian conference in D.C. He was set to be meeting and greeting at the Baker & Taylor booth, and as I was walking over to say "hi" (or something...I'm not so good with celebrities) I noticed that another booth a few aisles over had a copy of his Civil War book. I thought it would make a better impression (i.e. lessen the odds of me doing/saying something awkward) if I had one of his books in hand for him to sign, so I made a detour to get it. Well, the lady at the booth was reluctant to sell it to me, so I had to guilt-trip her a little, giving her my breathless "butIgottahaveitsoIcanmeetKenBurnsandI'minabighurry,lady!!" explanation before she agreed to take my 5 bucks. Sheesh.

By the time I speed walked back to Baker & Taylor, he had disappeared (45 minutes before he was supposed to)! I got an apologetic shrug from the two B&T office drones manning the booth: "Uh, sorry--Mr. Burns is very busy, so, uh, he had to leave early. But maybe you can catch him--he just left right before you walked up..." They pointed vaguely. I considered that scenario for a minute: spotting Ken Burns from across the enormous, jam-packed showroom floor of the Washington National Convention Center, I could sprint the 200 yard distance towards where he is getting on the escalator to the equally-enormous lobby, dodging fragile Nancy Pearl wannabes, shoving tattooed teen lit enthusiasts and vaulting bookbag-laden oldsters on Rascals. I would catch up to him, maybe yelling out over the din of the crowd, and then demand that he sign the book (which isn't even one I have actually read).

I decided against it. (Moral of the story: if you are about to meet a celebrity just square your shoulders, feign normalcy and say something about admiring their work. It probably helps if you pretend to be about 60% as excited to meet them as you really are).

Anyway: it's a great night for baseball, so go get some, Americans!

Hey, Cincinnati fans: as of today the magic number for the Reds to clinch the NL central division is now down to 3! That means any combination of 3 losses by the Cardinals or wins for the Reds will cause something to happen that hasn't happened since 1995: the Reds will win something! They'll be in the playoffs, readers: the post-season!

As you can see, this calls for a candles-and-incense vigil to be held at the official Johnny Bench shrine here at MM HQ--the first time in 15 years that such ceremony has denoted legitimate hope (rather than fragrant, effigial denial). We'll keep the candles burning 24-hours-a-day this weekend, while the Reds are in San Diego, hopefully clinching the division title!

Go Reds!

Sanders Memoir Uncovered, 11 Herbs & Spices Still At Large

So I tend to find a lot of "gems" during the course of my job at the public library, many of which I've noted here before. But nothing piques my interest so much as a mysterious, out-of-print book concerning controversial hometown spectres--especially those who have achieved ubiquitous, world-wide iconography. I'm talking, of course, about "Colonel" Harland Sanders and his lost autobiography: Life As I Have Known it Has Been Finger Lickin' Good. Score! I was even more excited about it than I was that time I found a copy of Dave's Way lying around. You see, early American entrepreneurial ventures--along with their accompanying origin stories, secret histories & hidden meanings--are a regular pop culture Da Vinci Code that I find absorbingly interesting. In the realm of iconic fast food empires I think we can all agree that the Colonel is an Illuminati. A really folksy, maddeningly rambly, poorly edited Illuminati (seriously, it's like he got absolute, unmonitored editorial carte blanche on this thing--the Citizen Kane of shitty, tell-all memoirs).

Anyway, this one is truly remarkable in that I hadn't heard about it, which seems really surprising. I mean, I went out of my way once to visit the Colonel's grave (not very far out of my way, but still). It was published in 1974 by Creation House in Carol Stream, Illinois. I was pretty excited to dig into this lost treasure, but wow, it is proving a real challenge. This, for instance, is the first paragraph:

"Dadgummit! Ever since I was seventy-four and got paid two million dollars for my fried-chicken franchising business--that I started when I was sixty-five and was thinking about settling down with my social security check--folks has been hounding me to write my life story."

You find yourself saying the words in your head in a Yosemite Sam voice, punctuated by pistol fire sound effects and an occasional "YEE-HAW!" interjected. He goes on to brag about being on talk shows, in parades & on set for his tv commercials (a regular hillbilly jet-setter), & then he bitches about how hard it is to write things (I strongly suspect that this is what Going Rogue must be like...). That's pretty much the entire first chapter, if you can hack it that far. But as far as I can tell, he isn't giving up any real information concerning the underbelly of the chicken biz: the secret of the "famous recipe" is still well-kept (it is common knowledge here in Louisville--home of KFC HQ--that the original, hand-written recipe of the notorious 11 herbs & spices is kept hermetically sealed in a high-security vault, the only existing hard copy. Access to the vault is restricted to a select group of upper-level Freemasons, each of which has memorized a specific part of the recipe. Before their deaths, each selects a successor to pass on their part of the secret to, thus preserving the recipe and its perfect, unbroken line of hush-hushy-ness). So of course, the intrigue does not abate.

One other point of interest: look how serious everybody is in the cover photo! What must the Colonel be reading to that (surprisingly diverse) group of children? Those kids are downright gloomy--like the cruel chicken man just informed them that the world is really a cold, unfeeling meat grinder of cutthroat business deals, complicated franchising logistics & extra-crispy backstabbery. Santa Claus cannot possibly exist in such a morally ambiguous place, children--the Colonel is here to tell you that.

Pete Rose: Can He Get Any Scum-Baggier?

This story about the corked Pete Rose bats has broken recently, and I just don't know what to think about this guy anymore. Sheesh, I totally believed Pete for all those years he denied having gambled on baseball while he was managing the Reds. I loved him for his hustle (certainly not for his looks); he was scrappy, he was entertaining, and he was a colorful part of one of the best baseball teams of all times, so I always thought he deserved the benefit of the doubt and a place in the Hall of Fame.

Then he comes out and admits the whole gambling thing in a crummy, gossip-mongering tell-all book (guess he needed some cash). I was pretty much over him after that, but then the steroid scandal happened and I began to reconsider: yes, gambling on your team is scummy, for sure, but it's not nearly as bad as doping yourself into a Jolly Green Giant physique (Hello, Roid-ger Clements, Sammy Sosa, Mark Macguire, et al). And besides, I rationalized, he never did anything but try like hell to win, so it's not like he was betting against his own team and then taking a dive.

But now this. Jeeze, Peter, just when I was coming back around, too. Keep the bum out, I say. Just another reason to love Johnny Bench even more, I guess.

Bats Take 1st Game in Playoff Series

Readers, it was a great night for baseball yesterday at beautiful Louisville Slugger Field: the Bats defeated the Durham Bulls in the first of the 5 game series. Whoever comes out on top will own the title of best in the International League, and then get to go on to play the winners of the Pacific Northwest league next week.

It was looking a little bad at first: the Bulls scored two runs early and the Bats seemed a bit shaky. I have to admit, Durham is pretty sharp looking, both in their manner of play and in their uniforms: they are really the only team I've seen who actually all wear their socks/pants properly (i.e. knicker length, with visible socks/stockings covering the entire calf). I'm a little obsessed with men's hem lengths these days, both on and off the baseball field...is it just me, or do guys seem to have no idea how to wear their pants? And lest you think I'm treading fuddy-duddy territory here: I'm not strictly talking about the trend of "sagging," I'm just saying what's the appeal of having a big puddle of fabric around your ankles? It looks terrible generally, and in baseball it seems terribly un-athletic. Wouldn't they be more mobile and have a better range of motion if their pants didn't extend to their ankles? Marge Schott is probably rolling in her grave over the yards of wasted fabric billowing over Johnny Cueto's cleats. ha-rumph!

Anyway, you can read the play-by-play here, but check out that picture up there! nice seats, eh? And check out that ballpark! Easily the finest you'll see in the minor leagues, incorporating the original red brick facade of the old Louisville Gas & Electric Co. building, offering nice views and breeze from the Ohio river. And hey: that's real Ky bluegrass on the field--the original grass that was laid down in 2000, the year it opened (unusual since most ballparks re-sod before each new season). A beautiful evening and a very exciting game: lots of hits, a few homers, and steller pitching from our boys made for a good night out at the ballpark. My only complaint? Man, the $1 hotdogs were GODAWFUL! Buddy Bat was on his best behavior, so no drama there (although a couple rowdy fans did heckle the nearest umpire every time there was a close play by invoking the name of the recently-ejected mascot...this, unfortunately, elicited no response).

It seemed like most of the familiar names were absent from the lineup: the Reds apparently called many Bats up before the end-of-season deadline in order to use them for their own impeding playoffs. This meant, sadly, we had to do without the mustachioed majesty of perennial favorite Corky Miller. Oh, well--that might mean a post-season appearance for him in Cincinnati, which would be pretty great. Go, Porky!

And also: go Bats!