Daily Archives: October 13, 2009

My wife came home tonight and after getting settled, she lay down on the couch next to me and stretched her right foot onto my lap and asked, “Do you mind rubbing it?”

She looked at me with those big, hazel eyes, smelling good even after a long day at work (how does that happen?). I smiled at her. Exactly how am I supposed to say “no” to that?

It’s not easy. So I said “yes,” and massaged her right foot.  And I busted on her, which is how things equal out. I do what she says but get to make fun of her in return. When I was done with her right foot she stuck the other one out and flexed her toes, which she does when she wants something or when she is inexplicably happy.

“You don’t want me to walk lopsided, do you?” Big eyes, big smile:

Man, I know how this chump must have felt. Blind-sided and completely overwhelmed. We don’t stand a chance.

And because you can never have too much bacon in your life, dig these yummy baconish recipes from the good peoples at Saveur.

Over at Fox Sports, our pal Dayn Perry has a preview of the ALCS and states the obvious:

“This one has the makings of a white-knuckled classic.”

Should be a blood bath, no? I just don’t see it lasting four or give games–this one seems destined to go six or seven, and is bound to take years off our lives.

I’m on a Pete Dexter jag. After reading his new book, Spooner, I tore through Paris Trout (his masterpiece), The Paperboy, and Brotherly Love. It might not be wise to load-up on such a concentrated dose of anyone as powerful, and disturbing as Dexter, but it’s my nature–I can’t help but diving in head first.

It’s like watching Mad Men or The Sopranos on DVD. There is something unnatural about ripping through shows back-t0-back without the suspense of having to wait a week for the next episode. You lose something without the anticipation, the time to mull things over. But if the show grabs you, how do you stop?

If you are a glutton, you don’t.  And so I’m going to read the rest of Dexter’s novels–Deadwood, God’s Pocket, and Train, whether it is healthy or not.  I’m enjoying myself too much to stop now, though I’m taking a week off before I start God’s Pocket.

Back in 2003, Sports Illustrated ran a long excerpt from Train, a story about a black kid caddying at a country club in Post War Los Angeles.

Worth checking out cause Dexter is a sheer pleasure to read:

The fat man couldn’t turn it loose. Got the sun in the sky, birds in the trees, shine on his shoes—everything a gentleman need but two wives and a death wish, as the old saying went—but he still just stood there froze over the ball, the seconds ticking away, like somebody couldn’t pee for the nurse.

And yellow pants, speaking of urination.

The boy was a few steps behind the fat man and to the side, carrying his bag. He’d been standing by watching half the morning, and there was something about the fat man he still couldn’t place. Something familiar that reminded him of something else. The boy waited for the connection to come, not trying to hurry it along.

Connections came to him all the time—people to things and things to people, things to each other, surprises and amusedments out of the thin air—it wasn’t anything he did to cause it, and sometimes, like now, he knew one was there before he knew what it was.

And sometimes, of course, it turned out to be a surprise but not no amusedment at all.

Well, why wouldn’t he be smiling?

Over at the Post, Mike Vaccaro has a piece about one Mike Sciocsia:

He has been a menace to us for damn near 30 years now, the thorn in our side, the cloud in our coffee, the bee in our bonnet, the fly in our ointment, the clouds on our sunny day. He has been our nemesis, our arch-enemy, our tormentor, our antagonist and our antagonizer. He inflicts misery for sport. He is a serial baseball sadist.

He is Mike Scioscia, from Upper Darby, Pa., by way of Hell.

And he will soon be back on our doorstep, back within our borders, back with a mission to continue his reign of terror. He is one of the nightmares that keep coming back. There is the one where you are falling, with no floor in sight. There is the one where you show up for a final exam in a class you haven’t once attended all semester. And there is the one where Mike Scioscia walks into a New York baseball October.

Hi there boys and girls.  I’m not really 100% recovered from a really kick-butt upper respiratory virus, but I’m decent-enough.  (Daytime is OK … nighttime is a cough-fest).  Don’t know if I’m back full-time this week, but I’ll try.  But anyway, today’s news is powered by Basil Fawlty (aka John Cleese):

• The Bombers know they will be in for a fight with the Angels:

“We are going to have a nasty series,” Andy Pettitte said after his 4-1 victory on Sunday, which clinched a division series sweep of the Minnesota Twins. “It’s going to be a war with us and the Angels, but we are looking forward to it.”

The Angels clinched a spot in the American League Championship Series by completing their sweep of the Red Sox in Boston before the Yankees took batting practice at the Metrodome on Sunday. Some of the Yankees watched the game in their clubhouse, impressed but not surprised at the Angels’ ninth-inning comeback.

“There’s no quit in the Angels,” Johnny Damon said. “We see that when we play them.”

…“What makes them tough is they hit, they pitch, they run, they steal, they play defense, good bullpen, good closer, good manager,” Derek Jeter said. “I think that pretty much wraps it up.”

• Ron Gardenhire admires the Bombers:

“They just keep running great hitters at you,” Gardenhire said. “That’s why you end up having to make pitching moves. Change, change, change, because they are so dangerous that you just try to finagle your way through it half the time.”

Once Gardenhire started praising the Yankees, he did not stop.

“It’s a great baseball team,” Gardenhire said. “They deserve all the accolades. They have got a great bullpen. Those guys come out there firing. Bench. The whole package. They’ve got the whole package, they’ve got the whole deal, and they have got some of the classiest players in the league out there, guys I really enjoy watching play.”

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