I believe you meant “Scrooge McDuck,” rather than “Darkwing Duck.” It’s been a while since I enjoyed “The Disney Afternoon” on TV, but I believe Scrooge was the character better suited to financially back the Mariners. Just making sure you have all your “Ducktales” characters in a row.
—Jake Piehl
True, Scrooge would shell out albatross contracts for Beltre and Sexson, but only Drake Mallard, whose ego always got the best of him, would be stubborn enough not to sign a midlevel pitcher to go along with his dual bling-blingers. And, unfortunately for the Mariners, there’s no Launchpad McQuack around to save them.
At the end of last year’s final column, you said that you are working on “The Heckling Prospectus.” However, you also mentioned that you are stalking Jose Lima’s wife, so I am wondering: Are you serious? Because that would be great. Only, please make sure your fans have a way of being notified of its publication.
Mike Simanoff
Funny little story about that Heckling Prospectus thingy:
I had finished heckles for about half of the entire league (the document was a tad over 60 pages, single-spaced) when I decided to put it on hold. It’s kind of tough writing about baseball during the offseason. I figured I’d pick things back up when the next season started.
Months later, my computer started having problems: Documents wouldn’t open; my Web browser kept failing in midpage; my Ad-aware program was returning over 1000 problems every time I ran it. My computer was fucked. It had more viruses than Tara Reid after her ill-advised altruistic venture into volunteer work at the National Virus Research Institute.
Long story short: I deleted my hard drive, forgot about saving the Prospectus, stared at my screen in disbelief for three days, killed 15 ants on a rage-infused finger-smashing spree, took three deep breaths, hunted another six ants, cried for three weeks, won $40 in poker, and got over it.
So now, with the season under way, I’ll get started on my second attempt.
The good side of the ordeal is that I can honestly say I learned a lesson: There’s no such thing as free porn. Even from the Internet. (There’s a joke in here about getting more viruses from Internet porn than actual person-on-person intercourse, but I won’t insult you with it just now. You’re welcome.)
On the subject of the Prospectus, reader Joe Chandler, offers a few solutions to my long-ago Bengie Molina heckle quandary:
Hey, Bengie! You hit like Jose.
Hey, Bengie! You hit like Yadier.
Hey, Bengie, it’s me, your brother Rick! I’m here with your brother [name of friend]! Your brother Roger just sold me a hot dog!
One down, 468 to go.
And finally, a brief history of Milwaukeean politics by reader Adam M. Krause:
In response to your NL preseason predictions of 3/24/05 as regards the Milwaukee Brewers …
Carlos Lee can make all the anti-Bush jokes that he wants, especially considering the simple fact that John Kerry had 71 percent of the votes here in Milwaukee County this past presidential election. Moreover, Milwaukee was the first city in the country to have a socialist mayor (1910 or ’12, I think) as well as the first to send a socialist to the U.S. House of Representatives (1910). Daniel Hoan (a socialist) was mayor from 1916 until 1940. It was (oddly enough) also the LAST city to have a socialist mayor: Frank Zeidler from 1944 until 1967 or ’68. So that means between 1910 and 1968 there was a socialist mayor here all but four years. Wow.
On a baseball-related note, Frank Zeidler was also the guy who spearheaded the building of County Stadium. And Robin Yount played there a bunch of times. That was pretty cool.
Milwaukee has a long and proud leftist past. You better recognize bitches!
Recognize bitches, indeed!