Almost Perfect

So this kid Scott Baker, righty with the Administrator's favorite .500 team, nearly threw a perfect game against the Royals.

For once, I actually saw part of the contest (referenced earlier by Ol' No. 7.) while mildly enjoying the sight of Ty Willingham's Huskies eviscerating the stupendously silly-looking Syracuse Orangemen. Then ESPN cut to Baker in the 8th inning. I watched him work over Alex Gordon for Gordon's third whiff on the night, bringing the inning to a close and the crowd to a standing roar.


I grabbed as many glimpses as I could--I was grilling steaks--right up through the end of perfection, a walk to John Buck. Then, when I was outside turning the meat (and also cooking dinner) my wife poked her head up to the screen right above me.

"Some guy named Sweeney fucked it up."

Some guy named Sweeney? The fucking Royals can't just suck, they have to exhibit the barest level of competency necessary to gag my chance at watching history. Naturally.

"Some guy named Sweeney fucked it up."

There's just nothing else to say.

In other news, apropos of supposed perfection...

Rodney Harrison was suspended by the NFL for the season's opening quarter because he admitted to using HGH to "speed up the healing process."

Now, now, you slavering pack of ghouls. I get it: those in grass houses shouldn't blow gnomes. But I can't help enjoying this one just a little. Partly because Rodney tortured us for years when he was in San Diego and partly because anything that takes the shine off the Sure Thing Super Bowl Champeens gives me the high-pitched giggles, Joe Gibbs style.

It may be petty. I'm willing to concede a little pettiness. And honestly, it's nothing against the Patriots' franchise. Before they became the ne plus ultra of footballian competence, the act against which all others would surely be found wanting, I kinda liked 'em. Long-suffering fanbase, funny helmets, horrifying Super Bowl losses. I could relate.

But these days,they might as well be the Niners or Cowboys from the mid-'90s, not just success-wise but media adulation-wise. And that attitude seeps, deep into the collective sporting consciousness, until normally reasonable people do things like take Randy Moss in the second round.

It's just madness. So I push back against the inexorable tide of success (some would say in my personal life as well) and root against, just like I rooted against those San Francisco and Dallas teams, just like I woulda rooted against Denver in the decade's heady latter days if I was, say, a Chiefs fan.

Shiver.