Ever feel lucky? Maybe when looking for a parking spot? Throwing money out on a lottery ticket? Josh George said he used up all of the luck for his life on Monday at a Royals/Mariners game in Seattle. You hear about this?
It was a normal-sized crowd for a Monday — 15,000 fans. And, in fact, George was packed in with quite a few others in his section down the left field line. Maybe there was some karma at play because the batter was also named Josh: Josh Rojas. Brady Singer was on the mound and there was nothing at all unusual at play when Rojas sent a foul ball sailing out to left. Josh George made a damn good play on it — reaching out, snaring it, and bringing it in to his chest. He was thrilled and held the ball up to show it off. Who wouldn’t?
Singer was tossed a new ball and Rojas resettled himself into the batter’s box. He fouled the next pitch off too, also down the left field line, and OMG — pretty much to the same spot. George didn’t catch this one on the fly, but it hit his arm, and fell to the ground. He bent over and got it. Two foul balls on two consecutive pitches. Jesus F*cking Christ!
According to a report by Josh Kirshenbaum for MLB.com — OMG — another Josh! — this is starting to freak me out — George was invited back to the stadium the next night where he arrived wearing the same teal Mariners jersey and navy Seattle Kraken cap that is apparently the luckiest outfit in the Pacific Northwest.
Rojas autographed the two balls for him, and he was given the honor of throwing out the first pitch. Actually — the first two pitches! — how cool is that?
Special thanks to Owl Chatter reader villawash for a correction to yesterday’s post. It originally went out stating that the Doc was holding a cicada — but it’s not a cicada! Not sure what it is? A butterfly? Here’s a cicada, on its upward climb:
This poem is a little long, but what else are you going to do with your time? Seriously. It’s by Denise Duhamel and is called “I Have Slept in Many Places.” It’s the Poem of the Day from the Poetry Foundation.
After Diane Seuss
First in the womb, my own space capsule
in my mother’s universe, my eyelids sticky with pre-birth,
then the incubator and crib, which I didn’t recognize
as a prison until years later when my sister stood inside it
and I, rising from my first big-girl bed, unlatched her
because she was hungry for breakfast. Then my grammy’s
four-poster, kiddie sleeping bag, the hospital bed,
where I was hoarse after I relinquished my tonsils. A mat
during kindergarten naptime, the backseat of my mother’s car,
another hospital bed with silver bars on the side
where I wrote my first stories. The double bed I shared
with my sister when our twins gave out. A college dorm
mattress with another girl’s period stain, a damp study-abroad
bed in Wales, Eurail seats where I could sleep overnight
and save money on a hostel if I picked the right schedule.
Hostel bunk beds with bathrooms down the hall. A friend’s
waterbed, another friend’s bed on her father’s boat.
Then my cousin’s hand-me-down mattress
in my first apartment in Boston, a boyfriend’s bed
in Revere, a bed of another boy hoping to make
my Revere boyfriend jealous. Sublet beds,
a bed in a furnished studio apartment in Tucson
where there was no way of knowing who’d slept on it
before me. Futon in the East Village right on the floor.
Same futon on a used loft bed to suspend me above the mice.
Then a lavender pullout Mary Richards couch.
Vacation beds, hotel beds. More boyfriend beds
in Brooklyn and Alphabet City. Hotel beds.
Florida marital bed and another hospital bed—
this time surgery. Divorce bed (same as marital bed
with mattress flipped for good luck). Evacuation beds
during hurricanes. My true-love’s bed with its magic
mattress topper. I know I am forgetting so many places—
subways, lounge chairs in the sand, Amtrak seats,
movie theaters, hammocks, my niece’s college graduation
(I had taken a Vicodin), conference beds, beds at colleges
or hotels after I’d given poetry readings, emergency row
plane seats, on my mother’s breast when I was an
infant, in my father’s arms after a childhood asthma attack.
My parents’ bed after their deaths. I’m heading
for the hard coffin bed myself, my eyes sewn shut
against insomnia. I’ve asked the undertaker
to press glow-in-the-dark stars inside the lid.
The puzzle today might have been neat if it were your birthday. The theme was Happy B-Day! There were four long answers with at least 3 Bs in them. The best was clued well with “Brewer’s implement.” Answer: BASEBALL BAT. But I hadn’t even noticed the best part — every single clue started with the letter B. It was impressive that the constructor could accomplish that in a way that did not call attention to itself. It would have been “cleaner” had there been no other Bs in the grid (other than the ones used for the theme), but there were several scattered about.
Caitlin Clark scored 20 in her debut, but the team lost pretty badly, her shooting wasn’t crisp, and she had a lot of turnovers. Inauspicious, but so what? She’s great. It’ll work out.
See you tomorrow.
The Wellington Files 