Both the Mets and Yankees may lose sluggers to free agency this winter: Pete Alonso and Juan Soto. Gnat fans will be forever grateful to JS for his brilliant 2019 season culminating in the great WS win against the hated Astros. In the regular season that year, Soto both drove in and scored 110 runs, and batted .282 with 34 dingers. In the WS against the ‘Stros, he hit 3 homers and drove in 7 runs, batting .333. That works out to 69.4 homers and 162 RBI over a full season. He has been quite clear that every team has an equal shot at landing him. He was asked if it has sunk in that he will be signing a contract for $500 million or more. He has a nice smile. He said: “It’s been on my mind for a while now.”
As for Alonso, the Mets are pulling out all the stops. They even have the Pope working on it. Hmmmm — I hope he doesn’t become a Cardinal. (Soto was a Padre.) Owl Chatter photographer Phil got this nice shot of Pete’s pretty wife Haley joking with the Pontiff about the Church’s child sex abuse scandal.
This poem from today’s Writer’s Almanac is by C.K. Williams. He was born on this date in 1936 in Newark NJ, and died nine years ago at age 78 in Hopewell NJ. His father introduced him to poetry. He loved to read to him from One Hundred and One Famous Poems. Williams went to HS in Maplewood, NJ, and college at Bucknell and UPenn. He taught creative writing at a bunch of schools, including Princeton University and Brooklyn College. It’s called “Droplets.”
Even when the rain falls relatively hard,
only one leaf at a time of the little tree
you planted on the balcony last year,
then another leaf at its time, and one more,
is set trembling by the constant droplets,
but the rain, the clouds flocked over the city,
you at the piano inside, your hesitant music
mingling with the din of the downpour,
the gush of rivulets loosed from the eaves,
the iron railings and flowing gutters,
all of it fuses in me with such intensity
that I can’t help wondering why my longing
to live forever has so abated that it hardly
comes to me anymore, and never as it did,
as regret for what I might not live to live,
but rather as a layering of instants like this,
transient as the mist drawn from the rooftops,
yet emphatic as any note of the nocturne
you practice, and, the storm faltering, fading
into its own radiant passing, you practice again.
Ever since I looked up a recipe for something online, I receive roughly ten recipes by email every day for various dishes. Some I make and are pretty good. I just received one from Recipe Rush and originally read the subject line as Human Chicken. Upon a second look, it says Hunan Chicken.
It’s not an easy life.
If you are going to be a humorist, you could do worse than be born in Oologah OK. That’s where Will Rogers was born on this date in 1879. He was the last of eight children and never graduated from HS. He once said: “There is no credit to being a comedian, when you have the whole government working for you. All you have to do is report the facts. I don’t even have to exaggerate.”
He had no idea.
One of the Commentariat on Rex’s blog told us he’s turning 60 today. So I posted this in his honor:
Happy 60th GJ. Here’s a joke about old men.
So old Abe Goldstein is 96 and he’s marrying young, curvaceous Cindy Markowitz who is 23. Abe’s at the doc for a checkup and the doc says, Mazel Tov on the marriage, Abe. Cindy seems like a wonderful girl. But, as your doctor, I must warn you that intense sexual activity places a heavy strain on the heart and in some cases can even cause death.
Abe leans back on the examining table, sighs, and says “Doc. I’ve lived a wonderful happy life. If she dies, she dies.”
The front page of the NYT sports section today assures us that women’s college basketball will not skip a beat this year, despite losing Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese to the pros. Paige Bueckers (UConn) and JuJu Watkins (USC) are poised to take their place. Paige is through-the-roof gorgeous and has already dipped her toesies into the fashion world in a front row seat at last year’s New York Fashion Week events. Here she is in her two guises. Case closed.
Paige is from Minnesota. She is a Christian and attributes her confidence and success on the basketball court to God. Yeah, whatever. She has voiced support for the Black Lives Matter movement, in part because her half-brother, Drew, whom she has described as her best friend, is biracial. She devoted her award speech at the ESPYs to highlighting the unfair lack of media attention paid to Black women athletes. So — droolingly gorgeous and a mensch.
TIL that “noggin, in slang” is NOB. Commenter Andy reminds us it appears in the second verse of Jack and Jill.
Up Jack got and off did trot
As fast as he could caper
To old Dame Dob, who patched his NOB
With vinegar and brown paper.
OK, thanks.
Much ADO About Nothing was in the puzzle too. It inspired Rex to share this song with that title with us. It’s by Waxahatchee, Katie Crutchfield’s band.
We’ll let Katie’s pretty voice send us off today. Thanks for popping in!
The Wellington Files 