It isn’t supposed to happen anymore. When umpires blow a call in a blatant manner, justice is restored upon review. But a dreadful call robbing Yankee slugger Aaron Judge of a home run yesterday was upheld upon review. You be the Judge. No, I mean you be the judge.
Commentators were impressed with manager Aaron Boone’s eloquent response to the travesty. “The audacity of the call standing is remarkable.” It’s haiku-like, although the syllable pattern is 5-5-5 and not 5-7-5.
The audacity
Of the call standing
Is remarkable.
Something else happened during the game. Max “The Yid” Fried was on the mound and pitching a beaut. In fact, Max was pitching a no-hitter when the following play occurred in the sixth inning:
The batter for the Rays was Chandler Simpson, who was just called up from the minors over the weekend. He is extremely fast – perhaps the fastest runner in the majors. You can see in the play that Yankee first-bagger Goldschmidt clearly booted the ball. The official scorer ruled it an error, thus preserving the no-hitter. Max got through the sixth and seventh innings with the no-hitter intact. Cue the nail-biting music, right? Not right!
Although Max continued to pitch believing he was working on a no-hitter, the official scorer changed his ruling on the Simpson play from an error to a hit in between the seventh and eighth innings. He determined the runner would have beaten the throw to first even if it had been fielded cleanly. No one is arguing against it being ruled a hit. Max yielded a clean single in the eighth inning, so the no-hitter was gone either way. But the timing of the scoring reversal was criticized by some. Was it right for Max to go on believing he had a no-hitter for so long? Should the scorer have delayed the announcement of the reversal until after Max yielded the other hit? Max’s quote on the matter fell short of Boone’s “audacity.” “It is what it is,” he said.
When we reported on Max in Owl Chatter a while ago, he was dating U.S. soccer star Rose Lavelle. But they broke up (Max complained she never used her hands). Here’s his new babe, Reni Whalley-Meyer, a former volley ball star at USC. She’s met his folks.
In our You-Can’t-Make-This-Stuff-Up Department, it was just reported that Kristi Noem, head of our nation’s Homeland Security, had her bag stolen in a restaurant. (Not kidding.) Noem had her Homeland Security badge, passport, driver’s license, $3,000 in cash, checkbook, apartment keys, makeup and medication in the bag. [Medication? — maybe up the dosage? Just sayin’.)
Police are looking for a man around 30 years old, 6 feet tall, who is throwing around a lot of cash, flashing a Homeland Security badge, and wearing makeup.
Coulda happened to anyone, Babe — don’t let it get you down.
The puzzle today was nothing to sneeze at. Or maybe it was. The four theme answers ended in order in AH, AH, AH, CHOO, and 56A wrapped things up with GESUNDHEIT.
At 20A the clue was “Let’s go!” in Mexico, and the answer was ANDALE. It led to this note from commenter Barbara S.
ANDALE gave me an immediate flashback to Speedy Gonzalez: “¡ANDALE, ANDALE, Arriba, Arriba!” For those young enough not to know, Speedy was a cartoon mouse on television in the 1950s and 1960s. Wikipedia says:
Feeling that the character presented an offensive Mexican stereotype, Cartoon Network shelved Speedy’s films when it gained exclusive rights to broadcast them in 1999…However, the Hispanic-American rights organization League of United Latin American Citizens called Speedy a cultural icon, and thousands of users registered their support of the character on the hispaniconline.com message boards…Speedy Gonzales remained a popular character in Latin America. Many Hispanic people remembered him fondly as a quick-witted, heroic Mexican character who always got the best of his opponents, at a time when such positive depictions of Latin Americans were rare in popular entertainment.
Owl Chatter headquarters will be closed tonight for a special prayer meeting. Please, God — don’t let Pete Hegseth be fired. The man’s a national treasure. A gift that keeps giving, 24/7. We know he’s been careless with classified information and then lied about it not being classified. So what? Who hasn’t? And we know all the top officials at Defense have either quit or been fired by him (including a bunch he recently hired himself). Big fucking deal. Hands up if you agree he deserves another chance (or a couple more, actually).
Thanks, Joni!
Mark Roberts of the Dull Men’s Club (UK) posted: Just curious how long can a human stay awake for? I’m on 32hrs now, and had 3hrs sleep before. Looking at another 16hrs before I can finally settle down with a beer and sofa.
Here are some of the dullest of the 152 comments:
John Millward: Roughly 9 days of no sleep results in death apparently.
Avi Liveson: Apparently?
Pippa Squeak Morley: I hope you’re not driving in that state.
Avi Liveson: Or in New Jersey.
Pete Holder: Just tell her to hurry up or you’re going without her.
Tom Fisher: According to Guinness: 11 days and 25 minutes. Randy Gardner in 1963. No stimulants were used. He was 17 at the time.
Jem Giles: Guinness no longer keeps track since it’s dangerous to try. Wikipedia says the 11-day record was broken. The longest I could find is 18 days.
Andy S. Carvey: While filming Marathon Man, Dustin Hoffman stayed awake for days so that he’d look right for the part. Sir Laurence Olivier, his co-star, when told, said “You should try acting dear boy… It’s so much easier..”
Avi Liveson: I heard that when Hoffman asked Olivier what he would have done, Olivier said “I would have pretended.”
Bridget Butler: Please tell us why you are enduring this.
Mark: done a night shift, and the wife decided to lob herself down the stairs. So broken leg in 2 places, dislocated ankle, broken foot in 4 places.
Owl Chatter: Jeez Louise! Must have been one hell of a staircase.
Thanks for popping by. See you tomorrow!
The Wellington Files 