New grandniece Maeven, aka (per mom) Potato head.
The Gnats snapped their losing streak at seven last night. Good to breathe again. They were down 4-1 to Atlanta going into the seventh, but plated two in the seventh and eighth and held on for dear life for a 5-4 win. Our good buddy closer Kyle Finnegan started off the ninth as usual by putting the leadoff batter on, via a hit, and a ground out moved him to second. Two scary good hitters were up next: Austin Riley and Marcel Ozuna, but KF struck Riley out and Ozuna flied out to right. Whew.
Next I caught the end of a thrilling Tiger-Bosox matchup. Now, you may be asking, how do I, who live in the NY region, have access to Washington and Detroit games? Well, I’ll tell you. It’s great. I uncharacteristically splurged on an MLB-TV subscription. I get to watch all MLB out-of-town games: all. And I can watch them when I want to, e.g., the Gnats play a day game today, but I can watch it tonight if I wish.
Anyway, I looked in on Detroit last night and watched briefly (and in horror) as they blew a 5-2 lead and Boston still had the bases loaded with only one out in the 7th when I fled in terror. When I returned much later, I opened up the game in the 8th inning and it was still 5-5 thanks to a double play ending the seventh. Yay. And in Detroit’s (home) ninth, something happened that I never saw before. Veteran fireballer Aroldis Chapman was on the mound for Boston. He walked the leadoff batter, Ibanez — a cardinal sin. The Tiger announcer noted Boston had removed its catcher Narvaez for some offensive reason and so had a lesser fielder at backstop. Sure enough, Ibanez took off to steal second and the catcher’s throw sailed into center field: Goodbye ball! After sliding into second, Ibanez jumped up and alertly took third. At that point, Boston challenged the call on unusual grounds. They claimed that when Ibanez got up from his slide at second, he was past second on the first base side by a step. And they said he failed to touch second again on his way to third. Clearly, if for some reason he had started running back to first after touching second and then reversed direction and headed towards third, he would have to touch second again on the way. That’s what Boston claimed he failed to do. But the call was upheld. The ump said Ibanez at no time turned to head back towards first, so he could continue on to third without again touching second. (Confused? Now you know how my students felt for all those years.)
Moving on, that put Ibanez on third with no outs as the tying run!! The game was in the bag, right? Except the batter struck out on the next pitch and the next batter popped out. Ouch. Now it would take a hit to bring Ibanez in. Molloy came in to pinch hit. Chapman was throwing hundred mile an hour blazers, one after another. You couldn’t see them, let alone hit them. But Molloy got a hold of one and drilled it solidly into the outfield for a hit — game over. Tigers win. Wow.
Lines from a poem we are not sharing:
The coasts ebb and forgo
iambic lines drafted in silt.
Plastic adds a climate of metaphor
that upends the couplet heroic.
Our style and culture consultant, Ana de Armas tells us she was featured in a Harper’s Bazaar story this week. She’s in town (NYC) publicizing her new adventure film in the John Wick series, Ballerina, with Keanu, but the story was about her jumping on what they called the “bra as top” trend. Kristen Stewart took the look in a sporty direction, and Doechii in a scholarly one. They described Ana’s approach as coquettish. Okay. Whatever.
Sheesh — tight security. Is that guy glued to you, Armas?
Favorite clue/answer from today’s puzzle: 52A “Call for delivery?” Answer: PUSH. (Think baby.) Also neat was how PUSH was crossed by UTERI at the U (“Baby carriers”).
And the weirdest/hardest: 1D “Small, clingy bristles on a gecko’s foot.” WTF??!! SETAE. (SRSLY.)
At 69A, the clue was “Any member in the group with the 1965 hit ‘Turn! Turn! Turn!’” and the answer was BYRD. Son Volt shared this tune of theirs with us.
My grandson Rafi got a pretty serious haircut. I guess it’s the short-hair look for the summer. I asked if his daddy gave it to him, and his brother Leon cut in and said a walrus gave it to him.
Who writes their material?
From The Onion:
U.S. Military Bans Men With Girl Names From Combat
WASHINGTON—In a move that significantly restricts the eligibility of thousands of American troops to fight for their country on the front lines, senior U.S. military officials announced Wednesday that all men with girl names would now be forbidden from serving in combat roles.
The ban, which goes into effect immediately, prohibits male personnel with clearly feminine names like Jamie, Sandy, and Alexis from serving in all artillery, infantry, and armored units. According to a Defense Department memo, the military is less effective as a fighting force when it deploys men named Francis, Sloan, Carol, or Loren in active conflict zones.
“For too long, we’ve sacrificed combat readiness in the name of inclusivity, ignoring the fact that there are innate differences between a Hank and a male Tracy,” said Gen. Doug H. Sandoval, who is a longtime opponent of men with girl names in the military and who worked with top appointed officials at the Pentagon to devise the new ban. “All these Shelleys and Dakotas are a liability. Imagine you’re in a heavy firefight, and your commander tells you to lay down cover fire for Casey. Your brain takes an extra moment to realize Casey is a man even though that’s a lady’s name, and in that split second of hesitation, your entire squad is overrun by the enemy.”
“Or suppose your special forces team is parachuting into hostile territory,” he continued. “Can you really order someone named Ashley to jump out of a plane? It defies common sense.”
The Pentagon confirmed that servicemen with girl names would be reassigned to noncombat roles and that their pay would be lower as a result, an outcome officials justified by arguing that men named Allison should not be the primary breadwinners in their household anyway. Some hardliners have suggested these men should not be in the armed forces at all, and should instead stay home to father the Johns and Harolds needed to fight America’s wars.
Some exceptions will reportedly be made on the basis of spelling, with men named Nicky, for example, being eligible for combat deployment so long as their name ends with a y instead of an i. A military spokesperson told reporters tabs will be kept on once-masculine names that are starting to become girly, the way Charlie and Riley seem to have lately.
“America must project strength to keep our adversaries in check, and we can’t do that with men named Taylor on the battlefield,” said Navy Vice Adm. Scott Rigby, observing that the soft consonants of unisex names like Sasha and Avery never sat right with him. “China will never take us seriously so long as we’re sending Leslies to enforce our interests abroad. And if Russia ever learned we let men named Dana pilot our fighter jets? Forget it. When it comes to soldiers, we need big, strong Chets, Mikes, and Jakes out there, full stop.”
President Trump signaled his personal approval of the ban in a post on Truth Social, writing: “Bye bye, Bailey. He’s got to leave the fighting to GUS!!!”
The ban has been met with fierce condemnation from many effeminately named male veterans, including Aubrey Hart of the advocacy group Man Enough to Fight, which plans to mount a legal challenge on behalf of 24-year-old Army sniper Mandy Wright.
“Just because a man is named Stacy or Carey doesn’t mean he can’t fight like a Brock or an Axel,” Hart said. “Back when I served, there may have been a few snickers the first time I introduced myself, but once I set my fellow soldiers straight about Aubrey being a perfectly normal thing for a boy to be called, my name was never a distraction. To suggest otherwise is an insult to me and all the male Aubreys who have bled and died for their nation.”
While congressional Republicans appear to have fallen in line behind the Trump administration’s support for the ban, one GOP lawmaker was willing to speak on the record against it.
“This is the most egregiously unfair, bigoted, and discriminatory policy I have ever encountered,” said the senator and Air Force veteran Lindsey Graham. “I won’t stand for it.”
In a recent post in the Dull Men’s Club (UK) a woman posted a photo of a loaf of bread in its plastic bag, but the bread was resting sideways. That is, instead of the top of the loaf coordinating with the lettering on the plastic bag, it was sideways. She was asking the members for advice on what to do.
One person accused her of taking the loaf out of the bag herself and reinserting it on its side! But the membership came to her defense strongly and chewed out the accuser. “How cruel can you be? Who hurt you?” The accuser defended himself by saying it should have been clear that he was just kidding. It’s possible — I couldn’t tell for sure. It would have helped, one person observed, if he had put a smiley emoji at the end of his note.
My favorite comment-with-reply came from one person who said: “What difference does it make if the bread is sideways?” To which the immediate reply was: “You’re new to this club, right?”
I would have shared the photo and much more with you — but when I went back to the club site seeking the post, it had disappeared! WTF!!
Alright, I think that’s enough nonsense for today. See you tomorrow. And until then remember – never let a walrus cut your hair!
The Wellington Files 