The Daily Dose/July 30, 2020
By Gaylon Kent
America’s Funniest Guy
Leading Off
Notes from our human experience.
GOOD NEWS, BAD NEWS: On the one hand, the Miami Marlins are the only major league baseball team with positive coronavirus tests. No one knows why 16 players and two coaches have come down with it yet, but for the purposes of this drivel it’s not particularly important. Both the Marlins and the Philadelphia Phillies, the team the Marlins last played against, aren’t playing this week and that could cause problems.
Dry, Technical Matter: Right now the games are postponed, though they may well be canceled.
Fly In The Ointment: The consequences of canceled games could be immense, especially if other teams end up missing games, too. This doesn’t come up too often here in America, but part of the deal with professional leagues is you play all your games, under established rules officiated by league representatives.
Listen Up: You cannot have a legitimate World Series champion with some teams playing all scheduled games and some teams not because this does not constitute a legitimate major league championship season. America’s first professional baseball league, the National Association (1871-1875) is generally denied major league status for this very reason.
We don’t like to critique without offering a solution, so here’s what we propose to MLB: play as many games as you can and hold a postseason but set the term World Series aside for a year. This season has been and will continue to be whacky enough and we don’t think the playoff winner is entitled to be called a World Series champion.
The Bottom Line: Of course, as a professional league conducting what season you can, you should crown a champion, but call the final round the Major League Baseball Championship Series or something similar. Hell, since no fans means this season is nothing more than a money grab anyway, sell the naming rights. You can even expand the playoffs to include everyone and conduct collegiate-style regionals. Today’s fans will understand and so will future generations and the World Series will thank you, too. It deserves better than whatever comes out of this year.
Today At The Site
Writing worth reading. Usually.
The Diary of a Nobody: Whining guests. Today’s Diary.
People whined about our modest breakfast offering left and right this morning…First, 227 calls about 0620 wondering what time breakfast started…In about ten minutes, I told her…She asked what there was and I said some cereal, muffins, fruit and juice and she makes a sound not particularly consistent with pleasure and asks what, no bacon or eggs or oatmeal???…No, ma’am, I’m sorry, none of those things and she hung up without saying anything else.
Then I was in the back office when I heard a couple of guys whining about it…One guy wondered if this was all there was and apparently his buddy said yeah and his tone indicated he wasn’t too thrilled with this fact, either…Later, I went out to the front desk and a guy asked where he could get a real breakfast and I suggested a couple of places in town.
Backstairs at the Monte Carlo: Twerp and Gaylon respond to some pot smoking in the hotel.
Swing shift would’ve had these reprobates on their ear quicker than you can say “welfare check”, but, again, we’re pretty mellow here on graveyard, probably because of all the secondhand pot smoke we breathe. I asked if we could come in and she said sure and I said, almost apologetically, look, we’ve had some complaints about people smoking grass in this room.
The lady nodded vigorously, like someone who had gotten caught and was merely waiting to see what the penance was going to be. We both knew they were in as much trouble as I wanted to make for them.
Click here for the first two months of complimentary entries.
Criminals, Courtesans and Constables: Chapter 2: Our hero goes to work for The Firm and eventually one of his side rackets gets him nicked. – Offered with our compliments.
It was almost funny: two decades of never earning an honest pound and I finally get hooked up not in a heroic blaze of glory but because someone sniveled. Go figure. I started out in the dock, but the evidence was more compelling than my verbal denials and I eventually pled guilty for a lesser sentence.
On This Date
History’s long march to today.
In 1618 – The first legislature in the Colonies meets, when the Virginia General Assembly holds its first meeting in Jamestown. It was a single body made up of Governor Sir George Yeardley, his four councilors and 22 burgesses elected by free, white males. In addition to legislative duties attending to the needs of free white males, the body served judiciary functions, as well. The body became bicameral in 1642 and retains the same name today. The first session lasted until Aug 4 and the group met in the choir area and chancel of the Jamestown church.
In 1930 – Uruguay wins soccer’s first World Cup, defeating Argentina 4-2 in the final match in Montevideo, the Uruguayan capital. Argentina led 2-1 at halftime, but Uruguay tied it at the 57-minute mark and took the lead eleven minutes later before adding the final goal in the last minute. It remains the only time Uruguay has hosted the tournament and was their first of two titles (1950). The game was a rematch of the 1928 Olympic final, also won by Uruguay.
In 1966 – The Troggs are at #1 on Billboard’s Hot 100 for the first of two consecutive weeks with Wild Thing. The song had debuted in the Top 40 at #6 three weeks earlier and spent two weeks in the runner-up spot before ascending to the top. Wild Thing also went to #1 in New Zealand and peaked at #2 in Great Britain and versions of the song by Senator Bobby (#20, 1967) and Fancy (#14, 1974) also hit the Hot 100.
Quotebook
The wisdom of the ages. Whatever.
I was still attached to every pleasurable thing in this world, and that sort of attachment is the cause of pain…- Gore Vidal, Creation
Answer To The Last Trivia Question
It’s not who you know, but what you know.
The Boston Red Sox have had the most players hit two grand slams in a game, four: Jim Tabor (1939), Rudy York (1946), Nomar Garciaparra (1999) and Bill Mueller (2003).
Today’s Stumper
Cheaper than Trivia Night at the bar.
Which South American countries have hosted the World Cup? – Answer next time!
