Wrong Way

Hello World, Happy April! I certainly do hope that the weather in your little corner of Paradise has improved by now, in fact, considerably so, if that needs to be the case. It has finally warmed up just a smidgen (please excuse the technical nomenclature there) in the local area, and even managed to stop snowing for the time being - although it must be said that there are still lumbering hulks of piled-up snowbanks on the edges of parking lots everywhere, serving as unwelcome and dismal reminders of a very long hard winter that untold millions of us would rather forget, believe me. After March roared out like a lion on Monday, April roared right in on Tuesday, and immediately started stirring up mischief. Anyone who was online that day in the wonderful wide world of cyberspace, might have noticed banner ads and pictures from the confectionary giant, Mars, for their new line of M&M candies flavored with bacon, of all things. (At our house, we file stories like this under the category of "This Is Why The Terrorists Hate Us," and with good reason.) To be fair, it turned out later that there is no such thing as bacon M&Ms, and it was just an April Fool's Day prank by their parent company, helped along its merry way by the billions of bystanders along the information superhighway, who posted and re-posted the bogus tidbit all over FaceBook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Tumblr, Instagram, Google Plus, Flickr, Yelp, and just about every blog that's out there in the wild blue yonder and even beyonder. It was actually pretty funny for a huge operation like Mars, especially given the whole bacon craze lately, and it certainly got everyone's attention all over the Internet, which is about the best kind of free publicity that anybody could ask for. Speaking of pranks, it may have been an early one that afflicted our church liturgy on March 30th, when the opening hymn was displayed on the projector screen as "Rejoice, O Pilgrim Thong," which unfortunately conjures up a whole host of unsavory connotations and unappealing mental images, try as hard as you might to ruthlessly suppress them a-borning, and I ought to know. One supposes that the errant slide was purportedly pointing us in the direction of an old standby in the Lutheran Book of Worship, which would be hymn #553 "Rejoice, O Pilgrim Throng," and never mentions underwear at any point, I can assure you. Like bacon M&Ms, some things are just not meant to be, and to say this is not one of them would be putting it mildly, Pilgrim. Meanwhile in sports, after years of trying to turn him into the face of their franchise, the New York Jets finally cut ties with quarterback Mark Sanchez, whose unpredictable ways after signing the biggest contract in team history, would make nobody forget the glory years of Joe Namath, or heck, even Vinny Testaverde. He was promptly snapped up by Philadelphia (and here I mean, the NFL Eagles, and not the Warriors, the legendary women's roller derby team of the same city, although I'm sure his size would be considered an asset to their efforts along the railing, I shouldn't wonder) and we can only go ahead and wish him more success with his new team than the way things turned out with Gang Green. For their part, the Jets management apparently went collectively insane, and somehow came up with the bone-headed decision to sign Michael Vick (formerly with Atlanta and Philadelphia, and once again, not the women's roller derby teams) as if that would miraculously solve all of their problems. Even die-hard Jets fans long resigned to decades of disappointment and failure, greeted this announcement with the stricken anguish of a drowning man who has been handed an anvil in the place of a life preserver, and I can't say that I blame them one bit. It should be interesting times ahead in the swamps of East Rutherford, and somewhere off in the netherworld, the evil spirit of Affirmed is having a great big laugh, I dare say. In other sports news, Opening Day for major league baseball was on Monday in many cities across the northern hemisphere, giving their loyal fans reason to cheer - if not that very day, at least with the hope of 160-odd other opportunities throughout the bright shiny new season unfolding before them. It came as an unwelcome surprise when the Mets and the Yankees both lost their openers in inauspicious fashion, with the hapless Mets going on to be swept by the Nationals, while the Yanks at least managed to salvage one win out of their inaugural series. Even at this early point in the season, only Detroit remains undefeated, although the LA Dodgers have the best record at 4-1 so far. It goes without saying that the hometown faithful can't help but hope this is not a harbinger of things to come, and that their pinstripe heroes will soon right the ship and start facing into the true course of glory days ahead. Of course, Da Bombers always manage to be in the thick of things, in spite of obstacles, and we can count on Derek Jeter's swan song season to be no different, if only for the sake of pride. On the other hand, while I would tend to dismiss the likelihood that the Mets record would wind up at 0-162 at the end of the year, I still can't say that I care for their chances all that much, considering that I have only ever heard of about a half-dozen of their current players, and 3 pitchers, out of the entire 40-man roster. Frankly, I wonder if it might not be a much better idea to cut their losses at this point, pick up the entire club and just go off and join the local women's roller derby league instead. You heard it here first, folks. On an unrelated baseball note, alert readers may recall a previous week, that mentioned former pitcher Tommy John, and the surgery named in his honor. Here's another little bit of tantalizing trivia on the subject: ================================== In the middle of the 1974 season, his record was 13-3 with the Dodgers before his elbow injury would require surgery that would keep him out for the entire 1975 season. Nobody expected him to be able to come back and pitch successfully after that, but he returned to the Dodgers in 1976, going 10-10 that year, which was considered "miraculous" at the time. In fact, he went on to pitch until 1989, winning 164 games after his surgery — forty more than his record before, and one fewer than all-time great Sandy Koufax won in his entire career. After Phil Niekro's retirement, John spent 1988 and 1989 as the oldest player in the major leagues, and set a record for most seasons played with 26 in his career. John decided it was time to call it quits in 1989, when Mark McGwire got two hits off him. McGwire's father was John's dentist. John said of his decision, "When your dentist's kid starts hitting you, it's time to retire!" ==================================== Ya gotta love it! On the local scene, Bill and I have been fighting our way back to the land of the living, after being reduced to germ-infested zombies for the past couple of weeks, and there are several hopeful indications of actual human-like characteristics resurfacing, that we had all but given up for lost. These would include not only taste and smell, hearing and the ability to focus on anything, but also getting out of bed and being able to move around like a normal modern person in the civilized world, not some clumsy prehistoric beast suddenly roused from its ancient slumbers, its motor skills too long out of use and creaking with age. Lately, whole minutes sometimes go by without coughing, and our runaway consumption of juice, lozenges, pain killers, and tissues has dropped off significantly, compared to the previous dark days. At this rate, I expect we should be back to some semblance of normality in another few weeks, barring any further setbacks, which will certainly be a welcome change, I can tell you that. Of course, I have no idea what we're going to do with the clumsy prehistoric beasts at that point, although I understand that the Mets are still looking for help in their bullpen, so it might not be a total loss after all. Failing that, I suppose there's always women's roller derby, but let's face it, that would be wrong on so many levels. Elle