Don't eff with "The Sock"

Susan/Circle:
It's been said so well befoah but in light of recent events it's time to say it again, Baltimore is without a doubt the biggest bungholiest city in the entiah U S of A.

 

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Mike:
Absolutely. It's once again time to dig out the "My girlfriend went to Baltimore and all I got was this lousy STD" t-shirt.

 

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Susan/Circle:
You know, it's one thing to have doubts about Schilling's bloody sock, but it's quite anothah thing entiahly to straight up lie.

 

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Mike:
Belli ought to sue that whoah mongah Gary Thorne.

 

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Susan/Circle:
No kidding, even Rosie O'Donnell has better journalist standahds than this douchebag.

 

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Mike:
You know what's friggin sad? This tool is from New England, too, a Bangor native.

 

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Susan/Circle:
Senile old faht should stick to hockey.

 

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Mike:
I tell you, I'm not going to take this disgrace.

 

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Susan/Circle:
Me neithah. I'm gonna be like mace in his face all ovah myspace.

 

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Mike:
I'm gonna blog and text and post and hoax and podcast that bastahd's ass from coast to coast.

 

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Author's Notes:
The final two panels contain lines cribbed from the extremely funny Boston comic Liam Sullivan in the guise of "Kelly" from the song/skit "txt msg brkup" (lyrics, video, iTunes).

Comments

[Mike H]

Aw, don't mess with Baltimore. It has it's problems, but a lot of the statistic you cite are either biased, outdated or extremely subjective.

Charm city. Just because they filmed 'Homicide' and 'The Wire' here doesn't make that the way the whole city is. I did raise a kid here and there are a lot of ways to have fun.

I am in Baltimore watching the Red Sox series. Schilling was magnificent last night. I told Cora to hit that home run, he was waffling at the plate until I screamed at him to hit the ball. Then it was all Yard.

M

[Cyn]

First Johnny Pesky (Lee Mazzilli) and now Curt Schilling (Gary Thorne)?

Baltimore is dead to me.

[Rick V]

As Tony Montana said, "Bal-ti-more? Where tha'?"

[Matt L]

I was watching the game on MASN (MLB Package from Texas), and I couldn't effing believe what I heard. 'Belli? No way.

[Scott]

Best quote of the article:

Francona, who enjoys using Mirabelli as a foil, said: "What are you doing? Can you just play every five days and not talk?"

[Bob]

I might add, the bloody sock is in the Hall. It's faded to a dried-blood-brown. Does pant or magic marker do that?

In any case, the few qoutes I've seen from Thorne-in-our-side all say, "he 'fessed up to it after."

Meaning Dougie.

Has anyone seen a quote where Thorne-in-our-side says he was PERSONALLY told this by Doug?

[Matt]

Maybe thorne is trying to get out of baseball and back into hockey.

[Black Coffee In Bed]

Bring the sock in for DNA testing!

I'm with Theo: Gary Thorne is just noise.

[carlosq]

Hey LC, here's a quote from your boy Geffner on the whole sock thing:

"But there's a contingent of baseball watchers, including Red Sox Nation faithful, who wouldn't put it past Schilling to embellish the theatrics surrounding the management of this ankle problem.
"'It could have a little blood mixed in there, but we'll have to check it out with the trainer,'" Red Sox director of public information Glenn Geffner said.

[Aaron]

Hey, don't blame Maine for Gary Thorne. He had the bad sense to spurn the Motherland for the squalid depths of Maryland, so it's obvious he wasn't right to begin with and his heart was full of hate. We wash our hands of him.

[David Pinto]

I bash Thorne here:

http://www.baseballmusings.com/archives/020393.php

It's from personal experience.

[birthofasoxfan97]

I cannot believe today's strip covers this! Talk about a collective soul of of the Nation. I was rilly, rilly pissed at those guys before the sock comment. They were horrible at color and too biased even for the local guys. Then the sock deal. I spent 30 minutes online last night trying to uncover anywhere if that had ever even been rumored. No, of course not. What crap.

Personal aside - my only direct expeience with Maryland was late at night at an interstate IHOP. The waitress asked my sister and I if we were traveling and we said "Yes, we're driving to Texas." Her response was a smack of the gum and "You gotta get there tonight?" This still cracks us up.

[NV in SD]

My sentiments exactaly, Aaron.

[yazbread]

I'll speak to the defense of Baltimore having lived in College Park for several years. A great place to see a game - Camden Yards, Inner Harbor, Lexington Market, Federal Hill, etc. It is a fantastic place to watch a game. The food and drink in the park is great - puts a place like Wrigley to shame.

As for the Sox, I watched on MASN and heard the commentary - I thought I was out of touch and had missed the story, but evidently this was the first mention of it. Mike and Mike were rehashing the entire story this am.

So do some DNA testing. Bring in Barry Schreck. Odds of the blood belonging to someone other than Schilling - 1 in 65 million. About the same odds as the Cubs winning it all this year.

[beth]

anybody else feel like perhaps there's been a bit of an overreaction here? why is anyone even getting defensive over this, especially three years after the original, just-as-ridiculous sock-gate? this tired old crap doesn't deserve to be dignified with a DNA test etc. and frankly i think it makes us look like we feel we have something to be scared of if we all flip out over jackasses like thorne. belli and the team should demand a retraction definitely if he misquoted him, but as for calling for DNA tests on the sock--doesn't that mean we also doubt schilling?

[h.b.]

anybody else feel like perhaps there's been a bit of an overreaction
here?

Ah, I'm pretty sure people are being sarcastic as much as anything else.

I can speak for the characters and that is certainly the case. I'd thought the allusion to txt msg brkup would make it clear that Mike and Circle are just having fun with it.

Well, on second thought, let me further clarify. The characters do think Baltimore is a bunghole of a place, but they aren't really that upset with Gary Thorne.

Heh.

[louclinton]

Dude.

The Sock is the Holy Fucking Grail. I could say more, but it would blow up my spot.

[yazbread]

My comments were made tongue in cheek. Personally, I would rather that it was something other than blood. I would get a bigger kick out of knowing that the Sox played mind games with the MFY.

[TL]

Yazbread.......why all the Cub hate?

[yazbread]

No Cub hate - they just are a convenient foil. I work in Chicago and have observed their futility for years. I also get tired of listening about the charms of Wrigley - it is a dump compared to Fenway - and you are hard pressed to find a beer other than Old Style. But I will admit that I am curious as to how the new owners (assuming they are in place next year) will use the 100th year without a WS victory in a marketing campaign.

[birthofasoxfan97]

I reserve the right to overreact, get defensive, etc. at whatever suits me. Frankly, it's part of the fun, the drama, the highs and lows that baseball offers. If I wanted to be entertained in some sort of logic-based fashion, I'd go join Mensa.

[h.b.]

The thing about the Cubs, or rather their fans, for me is that they seem accepting of the role as loser.

When we Red Sox fans were in the same boat, yeah, some argued that losing was part of our identity or whatever, but we were never complacent were we?

No, we were nasty mofos. And still are.

[louclinton]

I have said it before, but it bears repeating:

Cub fans are partying with the team. Sox Fans think they are on the team.

lc

[TL]

My only trip to Fenway was in '94, but Wrigley is hardly a "dump" compared to Fenway. Not true on the Old Style, either. I do agree the ownership change will be interesting.

hb- Cub fans are in no way complacent.... the loveable loser is overblown by the media.

[Bob]

//My only trip to Fenway was in '94...//

You'd be pretty amazed at the improvments, TL.

[Bob]

BTW, from Edes Globe blog:

Dr. Bill Morgan, the orthopedist who performed the innovative procedure on Curt Schilling's ankle that allowed him to pitch in the 2004 postseason, was dumbfounded to learn that Orioles broadcaster Gary Thorne, citing Sox catcher Doug Mirabelli as his source, said the blood on Schilling's game socks were not real.

"C'mon," Morgan said today from the Fallon Clinic in Worcester, "we all know what the reality is. I don't know where that comes from.

"I drilled a whole bunch of holes in the guy's ankle when we put the sutures in, we put a dressing on them, and the blood soaked through the dressing. The sock is like a sponge. It doesn't take a whole lot of blood, but there's like a capillary effect.''

[Jason O.]

Cui Bono?

a) Mirabelli was being serious.
b) Thorne misinterpreted a joke told by Mirabelli.
c) Thorne understood the joke but is deliberately misrepresenting the statement as a non-joke.
d) conversation totally fabricated

What's the answer? C, boys and girls:

Even if Mirabelli knew the sock was fake, there's an overwhelmingly low probability that he would openly tell a member of the media...so he could be traced as the leak, thus ending his Red Sox career.

And there's virtually no probability that Thorne would hear a joke by Mirabelli about the sock's authenticity and not follow-up with clarification questions, thus eliminating B

Following the maxim that every lie is 80% truth, there's also a low probability that Thorne would totally fabricate the conversation.

So there you have it: C Thorne can now reduce the discussion to a he said/he said situation, no evidence necessary.

[Bob]

Once again, can anybody produce me a Thorne quote where he says he was actually told this by Doug?

I still haven't see one.

[yazbread]

Rather gracious of Dr. Bill Morgan to lend his name to the controversy given the manner in which the team dumped him.

[Bob]

That's why I believe him.

[COD]

well, Dr. Morgan does have some skin in this game. If there was no blood the next natural question would be to ask if Dr. Morgan really do the somewhat miraculous suture work that allowed Curt to pitch.

Any parent can tell you that it doesn't take much blood to produce that blood soaked look on an article of clothing. Been there, panicked, felt stupid afterwards :)

[Aaron]

How do we know The Greys didn't whisk Schill off and fix his ankle? The fact that he has no recollection of such an event is just more proof that it probably happened!

I mean, as long as we're talkin' comspiricah, might as well make it entertaining...

[beth]

h.b., yazbread, it wasn't so much your particular comments as the whole of the discussions i've heard today. some are being sarcastic, yes, but others are deadly serious--did you see the globe's spread on the issue? it also seems almost a foregone conclusion now that someone's going to DNA test the stupid sock. give me a damn break.

birthofasoxfan, spare me. i know what being a fan means. part of being a fan to me in this case means not dignifying a slanderous tempest in a teapot with a needlessly defensive response.

meanwhile, has thorne made any clarifying statement? at all? i still think he was either doing a poor job at being facetious or misunderstood something.

[birthofasoxfan97]

beth - why do you get to decide what's reasonable and what's not.

Oh - and bite me.

[soxdownunder]

In defence of Baltimore & its environs: they didn't change sides even when Lee's psychotic, misguided but ultimately noble army marched through (en route to Gettysburg) singing 'Oh Maryland.

And I hear the crab cakes are pretty good too.

[soxdownunder]

...and I wish youall could see the sunrise over Sydney this morning. Oh my!

[Bob]

Hey Soxdownunder, don't forget to post/email before you come over. We really do need to get a bunch of us together at the Baseball Tavern.

[soxdownunder]

No worries Bob, you can count on it. I've started to pack my bad collection of Red Seat T's already (no Kintees - sorry da Kine but you don't seem to post to the antipodes).

[soxdownunder]

... athough I am a little worried (after your recent experience) that I'll get booted out of Fenway for yelling ...

[Bob]

Heh. No worries. Hasn't happened yet, anyway.

Also, I've never seen that delightful couple at a game before.

And hopefully, I won't again.

[Kaz]

Gary Thorne is a douche. We can all agree on that. I saw the YouTube video of the call. He acted as if everybody knew it was fake to be the case and he was just rehashing old news.

But don't trash my hometown.

Baltimore: home of Cal, site of the National Anthem, purveyor of steamed blue crabs (keep the STD jokes in your pants, wiseasses), a multi-cultural mixing pot, the National Aquarium, one third of the Triple Crown of Horse Racing, the nation's capital at one time, Johnny Unitas' stomping grounds, innovative medicine at Johns Hopkins, and featuring the USS Constellation, sister ship to Boston's own USS Constitution.

If all of that (and more) can't overcome a 7 year old health report or a 6 year old laundry list of crime statistics (both of which are in decline now), then you're all gonna have to find me in person and tell me that Baltimore is a shit town. I don't do text message break-ups.

[Bob]

I always have a good time in Baltimore.

But I can still hate Thorne-in-our-side.

[Brian]

Any city that gave us The Wire is okay by me. Plus, they are home to Fenway South.

Still, my buddy's gf summed the city up best when she said, "The only thing I can say about Baltimore is that it's always between where I am, and where I want to be."

[h.b.]

Now that I know there's so much love for place, I'm going to turn the Baltimore trashing up to 11.

[PA Pesky]

Why don't they let Thorne in a booth with McCarver and bomb it...we would all be better off.
Don't be too hard on "Fenway South"
(C-Yahds) -- it's the only place a middle-class Pennsylvanian can afford to still see the Sox.

[Chris]

Baltimore's fine. At least it's honest. Did you at least tell David Rees you're ripping off his shit? http://www.mnftiu.cc/mnftiu.cc/war63.html

[h.b.]

David Rees is acknowledged in the About page.

Has been since the day this site when live.

But Baltimore still sucks.