Doug:
OK, now that the Yankees have signed Russell Mahtin, can we officially call the hot stove season closed and move on to the execrable, plodding, watching icicles melt wait for Truck Day?
Bill:
Absolutely. I was nevah especially enthused by Mahtin anyway.
Bill:
No, I really think it was his name. I mean "Russell Mahtin" just doesn't have ballplayah ring to it.
Doug:
Seriously. Russell Mahtin sounds more like that guy at the car dealahship they send you to for the upsell.
Bill:
Heh. I can just see the trip to the mound:
"OK, this guy can't hit anything inside... And, today only, I've got a deal on rustproofing that only a fool would pass up. If I could just get your initials right here..."
Doug:
And I can't wait to hear Yankees fans try this one out:
"We didn't get Crawford. We didn't get Lee. But Russell Fucking Mahtin is in the House! Mystique and Aura, Bitches!"
Susan/Circle:
Seriously, dude, when I first saw that in my Google Red Sox alert I just assumed it was an Onion story.
Mike:
WTF. There's "truth is strangah than fiction" and then there's this.
Mike:
I mean C-Craw is so into the whole Puritan thing that he taped a passage from the first page of Plymouth Plantation inside his high school football helmet?
Susan/Circle:
And he can still quote it today!
Mike:
My nipples are hahd.
Susan/Circle:
Yeah, it's all tungsten tips ovah heah.
Doug:
Somebody call up Bob Cratchit and tell him to get Tiny Tim the fuck ovah to Yawkey Way because they're passing out enough holiday cheer to cure the rickets.
Doug:
7 years? Who the fuck cares about 7 years from now? I'm too busy making room on my DVD shelf for anothah World Series set.
Al:
Seriously, in 7 years we'll be crushed under the unsustainable weight of the national deficit, the Chinese will own MLB, and zombies will roam freely.
Doug:
Hey, just because Derek Jetah will turn 44 during the 2018 season, that's no reason to call him a zombie.
Doug:
And you've gotta love this sentiment: Theo and the gang outbid everyone for A-Gon and Crawford while the Yankees outbid themselves to sign a shortstop that everyone else would have offered $5mil for one year, oh, and with the provision that he moves to third or to the DH position.
Mike:
You guys are going to have to excuse me — I need to go call my doctah about an erection lasting longah than 4 hours.
Al:
Tom Brady doesn't hook up with fugs. And Tom Brady doesn't lose to the Jets.
Doug:
Attention, school is now in session and headmastah Bill Bellichick is..., er, headmastahring.
Mike:
Now that was what you call an old-fashioned ass whooping.
Doug:
Yeah, aftah a molestation like that, this morning some the Jets must be feeling dirty. (Sanchez?)
Al:
You know, as much as I love baseball, there is nothing quite like the anticipation and then delivery of a Monday Night gridiron thrashing.
Mike:
That's just it. As the guy on that Bill James panel said*, "Football is event programming," while baseball is something else altogethah, something daily, eternal...
Doug:
And you can't really compare one to othah, apples to oranges, kumquats to durians.
Mike:
And the truest statement of all?
"Baseball is absolutely nevah bettah in any era than it is when you are 10 years old. And when you are 10, baseball is perfect."
Al:
Which explains why we love it so much. We are each of us still 10-year olds at heart.
Doug:
Seriously. Heard any good faht jokes lately?
Al:
No, but there's this...
Tom Brady, Mahk Sanchez, and a donkey walk into a bah...
Mike:
Seriously. Jetah goes to the Red Sox and the next thing you know you wake up and find out Barack Obama and Sarah Palin have been secretly doing the nasty.
