There are No Small Positions Only Short Players

The Los Angeles Dodgers celebrated their 50th anniversary of their move west by holding an exhibition game in the LA Coliseum, with over 100,000 in attendance. Luckily, I did not attend this game because the sheer volume of the crowd would make me want to provoke the nearest gang member, probably by saying something derogatory about his mother, in hopes that he would shoot me dead on the spot, just to escape the madness. Instead, the Farklepants family cheered on Boy-Child#2 and his Dodgers in their pre-season opener against their hometown rivals, the Angels. The Angels kicked our ass. We were spanked. Boy-Child#2 did well, despite striking out. Twice. And flubbing a play at third base. He handled all three scenarios with grace and dignity by embracing his inner poor sport. He inherits his borderline unhealthy competitive streak from Yours Truly. Post-game we pulled him aside and took the opportunity to discuss sportsmanship and learning from our mistakes. And sucking it up. And/or shaking it off. And not to beat the ground into submission with your $70 bat. And that there's no pouting in baseball softball.

The coach was moderately successful in keeping the boys in line and delivered inspirational pep talks. Until this guy showed up:


The umpire [who will be played by Bernie Mac with a smattering of James Earl Jones] whipped the rascals into submission because that was about all the lip he was gonna have. And? Because, DARTH VADAR. But way funnier. The boys are still working on their ability to grasp subtle humor that is delivered particularly dry served with a dash of Sahara. They weren't able to determine if BernieMacJamesEarlJones was serious or not, so they erred on the side of extreme caution. But dudes? Totally hilarious. YOU? Should have been there.

We return now to the world of Major League Baseball: The word of the evening was "Knuckleballer", which Vin Scully said approximately just shy of a million times. At first we were titillated at the prospect of a new drinking game. One shot for every knuckleballer. But quickly realized that one of us would probably end up in an alcohol induced coma and neither of us wants to be in the rather difficult position of pulling each other's life support plug. Vin Scully pontificated that DeWitt might be in over his head when it comes to batting major league pitches, and that he was batting a 208; which in my estimation means - well I'm not exactly sure what it means- but his tone suggested that it wasn't good.

The MLB Dodgers, not to be outdone by the local parks and rec's Dodgers, also took a sound beating. Because in the end, just like the local parks and rec's Angles, the MLB Red Sox just wanted it more.