Thursday, October 25, 2007


A Gnat Of A Theory





Professional sports. Tribalism for profit. Ho-hum.

Despite my indifference, useless bits of sports info manage to seep in and stay. For example, I know that one baseball team, the Yankees, didn’t make it into the final two spots this year. The team’s totem is a phallic wooden club shoved inside a top hat (another useless bit of sports info).

Totems are supposed to grant supernatural power to a tribe. Apparently the Yankee’s silly symbol served them well in the past but has lost its mojo. It’s piss poor magic when a totem can’t ward off the simplest of God’s creatures.

During the league playoffs gnats swarmed around the head of the Yankee pitcher, disturbing his concentration. The pitcher was covered with bug spray to keep the tiny devils away. But to no avail: the gnats kept swarming and the Wood-Phallus-In-Top-Hat team still lost.

So far no conspiracy theorists have come forth and speculated on what actually happened. That leaves the field wide open for me.

As science has progressed so have ways of cheating. Human growth hormone, anyone?

Maybe that rattled Yankee pitcher was the victim of scientific trickery, modern age mojo. Maybe someone sprayed his cap and uniform before the game with gnat pheromones.

Gnaturally, this is just crazy speculation, an idea way off base. But it’s more entertaining than sitting through a so-called “World” Series game (yawn).



(Photo: Amy Sancetta - Associated Press)

5 comments:

X. Dell said...

There was an article (I believe) published in Paranoia that deconstuted what the writer's belief that American football was an exercise in homoeroticism. I would suppose the giant bat outside Yankees Stadium would fit into that theme.

Off-topic, but what do you think of this?

Ray Palm (Ray X) said...

X Dell:

I followed the link to the Konformist post declaring that Greg Bishop is a CIA disinfo agent. One thing I've learned the hard way is to READ, not scan, a post. The clue, "H44B-Day" or "Happy 44th Birthday," plus how the post is so over-the-top in places, indicates to me a put on. Then again, I've had eXperience creating, not just reading, such bits. I try to play fair with my clues. For example, when writing about genetically modified animals, I throw in tip-offs like a scientist named "Jean Nettics" or a company called "G Spot."

Web surfing does promote scanning text quickly and moving on, but sometimes to have to slow down and smell the stinkweeds.

Ray

Ray Palm (Ray X) said...

That last sentence should have read:

"...sometimes you have to slow down and smell the stinkweeds."

Looks like I should also slow down and proofread my comments more carefully.

Ray

Doug said...

Not to quibble, but as one who has not completely dismissed the world of sport I know that the Yankees road uniforms do not include the noted phallic totem on them, so the power it might carry would not hold when they were in Cleveland (where the incident occurred).

Block letters ain't cutting it.


(And haven't you heard? Proofreading is un-American.)

Ray Palm (Ray X) said...

Doug:

Proofreading might be un-American, but writing typo-laden, grammatically challenged crap is un-natural for me. The time I don’t spend on sports is time I spend on trying to be concise, easy to read. Unlike Plattsburgh’s daily newspaper when it featured this front page headline: Bush Chosens AG Replacment (sic).

Ray