My default setting is a cynicism so calcified that if you tried to cut it with a diamond-edged saw the saw would stick and you need to send down a pair of giant shears to retrieve it. But I have to say, watching the denouement of the Armando Galarraga/Jim Joyce episode (umpire Joyce's botched call robbed Galarraga of a perfect game) yesterday, seeing Joyce fail to choke back his tears, thinking about the remarkably classy way the characters in this drama have handled this situation... for a brief second I was able to remember a time when I wasn't suspicious of everyone and their motives. Thank God Galarraga got a Corvette out of the whole deal; it keeps me from being stuck on sincere. But still, that moment when I felt that swelling in my chest and could honestly believe that people are basically good and want to do the right thing and will own up to their failures and accept and forgive the failures of others when they happen? That was pretty nice too. Sports, man. No wonder it's the only place in which dudes can express their emotions.
Friday, June 4, 2010
19

Tom Hanks, wrong again.
Balk spreads tears like a pox. Sniff.
Remember when RoboCop played for the Tigers? Good times. Make way for Delta City!
This made me cry.
This one time, in a softball league I play in for old drunk people, the opposing pitcher was so upset with the ball and strike calls from the umpire that he stormed off the field in tears. Everyone laughed.
Oh, wait, that might be the opposite of what you're talking about here.
FWIW, I was at Fenway yesterday afternoon. Replay worked perfectly during the 8th inning Scutaro homerun examination. Let's hope all this emotion spurs a feeling in Selig to expand the system.
Perfect games also occur more frequently in baseball than in life.
Jocks crying over spoilt games always makes me laugh like Butthead. I guess that's why I was never a very good Jock.
Jim Joyce would like a Corvette too please.
That chest swelling was just the Double Down you had for breakfast.
Having watched this video repeatedly, it still makes me weepy. However, it's amazing that two grown men acting like adults is so rare that it's nationally recognized and celebrated as the 'good news' of the day.
Can't watch video here, but "yes."
The pub is the other place where dudes can express emotion, especially late in the evening after lots of beer. I know I was prone to the odd "I love you, mate" in that situation.
It was amazing.
Isn't this the kind of thing that gets you into ill-advised bets with Will Leitch?
Their names will forever be entwined. I can see them now, many years hence, icing eachother unexpectedly in the parking lot of the Jupiter Fudrucker's, Galarraga on his way in to the early bird, Joyce on his smoke break.
Now *that* makes me weep.
"Sports, man. No wonder it's the only place in which dudes can express their emotions."
Says the man who cries ON THE SIDEWALK AND IN CABS FOR, LIKE, NO REASON. Pfft.
I bet Jim Joyce looks really good in a jean jacket.