David Roth: Do you think VH1 is ready for "Baseball Wives" as a spinoff of "Basketball Wives"?

David Raposa: Do you think Jerry Seinfeld asked the world if it was ready for "The Marriage Ref"?

David Roth: He only asks rhetorical questions, but you're right. I am picturing the same level of heated incoherence and wine-faced ill will as "Basketball Wives," definitely the same turn-back-the-clock-on-gender-perceptions vibe. But everyone wears eye-black in the opening credits and it is set in Boston. And the cast is someone who divorced Bill Mueller back in 2003, Curt Schilling's wife, a kind of trampy lady who says she dated Mark Bellhorn, and a diva [...]

What do Awl pals Eric Freeman, David Roth and Bethlehem Shoals have in common? Well, they're Awl pals. But also this.

David Roth: Hello! I am watching the suddenly unstoppable Mets offense bludgeon the Tigers bullpen.

David Raposa: I saw! It looked like every button Leyland tried to push turned out to be either the dashboard lighter or the ejector seat.

David Roth: I don't even know how to act when the Mets are playing like this. It's not helping the unreality factor that everyone in the Tigers pen has a name out of a Pynchon novel. Charles Furbush and Al Albuquerque, debating quantum physics in a punny way or whatever.

David Roth: Also for some reason, every Tigers game I watch features really audible hecklers. Some guy just gave [...]

David Roth: Did you just see the ad for the prescription trigylceride medication with the line "side effects include burping?" Oh no, you didn't, it was on the Mets game. You're not watching the Mets game. You are so smart.

David Raposa: I thought gas was a natural Mets by-product

David Roth: Side effects of watching the Mets include sob-burping (or sobburping) as well as misery-bloat, teary eyes, perineal fenestration and perforated headaches.

David Raposa: Goddamn that Carlos Beltran.

David Roth: He's only 65 to 70 percent as ridiculously over-blamed as he used to be.

David Raposa: He should try to hit more five-run homers. Do you [...]

Don’t ask how we got this. It’s not important how we got this. But here’s how we got this: Despite his photographic-negative-with-sunglasses-on-the-back-of-his-head aesthetic, celebrity chef, startlingly discomfiting physical presence and “Minute To Win It” host Guy Fieri is, it turns out, an Awl reader. After Jeff Johnson and I discussed a speculative obesity-enhancement device known as a “sauce wash” in this Yakkin’ About Football chat, Fieri’s lawyers called us to see if we had patented the invention. Long story short, we’ve all now got plenty of those Quiznos's dollars to spend, and I blow the occasional weekend riding around in Guy’s classic Dodge Charger, watching him get gravy [...]

Baseball: it is slow, and sometimes you see sexagenarians, who are not necessarily in shape, walking around in pinstriped uniforms otherwise worn by guys several decades younger. It is drowsy and arcane and there are bro-tats and shark's tooth necklaces and action-less stretches that stretch towards the 45-minute mark. It is during one of these stretches—dudes just kind of milling around, a concerned and mustachioed old grump trotting arthritically towards the mound, the broadcasters maybe a bit tipsy or maybe not—that you should probably imagine the maunderings to follow occurring. Pretend we're some place that smells like hot dogs and old, soft, translucently fried things. It'll make it seem [...]

On Thursday morning, I went to the Paley Center for Media—which used to be the Museum of Television and Radio, and still kind of is, although it's now called the Paley Center for Media—and was brought down into a basement dubbing room, where I watched something that was long thought not to exist. It's a tape of the CBS broadcast of Super Bowl I, which was played in front of roughly 61,000 spectators and 30,000-plus empty seats at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, on January 15, 1967. Since then, the game has been famously unseen and unseeable, outside of some sideline footage shot by NFL Films.

Neither CBS nor [...]

David Raposa: So did you see my public plea to read Frank Deford's abominable plan to destroy baseball?

David Roth: I feel for him. I like Frank Deford as an idea, and sometimes as a writer. I will always ride for an old sportswriter who rocks elbow-patch blazers and acts like someone who rocks elbow-patch blazers. There will not be more like him. It's not like Gregg Doyel is ever going to lose the TapouT tees and Thousand Island-magnet facial hairs and somehow age into class. So it's a drag to see Old Frank trolling.

David Raposa: Even with the well-maintained moustache, pomade, and monogrammed cigarette case, he's [...]

David Roth: I've been on vacation in a place without TV and alarmingly rich in Phillies fans. But I wanted to clear something up with you in re: Yadier Molina's Crazy Eyes Killer routine with that ump.

David Raposa: Thank you for reminding me to witness that bit of TV history (before MLB brings the Sledge-O-Matic down on YouTubers). What is your question, esteemed colleague?

David Roth: Do you think that, since he got that neck tattoo, Yadier feels like he needs to act tough? Like step out of Bengie's shadow, not be known as The Molina Who Can't Eat All That Many Pancakes?

David Raposa: I thought [...]

David Roth: Sorry to be late. But I wanted to watch the end of the Mets game, and K-Rod's post-save Jesus-Thank has gotten so elaborate and time-consuming. The game ended almost 10 minutes ago.

David Raposa: Yeah, I turned the channel after he brought out the crown of sunflower seeds.

David Roth: Any savior worth worshipping would've appreciated it, though. The God I believe in really would appreciate Rodriguez laying out the money to hire the Blue Angels for that flyover.

David Raposa: It's too bad there aren't more Scientologists in MLB. I'd love to see the tats and semaphore they'd employ to give L. Ron some love.

David [...]