Weekend Funny

I love baseball! I come by that love of baseball naturally, I suppose. My father, born in 1911 and denizen of sandlot baseball, was actually offered a job as pitcher for the New York Yankees by a pro-ball scout way back when. Dad turned down the offer as he was such a homebody and the part-time caregiver for his own father.

Anyway, when I saw the video below over at Right Truth, I knew that I just had to post it:


The original classic poem "Casey at the Bat" below the fold....

Casey at the Bat by Ernest Lawrence Thayer

The Outlook wasn't brilliant for the Mudville nine that day:
The score stood four to two, with but one inning more to play.
And then when Cooney died at first, and Barrows did the same,
A sickly silence fell upon the patrons of the game.

A straggling few got up to go in deep despair. The rest
Clung to that hope which springs eternal in the human breast;
They thought, if only Casey could get but a whack at that -
We'd put up even money, now, with Casey at the bat.

But Flynn preceded Casey, as did also Jimmy Blake,
And the former was a lulu and the latter was a cake;
So upon that stricken multitude grim melancholy sat,
For there seemed but little chance of Casey's getting to the bat.

But Flynn let drive a single, to the wonderment of all,
And Blake, the much despis-ed, tore the cover off the ball;
And when the dust had lifted, and the men saw what had occurred,
There was Jimmy safe at second and Flynn a-hugging third.

Then from 5,000 throats and more there rose a lusty yell;
It rumbled through the valley, it rattled in the dell;
It knocked upon the mountain and recoiled upon the flat,
For Casey, mighty Casey, was advancing to the bat.

There was ease in Casey's manner as he stepped into his place;
There was pride in Casey's bearing and a smile on Casey's face.
And when, responding to the cheers, he lightly doffed his hat,
No stranger in the crowd could doubt 'twas Casey at the bat.

Ten thousand eyes were on him as he rubbed his hands with dirt;
Five thousand tongues applauded when he wiped them on his shirt.
Then while the writhing pitcher ground the ball into his hip,
Defiance gleamed in Casey's eye, a sneer curled Casey's lip.

And now the leather-covered sphere came hurtling through the air,
And Casey stood a-watching it in haughty grandeur there.
Close by the sturdy batsman the ball unheeded sped-
"That ain't my style," said Casey. "Strike one," the umpire said.

From the benches, black with people, there went up a muffled roar,
Like the beating of the storm-waves on a stern and distant shore.
"Kill him! Kill the umpire!" shouted someone on the stand;
And its likely they'd a-killed him had not Casey raised his hand.

With a smile of Christian charity great Casey's visage shone;
He stilled the rising tumult; he bade the game go on;
He signaled to the pitcher, and once more the spheroid flew;
But Casey still ignored it, and the umpire said, "Strike two."

"Fraud!" cried the maddened thousands, and echo answered fraud;
But one scornful look from Casey and the audience was awed.
They saw his face grow stern and cold, they saw his muscles strain,
And they knew that Casey wouldn't let that ball go by again.

The sneer is gone from Casey's lip, his teeth are clenched in hate;
He pounds with cruel violence his bat upon the plate.
And now the pitcher holds the ball, and now he lets it go,
And now the air is shattered by the force of Casey's blow.

Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright;
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light,
And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout;
But there is no joy in Mudville - mighty Casey has struck out.

Read more about the 1888 poem HERE.

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Your Weekend Funny

With a hat tip to Feed Your ADHD:



Watch the video of BHO's recent opening-day pitch at Nationals Baseball Park below the fold. High and, ahem, to the left:




Please take time to read Feed Your ADHD's satire. Excerpt:

Disappointed with pResident Barack Obama’s first-pitch performance on opening day at Nationals Park, the Obama Regime today announced a historic appointment, the nation’s first PitchingPrompter Czar.

The PitchingPrompter will be put to the test this Saturday in Chicago, where it will throw out the first pitch at US Cellular Field, the ballpark formerly known, to Obama, as Comminsky Park. It will be used in place of the traditional presidential first pitch, started in 1910 by William Howard Taft, during all such outings in the future, including limo rides with Larry Sinclair.

The Regime chose the machine after seriously debating an alternative plan, having Obama better explain how a first pitch will help the American people understand the game of baseball, during 17-minute, 2,500-word speeches from the mound....

Read the rest. Not to be missed!

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Baseball As An Entitlement?

Look, I love baseball. I was learning to swing a bat even before I started going to kindergarten.

But to expect the taxpayers' to pay for keeping Metro, the D.C. transporation system including both bus and rail service, open beyond the usual hour so that attendeees of night games can ride home. Other groups don't receive that same special privilege for free. Furthermore, such special consideration for the Washington Nationals flies in the face of financial realities, especially at a time when Metro is facing a budget gap of $29 million, laying off some 300 workers, and cutting back on bus services.

The rule for keeping Metro open beyond the usual closing hour is as follows:

Under a 2003 Metro policy, organizations that want Metrorail to open early or close late are required to pay the agency a fee. Such organizations and events include the Washington Redskins, the Susan G. Komen for the Cure, the Marine Corps Marathon and groups that perform at Verizon Center. The fees must be paid two weeks in advance, and organizers receive refunds if fares exceed that amount, which typically happens with large events.

That policy seems fair enough. But after some apparent confusion and a lack of communication among the D.C. Transportation Department, Metro, and the Washington Nationals, the late-service fee of $27,000 per hour has been waived:

District officials have decided that the city will cover all the costs for Metro to stay open to accommodate late Washington Nationals games after having suggested that others in the region share the tab.

Suddenly, as if by magic, the District now claims capable of finding the necessary budget resources for transportation after those late-release baseball games. If those funds can be found now, why couldn't they have been found before? Or is Metro going to make cutbacks in other ways so that the transportation system can run the few times that a Washington Nationals game runs beyond the usual time?

What brought the above to a head and resulted in the city's decision is the following:

The confusion over who would pay for such service began when Gabe Klein, director of the D.C. Transportation Department, told Metro officials in a letter last week that the city would no longer pay the late-service fee of $27,000 an hour because of the budget crunch. Team officials said they did not know that there had been a policy change until Monday night, when a rain delay pushed the game past Metro's midnight closing.

Metro and team officials spent more than two hours squabbling about when Metro would close and who would pay if it stayed open. Some fans said they were confused by last-minute announcements at Nationals Park about when the last train would leave Navy Yard. Ultimately, Metro agreed to stay open past the regular midnight shutdown.

The mix-up stemmed from a communication breakdown, Albert said. Klein said he sent the letter to Metro based on staff information that his department did not have money this year to pay the late-game fees, which occur when games go late because of rain delays or extra innings. He did not check with the mayor's office, he said.

[...]

Albert said the city will pay for the extra hour and a half of service after Monday's game, roughly $40,000. That works out to about $2,531 for each of the 16 passengers who entered Metrorail after midnight.

In my view, baseball fans who wish to attend a game should be ingenious enough to arrange their own transportation. Or perhaps the taxpayer subsidy of Nationals Stadium was a bad idea in the first place:

Economists seldom agree, but the many studies done over the past decade all arrived at the same conclusion: Publicly funded stadiums do not deliver the benefits they promise. A recent paper by the Cato Institute concluded, "The academic research overwhelmingly concludes that the presence of professional sports teams has no measurable positive impact on economic growth."

[...]

Funding a new stadium in the District may be good politics, but it is bad public policy. Major League Baseball will be laughing all the way to the bank while D.C. residents will find that they get much less than they were promised -- and paid for.

Despite stadium was funded. Now the issue is transportation. Once rearing its head, the nanny continues to need more and more from the taxpayer — all in the name of the common good, even if that good does nothing more than serve special interests.

(Crossposted to THE ASTUTE BLOGGERS)

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Major League Baseball Hires Keith Olbermann

Quickie link

(hat tip to Weasel Zippers)

Remember when Olbermann got into a spot of trouble last fall?

The final straw came during the RNC just after a tribute to the victims of the 9/11 attacks was aired on MSNBC. ..Olbermann apologized that MSNBC had decided to honor the [9/11] victims by airing the tribute and stated that the tribute was ‘’not appropriate to be shown,’’ and that any who participated in showing it should be ‘’eviscerated’’.

Commenters, feel free to add more data about Olbermann.

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