Performance Enhancing Trees

Note: This is not about drugs. Take your polluted mind elsewhere, hippy.


A joke a friend of mine sent me made me think of something profound. It is as follows:

Two tall trees, a birch and a beech, are growing in the woods. A small tree begins to grow between them, and the beech says to the birch, "Is that a son of a beech or a son of a birch?" The birch says he cannot tell. Just then a woodpecker lands on the sapling. The birch says, "Woodpecker, you are a tree expert. Can you tell if that is a son of a beech or a son of a birch?"

The woodpecker takes a taste of the small tree. He replies, "It is neither a son of a beech nor a son of a birch. It is, however, the best piece of ash I have ever put my pecker in."

See, this is one of those kinds of jokes that your grandmother e-mails you assuming (a) She’s Alive (b) She’s lucid enough to actually use e-mail or (c) She wants to show that for an octogenarian she’s still “hip” and “with it” and send you sexy jokes. Naturally, because of the source, this make you think of “SEX” and “GRANDMA” in your mind VERY EXPLICITLY and generally makes you want to take a soldering iron to your eyes and acid to your face. Regardless, it helped me to come up with something profound.

Not even remotely sexy.
The stuff they can do with technology and genetic engineering is crazy these days, and baseball is a multi-billion dollar industry that is always seeking to increase any edge their players can use within the limits of the game. Why not have an enterprising team genetically engineer trees to make the wood that they produce, like, super wood? I’m talking wood that is so hard and light it’s like carrying a metal bat in your hand, but it’s made of wood.

So how is this done? I’m not a scientist, exactly, but I think magic might have something to do with it. Or injecting steroids into seeds and planting them with radioactive fertilizer. But come on. I think the Boston Red Sox need to do this, and if at all possible, do it immediately. Why?

Homer made Tomacco the exact same way.
1. Boston’s proximity to some of the world’s finest academic institutions can allow them put pressure on the scientists who can actually pull this off. And by “pressure” I mean, holding the geeks off a balcony like it’s Shug Knight vs. Vanilla Ice all over again.

2. Boston’s proximity to the great forests of Vermont, New Hampshire, and Southern Canada (also known in some areas as “Maine”) give it plenty of testing ground, as well as the element of secrecy. Whitey Bulger has been hiding out in these areas for years, and if they can’t find him, a few glowing trees with spring-like leaves won’t freak out any locals. At least not any who aren’t already whacked out on maple-moonshine.


3. Larry Luchino’s dollars make Boss George look like Boss Hog in comparison. This is high-end genetic engineering, here, and will be very, very expensive. Paying the scientists and buying fissile material aside, bribes will be made, and people need to be silenced. Imagine if during the test phase, one of these bats comes alive and eats Julio Lugo? Someone’s going to have to buy off his family. Then again, the way Lugo is hitting this might actually be an improvement. Don't forget they’d have to build their own lumber yard to actually make these bats as well.

And besides, is there any other team that needs to satiate such a rabid fan base? Red Sox Nation (and I use the term very lightly, if they are a nation, it’s probably one like Haiti) reminds me of an impersonal Japanese corporation. Remember back in the 80’s, and we heard all these stories about Japanese employees who were so fantastically devoted to their companies that they would run around the office, come in on weekends, and ignore their families? The only difference is the employee gets paid, while a member of Red Sox Nation actually pays the Sox to belong. This new performance enhancing wood will provide historic levels of offense, and is the one way to actually fulfill the completely unrealistic expectations of the pizza-throwing lunatics that call themselves fans. The new wood would even let the Red Sox franchise catch up to the Yankees, at least in terms of championships. Because believe me, it’s not going to happen any other way, and that is no joke.

Fear Delmon

Reading the essential AOL MLB Fanhouse, I came across this little tidbit on the Rays and their lack of hype.

So where's the respect [for the Rays]? Where are the "Fear Delmon" T-shirts and Carl Crawford Nike ads?

Why, indeed? The very least Delmon Young can get is a t-shirt. If anything symbolizes the “Booyah” generation, it’s athletes with freakish athletic talent coupled with penchants for criminality, destruction, and a flagrant disregard for authority. If Michael Vick is given million dollar contracts for dog fighting, and Sebastian Telfair is given shoe contracts for gunplay, then Delmon Young is absolutely a role model for the new generation of criminal athlete.

Delmon signed out of a California high school for six million dollars, immediately making him the highest paid Devil Ray since Jose Canseco. At age 18 he started out in single-A ball, where he racked up minor league all-star selections and player of the year awards. After a banner year in 2005 for both on and off the field activities, Delmon finally made it to the show for good at the end of 2006. Although he’s put up respectable numbers in the majors, his projections are far more impressive for the destruction outside the realm of traditional baseball.

Delmon has made it a practice to physically assault umpires, which according to notables such as William Ligue Jr., is every fan’s dream come true. In the minor leagues in 2005, Young gave an umpire a chest bump that Lou Pinella would be inspired by, earning him a paltry suspension of three games. A year later, Young would become the standard bearer for nihilistic rebellion when he intentionally hurled a bat at an umpire for handing out one of the worst third strike calls ever seen in AA baseball.

C'mon, that pitch was outside
A 50 game suspension resulted, but it did not slow Delmon’s progress in “Booyah”. When asked by a reporter how he felt about being held back in the minors, Delmon said that the organization was “cheap,” and that “when it comes to free agency, [there’s] no use trying to stay around there for the long haul.” Rational observers might think that because of the bat incident and attitude, the Rays felt Delmon lacked the emotional maturity that’s required for the major leagues. Madness! A similarly talented Ken Griffey Jr. was in the majors at that age, but he did have to suffer through occasional spankings by his father in front of Jim Lefebvre and Harold Reynolds.

And speaking of family pedigree, according to police forces in the district, Delmon is also a known accomplice (or sibling) of Washington D.C. arch criminal and drug lord Dmirti Young, whose sole presence has single handedly caused crime statistics to skyrocket, with long term residents wishing for the halcyon days of the crack epidemic and Marion Barry. Experts now say Southeast DC is a war zone markedly worse than Detroit on Devil’s Night, or a post-liberation Fallujah. If Dmitri is Avon Barksdale, then Delmon is Stringer Bell.



Tampa Bay is no place for Delmon Young. Rumor has it Tropicana Field was created to house homeless people in case of a Katrina-like disaster, with the intention of performing sociological experiments when the residents eventually dissolved into cannibalism and madness. This vibe is palpable throughout the arena, and does not make for a pleasurable viewing or playing experience. Young will not stay. In that well placed tirade against the team mentioned previously, he said that his goal was to “Get your six years and leave.” Can you imagine the publicity he'll get when he's a Yankee? By that time Joe Torre will be dead, replaced by an animatronic robot who cares little for things like "character" and "hustle."

Is there any player in sports who we should fear more than Delmon Young? Of course not. Marcus Vick and his twin gats doesn’t have the army that Delmon has behind him in southeast. After getting fired by the Celtics, Bassy won’t have the money. Until LeBron James starts doing drive-bys out of the Hummer that his momma bought him, Delmon will be the athlete that symbolizes the "Booyah" generation. And that, my friends, is outstanding.

Cult of Matsuzaka (FotZ): Heresy in Boston!!

Julio Lugo... I’m not angry at you. I’m just not angry at you. There is no punch line here, this is not a joke, I’m not going to go and say that I’m FURIOUS... AT YOU... because I’m not, I’m not, I’m just not. Because I... I understand the position that you have been put in to, by your acquisition to the Boston Red Sox, the chosen team of our savior, Daisuke Matsuzaka (pbuh)*. I’m sure you realize on some celestial level conveyed to you, by Matsuzaka, that He is a pan-dimensional cosmic entity and the fact that you would even set foot on the same filed as Him, even for an inning, will fill the rest of your days with the bliss and peace that cannot even nearly be described in any language invented by humanity. This knowledge, combined with this righteous force of the most wonderful and raw comic energy swirling around you like a glorious typhoon, I’m sure it is a bit daunting, and I grant you that, and I understand.

But even then, Julio, you cannot ALLOW two

GODDAMN ERRORS in the same

GODDAMN

INNING!!!**


Threre is a strategy here, ok? There is a freakin'. strategy. right. here. Your job is not to simply beat the competition, ok? It is your job, and Matsuzaka’s, to grind their freakin' bones into toothpaste. Toothpaste with little red ribbons in it, just like AquaFresh. Do you know why the ribbons in this toothpaste are red, Julio? Because they’re filled with bone marrow, and DNA, and I don’t know what else, I’m a theologian, not a medical doctor, but that’s what you gotta do. The toothpaste, it might taste like Tom’s of Maine, all chalky, but you’re not there to make a good tasting toothpaste out of bone, because that would be impossible.


Matsuzaka’s plan is to intentionally load those bases. Intentionally walk those hitters, and load those bases, ok? And then when He gets those hitters out, they realize they simply have no chance against Him. Once the mind game is won, the physical game is easy, and the spiritual game can commence. Those errors of your not only screwed your team, they fucked Matsuzaka, and they might have screwed over the immortal souls of those players and the millions watching around the world.

Now, Julio, you recovered for yourself quite nicely. You had a ground-rule double right after your errors, you played well in the field, you accounted for yourself and your team quite nicely, and you deserve all the credit in the world for that. Perhaps Matsuzaka was testing you, as He tests me, to see if you could recover from this. You did, congratulations, la-dee-freaking-da. Do you know that there are those of us who flagellate ourselves daily out of gratitude just so we can watch Matsuzaka? That we put off our wives, our lives, our children, to hang on every glorious pitch He throws, because that is what will teach us about salvation? He forgives you, so do I, just be better next time, or we will not be so forgiving.

Is this not the face of intimidation?
BTW, everyone, don’t listen to DICKHEAD YANKEE FANS who think that giving up 7 ER somehow prevents the Messiah from being worth 100m dollars before He ever threw a pitch in the major leagues, because they’re freaking jealous liars! My inbox is filling up with this same thing, over and over again, people denegrating the Fellowship of the ZAK, insulting our Emmanuel, and I don’t want to hear it! Here's one:

Slick,

How does it feel to see Matsuzaka give up 7 ER to the fucking Mariners, pussy boy? Enjoy the next five days, you cultist whacko.

Love always,


Jesus

PS—Go Yanks!

grraaaaahhhhhh!!!fsddddddjhvc!!


*I don’t need to keep on typing this, you get the picture.
**The apostate official scorer, probably some college-level nimrod who wanted to get a job with the "Sawx" changed the 2nd error to a hit after the game. Obvious, total, crap. Check the play-by-play.