Q: Is Hell Freezing Over?

A: No...I just finally came to my senses.

I can't tell you how many times I've heard that phrase in the past month or so - ever since I went public with the news that Mortgage Partner and I will be pulling the trigger on this relationship thing. (Not to be confused with "pulling the plug..." In my cartoon head, "pulling the trigger" is akin to "finalizing," whereas the former is more like "abandoning." Yeah: I am a cheesy romantic sap - I know.)

Some of the more memorable verbal reactions:

"Get the fuck out of here! Cranial Midget is NOT getting married!!!" I heard this one through the phone line, as a good friend's wife (who probably knows me better through "reputation" than through reality) was told of the news.

"Excuse me?" said a co-worker. He then turned around so his ass was facing me, and said, "Could you tell me if pigs are flying out my butt?"

"Well, I guess we can finally put the door back on its hinges," said an old friend, referring to a semi-public facility where - a long time ago, when I was in my late-teens/early twenties - I would often go to have sex. Seedy stuff: it was the back room of a gathering place and the table, which took up most of the space in the small room, was just the right height. The old crusty bass turds who ran the place (and who weren't getting laid) were jealous and decided to take the door off its hinges.

And, just last weekend, I was given this gem: "Can I tell you something? Something my mom always sat me down and told me whenever I had been dating a boy for more than a few months?" asked a friend. "The fucking stops and the fighting starts when you get married. Don't ever get married, darling. That was about the only advice my mother ever offered me...now I offer it to you."

"Wow. That is so awesome! I never thought I'd live to see the day...she must be pretty special. You two must have a lot of fun together," exclaimed one of my less-jaded friends.

Yeah...yes she is. And yes - yes we do.

Having Mortgage Partner in my life is like getting a whole new box of crayons and a brand new coloring book, adding dimensions to my existence I never knew...opening my eyes to colors I didn't know were there.

And: she doesn't mind the fact that I still can't (won't?) draw inside the lines! (Although she prefers it when I do.)

Keepin' the Streak Alive

Movie Quotes:

"There are 108 beads in a Catholic rosary. And there are 108 stitches in a baseball. When I learned that, I gave Jesus a chance."

- - Bull Durham

"A good friend of mine used to say, 'This is a very simple game. You throw the ball, you catch the ball, you hit the ball. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains.' Think about that for a while."

- - Bull Durham

"Well I can't rightly say which player hit the ball hardest, but the home runs Babe Ruth hit got smaller quicker." - Walter Johnson in Ken Burns' "Baseball"

Good Ol' Yogi:

"You give 100 percent in the first half of the game, and if that isn't enough in the second half you give what's left."

"If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else."

"I made a wrong mistake."

"I didn't really say everything I said."

American Zen:

"See if you can notice when you're hitting and not paying attention. The way to learn to pay attention is to notice when you're not paying attention."

- - Jeff McKay, founder of Be Your Own Coach Baseball Camp

The Mexicutioner

Classic All-Star Game Tuesday night.

Old Yankee Stadium (built in 1923) grudgingly said goodbye to the national spotlight. (Since the Yankees aren't having a very good year, it's unlikely they will get to the post-season - making this the last time "the nation" will be focused on The House That Ruth Built). Being a true Yankee-hater, I'm not shedding any Royal Blue tears over this...

Nonetheless, it was pretty awesome watching George Brett give the pre-game pep talk to the A.L. players, seeing Yogi Berra throw out the ceremonial first pitch - and, best of all, getting to see our boy, The Mexicutioner, take the mound with the game tied in the 11th.

Did I mention that the 9th inning began at the stroke of midnight - seriously. That's one reason I LOVE baseball - there are just so many odd things that happen - almost enough to turn a hardball atheist into a softball believer (whatever that means).

This is just one of my favorite examples: In 1961, on the last day of the season, Roger Maris broke Mickey Mantle's single-season home run record by hitting his 61st homer in his 161st game of the season.

(As an aside, after the 1998 season, a mathematician recognized a mathematical property BECAUSE OF the home run chase that year:

A mathematical property is named after Maris, along with Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire. Two numbers form a Maris-McGwire-Sosa pair if they are consecutive numbers such that when you add each number's digits to the digits of its prime factorization, they are equal. Engineer Mike Keith named this property after the sluggers because he noticed that the numbers 61 and 62 have this property, and McGwire and Sosa both hit home run number 62 in 1998, both passing the record of Maris, 61.)

Baseball is America in microcosm. Our history of race relations, immigration, labor vs The Man, popular culture and patriotism, wide open spaces...it's all in there.

Americans began playing baseball in the early 1800s, using local rules. But it wasn't until Cartwright formalized the modern rules of the game and formed a "league" (consisting of two teams) in 1846 that it started to become our "national pastime."

Think about it: A ballpark brings together total strangers. Since that first recorded game, baseball has blurred the social barriers of age and race and language and social status. It unites people in highly vocal rivalry (known as "heckling" and also referred to as a 2-party Democracy). It’s an urban game played on a wide open, grassy field. And: it is a game that's as much about the mind as it is the body. Whitman would be proud!

Just look at all the words and phrses we use every day that come from baseball: "In the ballpark" or "a ballpark estimate." "Batting a thousand." "Big league" and "bush league" (the latter has a whole new meaning since the Idiot-in Chief took over, eh?). The term "Charlie horse" was first used in association with baseball - and may have been coined by ballplayers. "Cover all your bases." The media threw him a "curve ball." "Way off base." "Rain check." "Pinch hit."

And then there's sex: "Getting to first base," "Getting to home" or "Striking out." "Switch hitter," "Pitcher" and "Catcher"...the lexicon goes on and on...as can a baseball game (or a blog entry)!

Seriously, though: a baseball game can, in theory, go on forever. There's no time limit and no limit put on the number of extra innings - adding to its "spiritual" or supernatural (outside the limits of time) quality. (A couple of double A teams hold the official record: the game began on Saturday, April 18, 1981 and continued through the night and into Easter morning before the league president was reached by phone and made them suspend the game.)

If you pay attention, watching a ballgame can truly be a zen-like experience. Many Americans have developed ADD and therefore think the game is too boring. But there is always some titillating match-up or strategy or sleight-of-hand going on...you just have to be aware.

Anyway, we're getting into the late innings here. The 15-inning, 5-hour mid-summer classic was a thing of beauty. The House That Ruth Built just wanted to keep that light shining on her as long as she could. Can't say that I blame the old gal.

All of this has just been a drawn-out way to give a shout-out to our boy, Joakim Soria, aka, "The Mexicutioner." He is the Royals closer and, just 24-years-old, is arguably the best at his position in baseball.

Me and Mortgage Partner thought we were in a tiny fan club of Soria-obsessed geeks. Then we saw the above illustration - which a company recently printed onto T-shirts. After pitching a flawless 11th inning in the All-Star game, it seems everyone knows him now...

...well, everyone except my friend, LT - self-proclaimed Royals fan who didn't even recognize Soria's name when I mentioned him earlier today! Oh well, let that be a lesson to each of us: we ALL need to pay a lot more attention than we do. Heck, MP had to tell me I was rooting for the wrong team one time!