I’d barely walked into the house last night when Young220 looked up from his laptop and said (something like): “Nice job, Dad. You really jinxed ‘em.”

Uh-huh. Sometimes lessons aren’t learned. In all of the years I’ve been involved with baseball, there have been maybe 4 or 5 times when I looked at a pitching match-up, the state of the teams playing and said to myself, “You know, if I had to bet the mortgage payment, this is a no-brainer.”

Once, it happened while a friend was in Vegas. He called and I said: “You gotta make this play.”

It was an 11 a.m. game, Twins vs. Texas at the Dome, Bert on the mound.

“An 11 a.m. game, dude. The Rangers aren’t gonna be able to see his curveball, much less hit it!”

Here’s what happened. Note the unnatural number of home runs hit by the unseeing Rangers.

I made it up to my friend, though. At Canterbury, we were in the paddock before the feature race. The big-time favorite, a shipper from Chicago, was a bit distracted. More importantly, though, his owner was wearing a hideous pink suit. I said to my friend, “He’s not here to win. You don’t get your picture taken in a pink suit.”

We were all over a sweet exacta.

But the 4 or 5 times I’ve made the no-brainer pronouncement about a baseball game, I’ve been wrong.

I should learn, huh?

Let me make one other point, though. I don’t have enough paving stones in my back yard to count the number of times I’ve read on blogs — in the hours before a game — that the lineup stinks or this player should be benched or that pitcher should be sent to Rochester (or wherever) or that they’re giving away today’s game. Then, somehow, miraculously, the team in question manages to win.

I’d rather go down guaranteeing victory.

Day game today. Cancel afternoon appointments and bring earplugs. The schoolkids’ll be there.

other people are here too

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 22nd, 2008 at 8:50 am and is filed under Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.