That’s No Catcher’s Mitt, That’s Our Waitress

Alright TWIMers, I think we can start connecting some dots here. Corina has been casing set her sights on Milford as a place to go commit crimes to school next year. If that happens, she’ll end up another in a long line of talented Mudlark athletes the Coaches Thorp didn’t have to coach to end up that way. The fact that she’s doing this opens things up for a lot of exposition that we may or may not get. Is going to Valley Mod a sentence that a student has to serve, and that student is free to go to whatever school in the Valley s/he chooses once time has been served?

She’s already trying to fit in by donning the Milford uniform of chunky bracelets and huge earrings – the same earrings as her waitress, Maureen – after sporting demure studs previously. She’s also trying to fit in by eating mass quantities of greasy diner food. I mean, look at the size of that burger! Wait, that’s not a burger but a catcher’s mitt? Who puts a catcher’s mitt on the table they’re gonna be eating from? And why, if she’s talking about said catcher’s mitt, is Miss Pointy Fingers Phoebe pointing to her left and not down and in front of her where the catcher’s mitt is sitting?  Maureen’s fourth wall-breaking glance says it all. Nobody expects waiting tables at a diner in Milford to be glamorous, but she certainly didn’t sign up for this kind of insult. I mean, come on! She may not be very pretty now, but she was someone’s baby once.

I’d be much more interested in learning about the path Maureen took to end up waiting on Corina and Phoebe. Something tells me she’s been around the Valley a time or two.

They Tried to Make Me Go to Milford

Well robmize gently reminded me that I was covering for him this week, so let me get on the stick and give you a twofer.

July 24, 2020

You know, if this whole summer plot turned out to be nothing but Corinna tossing off one-liners about her family’s criminal past, I could live with it.

Speaking of burning things, Mimi’s gonna end up with some pretty serious burns herself if she doesn’t stop choking up on that spatula. The handle’s there for a reason, Mimi! Luckily she appears to be grilling on a Hammond B3. In any event, Gil is too hammered to notice.

July 25, 2020

You know, if this whole summer plot turned out to be nothing but drunk, glassy-eyed Gil tossing off Captain Obvious one-liners, I could live with it.

“True should be in rookie camp but the minor leagues have been scrapped this season due to the pandemic he has some lame-assed excuse to come back to Milford.” Quick cut back to the MCC where Gil, with yet another drink glued to his hand, gets the beginning of True Standish’s sob story. Hard to believe it’s been almost five years since True led the Mudlarks to a football state championship and, aside from that little mishap with his girlfriend BFF, had the world on a string. How far and how fast can True fall? Will he be selling industrial solvents on the old Del Bader route before we’re through?

Let’s not cast True aside so quickly. Maybe he can hook up with Trey Davis. I hear Trey’s full-service.

Les Expos(ition) sont là, part deux

Called it! Well, kinda sorta, except for the wearing one’s employer’s uniform in public part.

Phoebe has a habit of pointing at everything and everybody a lot, even by Milford standards, so pointing to the diner door to call out True seems a bit belabored. Corinna’s words say “big whoop” but her rapidly swelling hands say otherwise. Careful, Ms. Karenina: sassy, athletic girls who get involved with True come to bad ends.

Corrina’s zinger in P2 pretty much sums up every summer Gil Thorp arc ever and, in a more normal world, should’ve been today’s post title. But nothing is normal these days. Major League Baseball is getting ready to kick off its regular season tomorrow evening, with a 60-game schedule, new rules straight out of the sandlot, and no fans in the stands. Anything and everything that happens in the game this season will be forever tagged with the mother of all asterisks. Besides, it also gives me an excuse to post this, again, something that every wise NL East scoreboard operator should play when the Nats come to town:

Now let’s sit back for the rest of the week and wait for True to explain how he went from being Wake Forest’s QB of the future to a potential future playing in front of sparse crowds in the worst stadium in the majors, and somehow giving Gil credit for it.

Ridiculousness

Ridiculousness is an MTV show that’s kind of like a more painful version of America’s Funniest Home Videos, starring some flatbiller skateboarder type and with a panel consisting of a rapper, a guest and a woman who laughs like SpongeBob. It’s one of son of teenchy’s guilty pleasures and that’s about all I know about it.

Ridiculousness is also what these past four months have been in this strip. Today this inanity has come to an end and in the most predictable, yet contrived manner possible. I can’t hammer home hard enough how ridiculous it was for Gil not to stand up for Mike against Dr. Pearl and the school board, how even more ridiculous it was for that non-Hadley V. Baxendale lawyer to roll over and play dead without putting up any kind of fight (seriously, are there any decent lawyers in Milford?), and how most ridiculous that someone at State U. bought Gil’s story that Mike’s challenging the Mudlarks to a baseball game, assembling the Valley Modified Freakazoids! and leading them to an ass-whooping-turned-gorgefest somehow exemplified “leadership, responsibility, perseverance” and reversed The Mayor’s rejection decision. (Phew! Gotta watch my pulse rate.)

What else was ridiculous? Mike’s gal pal Phoebe not telling him to put away the butter knife as soon as she saw him whip it out. The Lady Mudlarks’ lack of pitching depth and Mimi’s one-girl rotation (not the first time we’ve seen that). The way the Lady Mudlarks fell off the radar once their lack of pitching depth was shown. The self-congratulatory catering of Gil, Kaz, Rooney and Mimi. Anna Karenina Corinna Corinna bringing softball gear to a baseball game. (BTW, we missed an opportunity to bring up the monster catcher’s mitt Paul Richards designed for Clint Courtney and Gus Triandos to use when catching knuckleballer Hoyt Wilhelm.)  Finally, we have the ridiculousness of Mike’s former teammates pelting him with their gloves. Hope you don’t end up with a concussion, Mayor!

So a redemptive ending for Mike Knappe via Gilberto ex machina. But what will happen to the Valley Modified Kids? Where’s Ardis Carhee’s Gil Thorp to pull his nuts out of the fire? Where’s Corinna “Don’t Call Me Karen” Karenina’s Mimi to help her overcome her authority issues? These Dead End Kids will be tossed aside and forgotten like so many cardboard cutouts of fans that will populate MLB stadiums if and when the majors resume their sham of a 60-game season in a couple of weeks. That, gentle readers, is the even bigger tragedy here – one that Neil Rubin has used to take us to this slapdash happy ending that, really, isn’t all that happy.

 

 

A Sort of Homecoming

In case you didn’t pick up on the long hair in the dugout yesterday (or thought it was a Kevin Pelwecki tribute), the Milford @ Goshen game is in softball, not baseball. It was one of the Lady Mudlarks who called out Mike from the stands. Unnamed – and not particularly visually distinctive under the earflaps – it must be Phoebe, the only Milford girl who showed an inkling of interest in The Mayor and who, as the recipient of The Mayor’s attention, was an unwitting spectator to the spiral of events that led to his expulsion.

Nevertheless, she’s surprised and happy to see him, so she spontaneously gives him a hug. Remember spontaneously giving people hugs? Yeah, me too. Is that a butter knife in Mike’s pocket or is he just glad to see Phoebe? Leave it to Mimi to rain on this little parade. Wonder how much she knows about the situation, especially how much she knows about how little Gil did in Mike’s defense.

What other reason does Mike have to hang out and watch his old schoolmates play ball? That world is behind him; even his ex-coach called him an idiot for even thinking about trying to recapture it.  So unless the ex-Mayor is plotting some kind of revenge he really shouldn’t be torturing himself with reminders of his past. That includes Phoebe; after all, didn’t we just see an equally cute blonde on the Valley Modified campus a couple of days ago? Now, where are the brake lines on the Lady Mudlarks’ activity bus?

The ‘Arder They Come

Late in the day before I realized that robmize was taking the weekend off and left Friday to our devices. So I don’t have much to say here except that the first kid we meet in juvie Valley Modified is Ardis Carhee. Googling “Ardis Carhee” gave me exactly one result:

That ain’t Michigan, but maybe it’s near Luckey, or Haskins. Whatever.

What’s Ardis in for? Obsessive-compulsive desk polishing? Nah, just messing with you. He’s probably in for some violation of a Tilden zero-tolerance policy, like bringing a church key to class to open a can of Johnson’s Wax to polish a desktop. Tune in tomorrow to find out what’s up with Ardis and what plans these rude boys have in store.

 

 

Siriously?

Four months’ setup for this. One of the lamest intros since “Oprah, Uma. Uma, Oprah.” Alexa is left with a deer-in-the-headlights look the likes of which we haven’t seen since Boo Radley had an unfortunate run-in with Del Bader and a pickup truck.

Although some sources say it’s legit, I have never heard anyone named Serena given the nickname “Siri.” In all the years I’ve followed tennis I’ve never heard it used on the greatest female player in recent times. I never heard called Samantha Stevens’ evil cousin called “Siri.” I never heard Sifl and Olly’s fantasy girl referred to as “Siri” either, but supposedly it’s of Scandinavian origin and that’s her mother’s given name. Okay, fine.

There are still a couple months left in most school years. Many of them will be completed via distance learning, which starts on Monday where I live. Another plot should be starting on Monday in the Thorpiverse as well. Newspaper syndicate lead times being what they are, it will probably not involve distance learning. Some elements of this plot may continue over into the spring. Chris and Alexa may still duke it out for valedictorian.  We may find out Siri’s parents are named Cortana and Mercedes.

Siri and Alexa have nice boots on. Maybe they’ll go ride horses together at the afterparty.

Chris gives this plot the finger. So do I.

The freak hands are better.

OMG – filling in for Teenchy today as he’s on a long day trip. Chris produces a full page stat sheet that I’m sure is available on both the internet and your local bathroom wall at a sports bar. Nothing like perusing those 4 for 9 stats while taking a leak next to some dude who’s 3 sheets to the wind, pissing for 10 minutes. . Multi-tasking at its finest. I go to Hooters every now and then and they have the sports page on the wall above the urinals, so this aint far-fetched.

Chris’ teammate points out (literally) that he’s better served dishing the rock for assists, even though the only points we saw the big guy score were after Schuring got faced on a layup attempt. Chris looks like one of those small guards who would be wise to stay out of the paint, as otherwise any big guy would shove the ball down his throat.

Then we see P3 and he’s actually TALLER then the center?? Hey Gil— your lineup needs work buddy.  Chris must have zero vertical leap if he’s blocked by someone who then allows the real Shorty to get the put-back.

Playing offense in your head?? How about playing it on the court? Methinks that’ll work better. Team of duffusses, these guys. At least they have great hands.