There’s No Veering in Baseball!

Well that whole journalism thing was awkward, wasn’t it?  Made me feel stupid for thinking there might be some point to it.  Let’s get back to what this strip does best: putting Milford’s girls in the orbit of Milford’s boys. After all, boys won’t watch girls play unless they’re interested in one of the players but girls will watch the boys play just because, amirite?

So to wrap the spring* plot up we’re gonna see if Ryan has indeed practiced his anger management after he gets another bad call from a crappy Valley ump and his teammates flub away a lead on him.  Marty’s mom has told him to take out the trash, so he quickly makes the Mudlarks a Fielding Three and rolls a 14 for the Tilden batter.  As with most Gil Thorp arcs, all of this would come off as a lot less contrived if the plot had been better paced. Then again, the phrase “it’s a marathon, not a sprint” is probably wasted on someone who holds track and field in such contempt.

*Feels funny calling it that in the middle of July, doesn’t it?

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That’s “Dafne.” “Hello” is my kitty’s name.

I will refrain from falling back on my go-to “Who saw that coming?” from Black Dynamite except to say, well, I saw that coming.

Now that that’s out of the way, hey, sports! Well, sorta. Not only did laissez-faire Mimi let Daffy back onto the field after that fiasco, she let her take infield. Some of the other Lady Mudlarks must have run off from practice after being distracted by something or other.

I notice Drafty has a soccer ball in her room. Maybe Heather Burns left it behind for her. Anyhoo, while we await a week of hand-waving at Milford losses and Dafonte’s print mea culpa, we can at least have fun speculating on what misogynistic fun and games await us for the next eight weeks thereafter.

 

The Hits Keep Coming

July 5, 2017

July 6, 2017

Shot Putter Jimmy Caruso better be glad that Milford ain’t old school Westview, else he’d be getting shot at for mouthing off at a hall monitor like that. How plausible is Jimmy’s defense, anyway? If we look at Tuesday’s strip we can see a dark object with a protruding right angle at Jimmy’s face height, but that angle is about level with his shoulders. Chekhov’s cabinet door…

…or Chekhov’s black eye?  Whichever, they fall into place for the logical conclusion of this arc. Braying Daftpunk, flashing her best Biting Pear of Salamanca leer, chooses her words carelessly. Anybody with an ear could draw the conclusion that she intended to hit Jimmy and, even if she didn’t, that she moved past him with such force that he fell into Chekhov’s cabinet door. And you know what? Anybody will. Daffy will soon find herself in Ryan Van Halen’s shoes, which will lead her begging to Ms. Rizk to be let back on to the Trumpet staff to defend herself and Ryan. Lessons learned, fade to silhouettes, walk through a doorway and we’ll see you on the Thorps’ back porch.

Think we’ll ever see any sports being played in this arc again? Maybe that Van Halen kid will play some chin music on some Central batters and cow them into being no-hit. Then he can get killed off like the last Milford pitcher who threw a no-hitter.

We hate to see you go but we love to watch you – oh, never mind

Poor Carrie Hobson. First she gets shellacked by Jefferson in the first game of the post-Boo Radley era, then she gets soundly rejected by Hurdler Gary Meola. Another spring arc, another tearful exit for Carrie. What did she ever do to piss Rubin off?

Meanwhile in the kitchen, Dafne finds herself having to fend off Shot Putter Jimmy Caruso’s poorly aimed Vulcan nerve pinch. Let’s hope it doesn’t turn into a bad touch.

Wishing our friends to the north a happy Canada Day on the 150th anniversary of your confederation. A bit of hardball nostalgia for you today as a lagniappe:

Someone’s in the Kitchen with Dafne

It’s been over a month and a half since the Milford softball girls have seen any action, so at least one of them is hoping to see some off the field.  Turns out Carrie had better save that sliding for the softball diamond, if she ever gets back there. Pissy faced Gary is just not into her.

Meanwhile in the kitchen the unwanted advances are fixin’ to swap genders. Dafne raises a dainty pinky and flashes some midriff as she reaches for the pause that refreshes, whilst Shot Putter Jimmy Caruso tries to figure out when and where to put his shot. Unlike poor misguided Carrie, Dafne has the journalistic talent to turn the episode into something print-worthy.  Her grand return to the Trumpet will read along the lines of “I got hit on last week. You know who else got hit on, too? Ryan Van Auken’s ex-girlfriend!” Naw, it’ll be more like “I almost gave someone at Milford High unwanted attention, and now that I’ve gotten unwanted attention too, I can empathize and will now shut my trap.”

Blooper Reel

Daftpunk can’t run her precious little hit piece on Ryan, so she quits the school paper.  Ryan gets rattled when Central girls troll him about an event that (according to his parents) wasn’t all that, so he loses his mojo and quits on the mound. Now the rest of the Milford baseball team quits all around him and the season goes down the crapper. Gil’s quit on his team too: relying on hope and working on his grilling technique, he could give two shits about the rest of the season. Yo Gil, out here in the real world, winners eat steaks, losers eat franks and beans. (By the way, what the hell is Gil wearing on his wrist? Is he talking to Dick Tracy on that thing? Maybe he’s talking with that talking baseball with EES in P1. And what the complete hell is with his hand with integrated spatula?)

Even the color monkeys phoned it in on this one: they didn’t color the Jefferson player or whatever it is Mimi’s got in that pitcher (and don’t tell me it’s straight Everclear). I’m beginning to get the idea that the Whigrub brain trust has run out of ideas on how to wrap this arc up; not saying they’ve quit on it yet, but it’s starting to feel that way.

I’ve been on the road all day to Bakst country and just arrived only a few minutes ago.  I almost quit on this post for today, so I hope you’ll forgive me for its brusque nature.

 

Overrated fight

So it turns out that Gil already is on the case of extinquishing the fire that is Ryan Van Auiken vs his old girlfriend featured on the sign at the baseball game by the girls from his old school. Good for him-  but its still almost mid-June and the kids not only have to finish baseball/softball but graduate already.

His parents describe the incident as non-violent, and are adament about it.  So its great that they completely believe Ryans version of the story. Because no way were they there when it happened, right? And Gil asks them before he asks Ryan about it, even though he has a first-person account of things. Why not ask him first? Oh yeah, he vamoosed. For all that coffee Gil drinks, he’s asleep at the wheel 98 percent of the time. If there was no police report, then Gil should just go back to Milford and tell Dafne to move on and find another story to cover. After she graduates. After she figures out she no longer writes for the Trumpet because she doesnt attend Milford anymore. And so on and so on..

By next week we should be on to lemonade and beach scenes. And golf. Yikes!!

 

What It Is Ain’t Exactly Clear

Ladies and gentlemen, today’s strip offers classic laissez-faire Thorp coaching at its finest.  Ryan “Hurricane” Van Auken is getting rocked like a, uh, well, you know, while Gil leaves him in there to twist in the wind.  This prompts random Milford guy – is it the same one who answered the phone in the Journalism Office? – to run and tell Dafne, who’s at softball practice. (Interesting that there are ads on the practice field outfield fence; must be a lot of marketing money to spare floating around in Milford.)

The now elfin Dafne, looking a bit the daughter of Namor, suddenly finds herself incontinent drops everything and runs off to see what’s going down.  Does Mimi even acknowledge Dafne’s defection?  Hell no!  She doesn’t even look so much Dafne’s way! Mimi needs to grow a pair like that Coach Dawes and tell Dafne to go do what she loves but never darken a softball field again.