Zane Isn’t Focused on Some WAP

It’s official: The Gil Thorp colorists are phoning it in. We’ve had players throwing the ball to players on the opposite team and opposing players in the outfield when their own team is batting, unless the Mudlarks have been changing unifroms on the fly. Now we appear to have someone else besides Gil coaching for Milford. Even Kaz is dumbfounded by the presence of this imposter in a Mudlark uniform. Doubtless this interloper is supposed to be the Madison coach and he and Kaz are going to hand their lineup cards to an unseen home plate ump…

… who is later seen wearing a wristwatch?!? I do not recall umpires ever being allowed to wear watches, but I do recall them using stopwatches to mark the time between pitches and between innings. Maybe some of you TWIMers who have been closer to a diamond in the past decade than I could weigh in. Talk amongst yourselves.

Said umpire is ringing up an unseen batter as a catcher in Madison’s traditional sage and plum frames a called strike three while name checking Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion. Could that batter be Zane Clark? Gil shared Zane’s line with Mimi while they were piddling around in the garden, but the only person called out as unfocused was Katy Brito, by Mimi. Gil’s comment to Zane that Zane wasn’t focused in his last outing wasn’t his observation, then, but Mimi’s. Between Kaz handling the messy details and Mimi providing the strategy, maybe Gil could get a head start on teaching golf to preteens and getting hammered on Long Island Iced Teas at the MCC.

How ‘Bout Them… Well, You Know

Do y’all get the sense that Rubin is finally acknowledging that his catcher with no filter has a character flaw? Can Corina just not go through a season picking out a person or people to publicly take down a peg, whether they need taking down a peg or not? Or is this her way of projecting the pressure she feels now that Mimi has tabbed her as a college prospect? It amazes me that Rubin thinks the students at Milford High would take this treatment from someone who’s still the new kid in school lying down.

Funny how the kids cut her such slack; it’s as though Maureen at the diner told them all about her problems at home before she ever set foot on campus. With that kind of leeway you’d think Corina might, you know, take the time to learn a little more about someone else’s backstory before ripping them a new one. If she had she might have known that making it back to the diamond is an accomplishment in itself for Zane. Was the object to win when she and the Valley Mod kids were snarfing down free eats compliments of the Coaches Thorp?

Thank goodness for Katy Brito. A decent player in her own right, Katy can recognize not only when an adult is being a redass but also when a kid just needs to let his hair down. The obvious joke is that Zane’s channeling Elvis Presley but he comes off more like Futurama‘s Richard Nixon.

Corina Has Skin In Every Game?

Hey gang. I just noticed that our regular Friday correspondent, robmize2013, won’t be posting today. So I thought I’d step in and Joan Rivers this sucker. (Rob reports that he’s heading for Detroit, so maybe he’ll track down Neal Rubin, and if not Neal, then a couple of cold ones at the ballpark. Cheers, Rob!)

I know, I know. The TWIM readership has mostly had it up to here with Corina. She’s pretty smug for a Patty Come Lately and her Valley Modified roots suggest that subtlety is just not her bag. I suppose my stance on CK is more along the lines of, what are ya gonna do. I’ve seen all kinds of head scratching characters and plots in Gil Thorp and if they weren’t frequently absurdly annoying, I probably never would have applied for this gig. It really does feel like I’ve been going through the motions of late, barely able to summon up much in the way of humorous takes or even mildly amusing cheap jokes. A few weeks ago, I read back through the story of Gil and the wrestling match with the Herkelsheimers. I can’t believe how engaged I was with that story! Ah, memories…now back to Corina.

It looks like Corina is channeling Tommy Lasorda here. No, I don’t mean she’s trying to see how many Riccozi’s breadsticks she can jam into her mouth at one time. She’s trying to build up Zane Clark using the exact strategy Lasorda used on Orel Hershiser. (Herkelsheimer? Hershiser? Let’s call the whole thing off.) Lasorda even used the same verbiage, nicknaming Hershiser Bulldog, trying to infuse mild mannered Orel with some competitive spark. Hershiser dominated for a time there and Tommy told that story over and over like he molded a Cy Young winner out of clay (or gnocchi, which I would think would be Lasorda’s preferred medium). So let’s see if Corina can turn Zane into the next Bob Gibson. (If you ask me, I think Zane is the next Zane Smith.)

Here’s Tommy, telling the story.

I’ve always thought Lasorda was an overrated windbag

Hey, does anybody mind if we make this rock and roll Friday? Here’s Guided By Voices performing Bulldog Skin on MTV’s Oddville. (My, what a quirky show that was. MTV seemed to be mining cable public access shows for programming back then. If you book GBV, though, you’ve got my attention. Plus, the cohost, Melissa, was super cute.)

Not a great performance, but a glimpse at classic Bob Pollard stage moves

ETA R&R Bonus: I can’t believe this one didn’t occur to me:

Don’t Worry, Luhm, Zane Isn’t Horning In on Your Turf

Okay, so the young lady with the tendrils hanging down isn’t a teacher but a fellow student, Priya (no last name yet), and this isn’t an academic class but a senior class meeting. I don’t recall what gets done in these meetings: cap and gown ordering, picking a class song or theme, deciding who’s “most likely to succeed” or “wittiest” or some other “superlative,” choosing a class trip and a prom theme, etc., usw. Really, just a bunch of stuff to pad your resume when applying to colleges, and there’s always that kid who takes it just a little too seriously and makes it uncomfortable for most everyone else involved. Here, Priya is that kid.

Among the suddenly dumped upon us exposition is that Zane has somehow managed to get himself elected senior class vice president. With everything that’s going on at home it’s hard to imagine how he would’ve run for and, if he won, agreed to serve in that role. Maybe that it serves as another form of therapy is what kept Zane from going all General Sherman on the Milford High Class of 2021.

Obviously Katy Brito doesn’t care if Priya’s nose is out of joint. Nor does Zane for that matter. Only When Abel Brito Charlie Delta sticks his nose in will things get truly snippy.

Baby you can drive my car

***THIS IS THE FRIDAY POST****

So is a car a deal breaker? As the plot slogs along, we find out that the only good reason Tessi wont go out with Vic “I’m more like Jason Benneti then Dick Vitale” Doucette is his unappealing wheels. (Besides the fact that MAYBE she JUST doesnt care for him??)

I’ve learned in my 40 dateable years of knowing women that they will flirt a little with you without necessarily wanting any more attention. And here is another one who is just playin hard to get. Vic should figure out if he asked twice and she declined twice, hey dude the partys over. But he shouldnt take any more attention from her, so it has to work both ways. When a guy and girl both dig each other, everything runs so smoothly. When its like this, you can cut the tension with a knife, everywhere. Everyone knows when a relationship is strained, no matter what their rank in school is. I know that uncomfortable feeling of realizing someone I liked didnt feel the same about me, even though they did for a good while, and no matter what I did to turn the ship around, my fate was sealed.

But apparently the girls dont care for her reason for not liking Vic: and guess who has a cool car that she may love to ride in? Yep– our buddy Doug. If she now starts to show interest in him. whose to say Vic doesnt get jealous of that turn of events and start using some nicknames on him that may have negative connotations, so to speak.

But if her teammates turn on her for a decision that is none of their business really, (hey, if they all like Vic so much because he strokes their egos with fancy nicknames, why not just ask him out themselves?) its yet another unnecessary distraction on the team, and dont get me started on how Mimi will or will not deal with this.

In closing, since the Boss recently had to go to court over a bottle of tequila found in his possesion and wound up settling for $540 including court fees,https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/celebrities/2021/02/24/bruce-springsteen-dwi-court-appearance/4572548001/ ( for what he makes a year I’d expect him to not only pay that in cash but also tip the bailiff a hundo) please enjoy this video from back in the day about a car I’m sure Tessi would love:

We’re the Mudlarks, Not the Cougars

Good: Vic Doucette shifting away from providing advice on motorsports careers and back to what he does best: falling back on Bermanisms for Milford hoopsters since he’s run out of NBA PA guys to emulate. Glad he used Tessi’s nickname else we wouldn’t have known if this was a girls’ or boys’ game.

Not so good: some rando Mudlark mom giving Vic the bad touch* while grooming heaping praise on him. Timing couldn’t be much worse given the current headlines about [insert politician/women’s gymnastics coach/team doctor name here]. Doubt the Chief gave that much thought while he was drawing this, unlike the additional details he added to Mudlark mom’s blouse in closeup. I’m imagining an unseen P4 zooming in further to show the stitchwork in the blouse and the unplucked hair in her mustache.

Who are these people? Who is handsy Mudlark mom’s daughter? Tessi? Corina? Becca Ramirez? Or some as yet identified player named Robinson?

Retcon alert: Did we ever hear a rotating parent do PA work for Milford before? After Vic, will we ever hear another Mudlark PA announcer again?

*This was my tentative title for today’s post until I realized I used it about a year ago. Didn’t link to the video then, suppose I could do it now.

Some Wak! Haiku

Tom Muench on the bench

And Doug Guthrie off his game:

Central by thirteen

But it’s not a bench

It’s only a folding chair

Thanks to budget cuts

“Everything happens

For a reason” – Grandma Muench

Like ankle sprains

Anytime Doug makes

Car-related decisions

Mudlarks always lose

Vic Doucette could see

Doug was no Schumi when he

Smacked him on the ass

Clearly Doug isn’t

Firing on all cylinders

He needs a tuneup

Gil needs to send him

To a garage upstate where

He can drive all day

Oh for chrissakes let it go already!

The plot is now spinning its wheels as if it were stuck in the snow we’ve gotten over the past month. I get home from Muskegon Feb 1 and there’s a foot on the ground. Then last Monday we get 17 inches more. A reporter on the radio said his table in the yard had 35 inches of snow on it. Sheesh, if I stood on top of the snow piles at the bottom of my driveway I could see the top of my roof. My neighbors have 2 grills and furniture on their deck, and theyre all loaded with snow. Roofs are collapsing every day out here, and I’m praying one of those huge icicles doesnt slice me in half when I walk under em delivering packages to houses. The business strip mall I service is like an ice rink with inumerable hazards on the ground and above.At least the parking lot is clean. Ive got so much salt on the bottom of my shoes I could fill my shaker in the kitchen. My car was so dirty last week I couldnt find it in the parking lot at the grocery store. Hasnt been purple in a while. I went to the car wash and came out driving a block of ice on wheels.

And did I mention we hardly had anything in December and January? Ah, winter in the Midwest.

The 2 guys are engaged in a discussion connected to being late because the cop stopped him and yada yada yada. Yeah everything happens for a reason. But nothing has happened in a week in this plot, and that cop basically stopped Doug twice, and wasted Both of their time in the process. Is Tom on crutches? For a mild sprain? I’d say anything mild you just walk it off and limp around for a day or 2. I never once needed them and I’m sure I sprained my ankles half a dozen times here and there. So Im calling bullshit on the diagnosis.

And shouldnt Doug be ahead of Tom, holding the door for HIM, instead of vice versa? When anyone figures that out, let me know.