GAME 10 - I Want To Be An Oldtimers Star

Intro

There are certain things that you just take for granted until you play on the same team with a guy.  Lets take Cal for instance.  When I met Cal last year (mostly at tournaments) I thought he was a little flashy with the shorts and hat thing that he had going on.  I also thought that his personality didn't fit the clothes.  He seemed pretty intense for a guy with Hawaiian shorts.  

I was wrong. 

Its not that Cal's is intense, its that he's bloody deep.  I guess that's where he got the nickname Yoda.  Well, that and the height. Another thing about Cal is that he's funny.  I don't mean HaHa funny, I mean side-splitting funny! Now, he wouldn't submit to an interview, but he did tell me that he was doing amateur night at Yuk Yuk's in Barrie last Thursday and invited me to the show to check it out.  He claimed that I would learn everything that I needed at the show.  So, being the intrepid reporter that I am, I headed to Barrie and checked it out! 

CAL

Cal took the stage in his normal funky Cal attire and grabbed the mic like he owned it.  He stared out the crowd with those piercing freaky eyes and said nothing.  Not a sound.  The crowd was immediately uncomfortable with the silence and they began to get restless.  As the seconds tic'd by, the restlessness became unease.  As the seconds became minutes, they got belligerent and started to boo. 

Cal spoke confidently in the Mic and with his booming anchorman voice and said, "Why are there interstate highways in Hawaii?".  The booing stopped and there were a few chuckles.  He started to pace back and forth across the stage with a couple of fingers to his temple, reminiscent of Columbo.  He suddenly stopped and said, "Do vehicles that travel at the speed of light need headlights?".  The chuckles turned to nervous laughter.  The pacing started again; slower this time but he stopped again quickly, "How come airlines give everyone a flotation device when all we really want is a parachute?".  Now people were openly laughing and slapping their knees and Cal's pace picked up as he responded to his rapt audience. 

"If nothing sticks to Teflon, how do they attach it to the pan?"

Pause.

"How does the guy who drives the snowplow get to work?"

Pause.

"Why isn't phonetic spelled like it sounds?"

Then they started coming out rapid fire as Cal had now slide into his groove.

"How is it that 'fat chance' and 'slim chance' mean the same thing?"
"Do you need a silencer if you shoot a mime?"
"Why is their braille on the keypad of a drive through ATM?"
"If you asked a Librarian where the self help books were, would she tell you?  Or would that defeat the purpose?"
"If you ate Pasta and Antipasti, would they cancel each other out and leave you hungry?"
"If you were scared to death twice, would you be 75% dead or 100% dead?"
"If you spin an oriental person around 7 times with a blindfold on, will he become disoriented?"
"Why in the name of the sweet baby Jesus did they put an "S" in 'lisp'?"
"What would happen if you put a chameleon in a mirrored box?"
"My aunt once asked me why I was wearing an antennae to her wedding.  I told her that I was hoping for a better reception".
"If a vegetable goes into a coma, is it called a 'person'?"
"When sign makers go on strike to they hire scabs to make their "on strike" posters?"
"Can anyone explain why they're called apartments when they are obviously all struck together?"
"Why is it called a 'near-miss' when you DON'T his something?  Wouldn't that be a near hit?"
"I went to the thesaurus and looked up 'synonym'.  Nothing came up. 
"Want to stay awake all night?  Think about this.  Was the orange named after the colour or was the colour named after the fruit?"
"I went to the store and bought dehydrated water.  I couldn't figure out what to add". 
"Is it true that cannibals don't eat clowns because they taste funny?"
"What was the 'greatest thing' before sliced bread was invented?
"If sunflower oil comes from sunflowers and corn oil comes from corn, where does baby oil come from?"
"Why do Kamikaze pilots wear helmets?"
"If a planes 'black box' is indestructible, why don't they make the whole plane out of the stuff?"
"Why isn't palindrome" spelled the same forward and backward?"

Exhausted, Cal crashed to the floor in a jumbled mass of Hawaiian flowers. 

The crowd tipped their waiters and tried the veal.

The Speech

Rob had a request to "rock out" a little bit, but keeping in line with his efforts to keep the music fairly recognizable he opted for Rock Star by Nickleback.  I got to say, Rob once again surprised me when he was able to belt this out with that raspy pseudo grunge voice that came out of no where.  As usual, you can click the name of the song to get the tune if you aren't familiar with it. 

ROCK STAR

I'm through with standing in line
For the clubhouse beer
It's like the bottom of the seventh
And I'm never gonna fear
This season hasn't turned out
Quite the way I want it to be

(Tell me what you want)

I want a brand new bat
And a big plate of spare ribs
And a bathroom I can play baseball in
And a king size tub big enough
For all the Grisslies

(So what you need?)

I'll need so run fast like I’ve got no limit
And a big black glove with some crazy glue in it
Gonna join the home run club
And go deep at coventry

(Been there, done that)

I want some cover-up to hide my scars
My own star on the Tottenham Boulevard
Somewhere between Matt Foerster and
Mark Doyle is fine by me

(So how you gonna do it?)

I'm gonna trade this life for fortune and fame
I'd even cut my hair and change my name

'Cause we all just wanna be OldTimers Stars
And live in hilltop trailers driving a beat up dodge
The girls just laugh and the drugs are for our kneesprescription
We'll don’t stay skinny 'cause we just have to eat
And we'll hang out in the coolest bars
In the Legion branch number 329
Every good ball player's
Gonna wind up there
Every beer belly guy
With that receding hair

Hey hey I wanna be an oldtimers star
Hey hey I wanna be an oldtimers star

I wanna be great like Doris without the tassels
Hire eight body guards that help me not sprain my ankles
Sign a couple autographs
So I can eat my meals for free

(I'll have the quesadilla on the house)

I'm gonna dress myself
With the out of date fashion
Get a front door key to the Mac’s Milk in town
Now that its open 24 hours that key’s become useless for me

(So how you gonna do it?)

I'm gonna trade this life for fortune and fame
I'd even cut my hair and change my name

'Cause we all just wanna be OldTimers Stars
And live in hilltop trailers driving a beat up dodge
The girls just laugh and the drugs are for our knees
We'll don’t stay skinny 'cause we just have to eat
And we'll hang out in the coolest bars
In the Legion branch number 329
Every good ball player's
Gonna wind up there
Every beer belly guy
With that receding hair

Hey hey I wanna be an oldtimers star
Hey hey I wanna be an oldtimers star

The Game


Yes, the game. I think the game can be summed up in one word.  UGH.

First, I don't want this to come of as any kind of put down of The Hurtin' Units because they were full value for the win; however, we played really poorly. 

After a really nice run of 6 games where everything was close and even our losses had energy and enthusiuasm, we completely failed to get out of the gate last night.  We played defense great at times and other times, not so much.  We had a few guys hit great and the rest, not so much. 

Typically this Grissilies gives up a big inning a kind of claws its way back in.  Last night we did the first part according to script but giving up six runs in the first, but there weren't any claws on offense.  We more 'pawed' our way back and that isn't going to get you too far.

Even picking up Mark Doyle as a sub didn't seem to help.  In fact, I think we negatively impacted Mark's at bats as he went 2 for 4.

Don't get me wrong, there were some highlights in the loss, but you'll have to go to the Donini Three Stars page to check it out! 

Our record is not 4-6 and we've got a couple of weeks to think about it before our next game.  The good news is that the break give Cal some more recovery without missing games! 

We're only three games away from the half-way portion of the season and I'm trying to figure out how that's even possible? 

Any way, as you can tell, our 7th inning rally fell short in large part due to our blogger who went 1-4 and couldn't seem to find a way to get a ball passed Jerry who apparently has more gold gloves than Greg Maddux. 

Next up for the Grisslies are the Lucky Stiffs who are flirting with the top of the standings!