Where Have You Gone, Joe Dimaggio?

Its' Sunday and I'm drinking (hooray Sunday!). So naturally, I'm waxing nostalgic about the Glory Days that have passed me by.

Man, I swear back in 94 when this started I was really good looking, really good at softball and had a really big penis. (That's the way I remember it - no corrections please.)

This got me thinking about former "Gorillas", or as they were called in the pre-modern era former "Bayside Tigers", "Pauls Botiquers" or "Dead Squirrels".

So I'm going to try and start a new segment for this site "Where Are They Now?", with the disclaimer: I have a short attention span, little motivation, and no work ethic, so this may be as far as it goes.

Every week or so I will feature a former player and his history with the club and what he is up to now. Next weeks feature will be Tyrone Taylor (94-97), a founding father. (It was a car ride home from a wiffle ball tourney with Baggs, Baumgart, Taylor and myself that started this shit.) I hope to throw down a couple of stories about what made (or what didn't make) these guys Gorilla material, and what they are doing these days or at least some stories about their days in Rillaville. I'm hoping to shed some light on the history of the team... you know, from back when JT was breast feeding and Beans was just hitting puberty.

5-4-3 -or- X Files Is Believable

The Gorillas, believe it or not, are a creative bunch. The problem is, they're also a lazy bunch. And occasionally they're a dumb bunch. So, from time to time, a Gorilla that is not me will write a blog post, but be too lazy to post it here. Or he will forget his password. Or both. The following is the result of one of those occasions, and a drunken evening for D, in which he explains that hope is a good thing - maybe the best of things. And so on.

I'm a cynic, a pessimist, a non believer. I pretty much have no hope or belief in anything. In short, I'm a miserable bastard. I have no faith in anything that's not tangible. If I can't see it, smell it, or touch it... well, I just don't believe it.

When i was a young boy, they told me about Santa Claus. I did not buy into it. If a fat old man is sneaking into a kids house..he must be a pedophile.

Big Foot? Had to be Georghe Meursean or Manute Bol on a camping trip.

Roswell? I hear Mexicans are stupid (no offense to Stic)... so New Mexicans must be even stupider.

Global Warming? Where I live it's still cold in the winter and hot in the
summer. So, I'm gassing up my SUV, keeping my lights on, and cranking the AC. Going Green? Fuck that.

So when I hear of legendary/conspiracy tales - the "grassy knoll", "DaVinci codes", "Jamie Lee Curtis is a hermaphrodite (does this mean she has a dick?), "triple plays in softball", "the curse of the billy goat (poor Cubs)" - I just ignore it. Because that's what I've done for most of my life. Hope/faith don't mean shit. I basically have to see it to believe it.

I remember in high school some of my friends were telling tales of getting some "pussy", how great it was, and how they hoped to get it again. Well, I was skeptical. I had never seen, smelt or touched this so called "pussy "and could not believe such a thing could give us so much hope. Then, one day I fell out of a boat and hit water (with the help of some Purple Passion and game called 3 man). I saw the "pussy" I touched the "pussy", I smelt the "pussy" (all pretty remarkable considering it took 3 minutes.) It was great.

I walked out of the room that day and I had hope (and not the "hope she doesn't press charges" kind of hope.) It was a good day.

Since that time, The Man has kept me down, Pussy has not been around, and The Cynic was re-found. Until Tuesday night. I was playing Left Center for the fabled Gashaus Gorillas in an unnamed inning; there were runners on 1st and 2nd with no one out. A rotund batter waddled to the plate and hit a one hopper to our rotund 3rd baseman (5) who tagged and threw to our rotund 2nd baseman (4) who tagged and threw to our rotund 1st baseman (3).

The Gorrillas got some pussy! I walked off the field and looked upon the grassy knoll behind the fence and saw Jamie Lee Curtis, sitting by a UFO and jacking off a billy goat. And I had hope... I could go on forever but I have bigger fish to fry.

Dear SANTA...

Sometimes You Win, Sometimes You Lose & Sometimes It Rains -or- D Was Surprisingly Not Injured

With several members of the team either out of town or scheduled to wear a wig and sing 80's hits in a pretentious east-side bar, the Gorillas were gonna be short-handed last Tuesday.

[Cues "Hero" by Mariah Carey.]

The team was in trouble. Something had to be done. But what?

["There's a hero/If you look inside your heart..."]

One man knew. He knew that his family had been called upon in such times for generations. But he didn't know if he could do it.

["...You don't have to be afraid/Of what you are..."]

He went to the old dusty trunk in the garage and began searching frantically. He finally found the box 'neath the white satin Adidas hat with the gold rope across the brim, and resting atop a bed of Taylor Dayne posters. It was a pair brown Eastland loafers: the laces untied but in some fancy swirl thingy, and the soles worn thin.

[...There's an answer/If you reach into your soul/And the sorrow that you know/Will melt away..."]

Yes. He would do it. He had to. For the team. For himself. And for Lou Diamond Phillips. He dug through the same trunk and found a casingle. "My Perogative" by Bobby Brown. This would do the trick.

[And then a hero comes along/With the strength to carry on...]

He went and got his daughters Playskool tape player. (It was still loaded with "Hello" by Lionel Richie from last month when he saw that blind woman at the grocery store. His daughter has, in fact, never heard of a "cassette". The player was in his bedroom.) He donned the shoes, and

cranked the volume on Bobby Brown. And he danced.

["So when you feel like hope is gone/Look inside you and be strong..."]

Slowly at first - after all, he's over-weight and has a bad heart - but then he started to recall the nights of his youth at The Victory. His pace quickened. And soon... it began to rain.

["And finally see the truth/That a hero lies in you"]

Some say it was the "running man" that did it. Some think it was the Kool Moe Dee "wild, wild west". Me, I like to think it was the Kid N Play move where he grabbed his left foot and jumped over his arm with the right.

But one thing is for certain: the Gorillas did not play softball that day. (Game rescheduled for July 29th)

Let's Blow Some Shit Up! -or- We're Not Talking About Our Season

Happy birthday, America.

I'm celebrating the 232nd anniversary of the birth of our country by doing what every intelligent, patriotic and large penised male in the country should be doing: I'm getting drunk, eating read meat, and blowing shit up.

I haven't lost a finger yet, and honestly, I'm a little disappointed in that. But I'll give it another shot tomorrow night and update the blog (slowly) if I do.

If I survive, I think I'll go on another vacation.

What I like to do this time of year is try to get as close to the fucking sun as possible. I also like to wait until gas costs more than cocaine, and then go on a 26 hour driving bender that would make John Belushi's partying habits look like a sewing circle. I also like to try and find a beach to pass out on, so eventually Will Smith will fly in and, thinking I'm a beached ocean mammal, toss me into the water. I also like to run into Pete Rose at a dog track and have him charge me $5 to ask him why he has the haircut of a half-a-retard.

And so I'm going to the only place where I can accomplish all of that: Florida. I'll bring you back some grapefruit or a shark's tooth necklace or something.

Oh yeah, we played a game this week. As you can tell by the picture below, it was a theme night. This week, in honor of Flemwad's return from boyscout camp, it was G.I. Wad Night.

We told everyone to come dressed like Tom does on an average Sunday afternoon at the beach. Ironically, he was the only one that didn't. (Melon's wearing a camouflaged speedo under his uniform.)

Good luck next week without me, boys. I'm sure you'll do great. And by "you'll do great" I mean that you'll lose by 15, drink 4,000 biers and sit around telling lies till midnight.

We Can't Believe This Has Never Happened To Us -or- The Middle's Open

Some guy that looks looked like he plays played softball wearing a visor and ray-ban's died yesterday from a fight after a softball game. The guy that hit him - in the back of the head when they were shaking hands and then "took off running" (pussy!) - is not pictured here, but he looks like he probably has worn a similar hairstyle in the past.

Gezus. Sure, some Gorillas have been known to get a little fired up during a game from time to time, but I'm pretty sure we've never been close to anyone getting killed, whether they threw behind the runner or not.

This is why I'm glad Wad will be back tonight. If someone on our team is gonna get sucker-punched, it'll probably be him. And he can only be killed by being dropped into some super-freezing liquid stuff like the first Terminator.

Gorilla Stats -or- Real American Heroes