“For any country to be a country, you have to have an air force, a football team and a beer. You can get by without the air force and the football team, but you have to have a beer.”
Frank Zappa

I was never a big fan of Frank Zappa’s music, and I couldn’t tell you alot about his catalog, but I know that he gave out some great advice to kids from the midwest when he wrote the song “Don’t Eat the Yellow Snow.” Read more…

“A woman drove me to drink and I didn’t even have the decency to thank her.”

and

“What contemptible scoundrel has stolen the cork to my lunch?”

W.C. Fields

Thirteen years ago, today, I got married to my wife at Northwestern College in  St. Paul Minnesota. We honyemooned in Tampa, FL and came home to a tiny little apartment full of weddding gifts.  Life was so much more simple  then. I believe the lack of simplicity, and the presence of wives are why men created bars many years ago.  I think that is what W.C. Fields was alluding to in these quotes. Of course, I could be wrong.  Just ask my wife.

“Sometimes when I reflect back on all the beer I drink I feel ashamed. Then look into the glass and think about the workers in the brewery and all of their hopes and dreams. If I didn’t drink this beer, they might be out of work and their dreams would be shattered. Then I say to myself,

“It is better that I drink this beer and let their dreams come true than selfish and worry about my liver.”- Jack Handy

This quote above reminds me of the conversation that I had with John Randle back in 2007. I was attending the Matt Blair Celebrity Golf Tournament for Special Olympics at Hazeltine, and I got the opportunity to chat with both Randle and Randall McDaniel during the event.

I was their to volunteer for my company (the name sponsor) by assisting with coverage for use in our internal communications. We were video taping the various athletes and celebrities for “on the record” comments about our company, the Olympians, fund raising, and other “yadda, yadda, yadda” type spin.

Off the record conversations were much more fun, and when the camera was off “Big Dog” and I chatted about Vikings football, jersey sales and fans who tailgate in parking lot. I remember telling Randle that I wore his jersey from time to time, that I was big fan, and always enjoyed his funny commercials, and style of play.

He thanked me, but noted that I was dating myself,

“Man, that number #93 belongs to another guy now,” he stated, referring to defensive tackle Kevin Williams. Somehow we got to talking about tailgaters, drinking beer and watching Vikings games. I remember him alluding to how big of a business that had evolved into, with NFL “official” beer sponsorships, commercials, and the corporate money machine.

“Well ya know,” he said, “the beer doesn’t drink itself.”

Then, like Jack Handy himself, I looked at myself in the mirror and reflected on the comment.

Think about it.

Allow me to introduce myself. I am the best fucking softball player you have ever met. Just ask the opposing teams in the four leagues I am in this summer. I flat out rake. You could populate a small country with all the pitchers I’ve taken deep.

I just spent three hours in the batting cage and hit the shit out of the ball. Line drives, big flies, opposite field shots. I can do it all. Some kids next to me in the cages were staring and pointing at me. I can’t blame them. They’ve probably never seen a 40 year-old man wearing Oakley Blades and batting gloves who can hit bombs like me. Especially not with shorts this tight.

This season, I’m making sure we sweep all 4 leagues. Especially the Men’s League at St. Anthony’s. We were two outs away from winning that baby last year and now I can taste it. I’ve gotta get my hands on that 10-foot plastic trophy. It’s all I think about. Rumor has it the league winners get 2 free pitchers at Murphy’s Pub after the season. No way we lose with the trophy and 78 ounces of Busch on the line.

I just bought all new equipment for this season. You should see the acrylic baseball pants I got. Super tight. I picked up a new set of wristbands, a tube of eye black and a pair of 3-inch mud cleats, you know, just in case I need to break up a double play. I also got my hands on a $350 titanium bat for a little extra power. It cost me a week’s pay, but screw it, when I start cranking 400-foot shots it will be worth it. Plus I might need it to beat off all the trim that will be chasing me after the games.

Softball groupies love guys who can go deep.

I can’t wait for that first at bat. I’m bringing a tape deck to the game, so that I can blast The Scorpions when I walk to the plate. Nothing gets me fired up to play ball more than The Scorpions. Except maybe AC/DC, but I save that for the playoffs.

I feel sorry for the other teams. They have no idea what I’m about to unleash on them. Actually, I don’t feel sorry for them. You think that anyone felt sorry for me when that bastard coach cut me from the 8th grade baseball team? You think Babe Ruth or Dave Kingman felt sorry for the other team when they took them deep?

They should have known better than to get into a league with me. This year I’m focused. I practiced like a son of a bitch in the winter and got the call to play third. That’s right, the hot corner. Only the best play the hot corner. I have to be sharp, so no more beer during the games. I’m going to wait until after the game to starting pounding cold ones and I’m still going to drink you under the table.

My initials might as well be M-V-P. That stands for Most Valuable Player for all you non-softball players. The League starts Tuesday night. I took the day off of work.

Why do I take softball so seriously? Fuck you. You’re just jealous.

EDITORS NOTE: Recently Norms alumn, Moose Mulcahy forwarded an article from Josh Bacoot at Barstool Sports. It nails it, captures the fun of making fun of the guys who take softball waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too serious. You know the type? The ones who make up websites about their teams, themselves, and talk about how many homers they hit for their “real teams?” Well, it’s all in fun, and it’s in good humor

“Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.”
Benjamin Franklin.

Rumor has it that Ben also proposed a national brewery! I think he would have been a great baseball fan, but would probably have been a Phillies fan, so screw him. I am kidding, of course, but the quote above got me thinking about colonials, this country’s history, and what did they do if they couldn’t play baseball during the American Revolution? Would Benhamin Franklin have been a baseball fan, would he have enjoyed the sport?

I did some research, and typed in “Benjamin Franklin baseball” on some search engines to see if their was any profound quotes or quips from this American statesman that could be linked to the greatest game ever invented. I didn’t find much, but I did find a relevance link (sort of) with those terms, and I found it in the script of one of my favorite baseball movies of all time, The Sandlot.

“There was only one night game a year. On the 4th of July… the whole sky would brighten up with fireworks, giving us just enough light for a game. We played our best then because, I guess, we all felt like the big leaguers… under the lights of some great stadium. Benny felt like that all the time.

We all knew he was gonna go on to bigger and better games, because every time we stopped to watch the sky on those nights like regular kids, he was there to call us back.

You see, for us, baseball was a game. But for Benjamin Franklin Rodriguez, baseball was life.”

The main baseball character’s name, was Benny, who would later play for the Los Angeles Dodgers in the movie and be known as “Benny the Jet,” who preached to his friends when they were kids,

“Man, this is baseball, you gotta stop thinking! Just have fun. If you were having fun , you would have caught that ball!”

But that wasn’t the only connection, I found.  I saw several names of aspiring baseball players from High School to minor leagues who shared some variation of  the name “Benjamin Franklin.”

One, Benjamin Franklin Hunt, a left handed pitcher, played for both the Boston Red Sox and the St. Louis Cardinals for 2 years, posting 2-4 record and 25 strikeouts. (St. Louis is  the home to a big brewery by the way)

The coolest thing I uncovered, depending on your perspective of cool,  was a $100 dollar bill on a baseball. Yup, it’s all about the Benjamin’s on a plastic baseball. I couldn’t believe it when I surfed to it, so now I can tell you that it’s yours if you click on the Franklin Insitute store and order it!

Me? I have too many baseballs already, AND, in the spirit of the quote to start this post, I’d much rather go spend that  $16.95 on a case of cold Grain Belt Premium Beer.