Ever think about the space-time continuum?

What if Moneyball was a biblical story? A young scout plays Adam. Billy Beane is Eve. Everyone is living in the Garden of Eden, happy in their ignorance. Bill James is the serpent. He tempts Beane to eat from the Tree of Knowledge. Beane gives the apple to the young scout. Joe Morgan is God. He gets quite wrathful about this turn of events. Hilarity ensues.

Beane may not be perfectly cast as Eve, but we’ll give him the part because he is so hairy.

I haven’t followed college basketball at all this year, but my Final Four is still intact in the Baseball Primer pool: Duke, Georgia Tech, Oklahoma State, Connecticut. I owe it all to the psychic powers of my Grandma Agnes.

When she died I had a dream. She came to me and said, “The space-time continuum moves in mysterious ways. When the great leader of your land is caught lying and unwillingly removed from power, you shall receive my gift.”

So I’ve watched with keen interest while Nixon, Reagan, Clinton, and Dubya have all been accused of lying. Alas, impeachment never succeeds. But If I win this pool, everything becomes clear. Grandma Agnes was actually referring to Martha Stewart.

Mark McClusky wonders how to make his girlfriend love baseball. I think the only proven method is osmosis.

My oldest daughter is osmosing baseball. Much to my delight, she chose a baseball theme for her 7th birthday party this weekend. It’s fascinating to watch her interest in baseball grow. She’s not really into the competition or the players much; her interest seems to be mostly cultural: the styles, the music, the history. I wonder if it’s just her, or if this is the Women-Are-From-Venus path into the sport.

My wife did her best Martha Stewart imitation for the birthday party. She transformed the backyard into a baseball stadium. Every kid had their number retired on the wall:

One of the party games we played was pickle. The kids got to run the bases and the adults tried to tag them. It brought back forgotten memories of hours upon hours spent playing pickle as a kid. With the modern aversion to stolen bases, and the hyperorganized nature of youth activities these days, I wonder: do kids play pickle anymore?

Party poopers: I have just been informed that our undocumented acquisition of bunting will come under investigation by the SEC.

Why? It makes no sense! Does somebody up there hate us? They didn’t say that. Read the book. Joe Morgan moves in mysterious ways. Hilarity ensues.