Sports-News of the Age
Nate and I allude to this occasionally, but we conduct a hearty and frequently voluminous e-mail correspondence largely consisting of jokes about the Pirates or Steelers, which we generally don't share around since it's a twin humor feedback loop thing. We have the most fun, in our fashion, with minor players whose names suggest a goofy alter ego, like onetime relief pitcher Anthony Claggett or minor-league outfielder Larry Broadway.
Such was the case last year, briefly, for a Pirates pitcher named Dana Eveland, who we agreed had an impossibly womanly name. Eveland wasn't on the Pirates long but is on the Dodgers now, and happened to beat the swiftly tanking Pirates tonight. So with that background, I share with you the following example of Twin Feedback Sports Humor, in the form of an email exchange spanning fifteen months. I continue to be jealous of Nate's command of old-timey-sounding language.
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Jack to Nate, June 7, 2010
June 7th --- Spectators of this afternoon's baseball match between the Pirates and the the Cubs encountered an unexpected sight, as the home club introduced to the pitching-mound one Dana Eveland, recently of Canada. Perhaps the Chicago men of more broad-shouldered frame were bearers of the occasional guffaw, and if so their disbelief is easily understood. Allowed several innings of presence upon the diamond, however, Eveland was soon seen to be capable at their sport. The elegant windup of Eveland was prelude to a swift, tapering throw, brought off with style and gracious velocity.
How should the devotee of baseball regard this new development in roster-stocking? Perhaps his eyes turn first to the box-score, where the numbers coolly present an unsympathetic portayal of hits registered, runs scored, and not a win by the hosting club. Nevertheless, in at least one progressive sports-writer's view there is much to be lauded here. Why, it may even be noted that today's thrower received rather more success than many of the men the Pirates had of late written into their lineup cards! No doubt, this sportsman alleges, the competitive spirit shall align with the equality-minded spirit of our age; and more than some several hundred ballpark-visitors shall remember this game as the original appearance of Dana Eveland, first woman base-baller.
CORRECTION, June 8th. Dana Eveland is not a woman base-baller. The Pittsburg Telegraph-Courier regrets the error.
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Nate to Jack, September 1, 2011
"Hell hath no fury like a Woman Scorned" — Lady Revenges Pirates Club.
Pittsburg Advertiser-Post, Sept. 1, 1911
Carlson Gillcuddy, sport reporter.
PITTSBURG, Penn. — Brooklyn pitcher Dana Eveland, a woman, today deflated the spirits of the Pittsburg Pirates, the now entirely masculine team that earlier dismissed her services.
The lady Eveland surrendered but one batted run to the rival baseballers while pitching through eight of nine innings. The shamefaced Pittsburg men in attendance attest that the flash of her eye and the red of her cheek betrayed a revengeful mind, and that an unusual aggression showed in her leg-kicks even through the billowing drapery of her hooped skirts.
The mood among the Pirates players themselves as they shifted their uniforms in their changing-pit below the bleachers after their unmanning was even lower.
"It is G———d poor baseball," proclaimed center-fielder Andrew McCutchen, his uncharacteristically coarse language bringing a crimson flush to the Gay Scotsman's face beneath his neatly oiled whiskers. "That such a creature as cannot even achieve a full beard, with all respect to the young Mr. Presley, should even be permitted to take the field is insult enough. But that in the event we could not even meet ball with bat speaks of our wretchedness as athletes as well as members of the male species."
Pittsburg manager Clint Hurdle could be seen upon his dugout-bench sucking a tooth and then twirling his mustaches with a fiery glint in his eye up until the bottom of the sixth inning, at which point he expired of black lung.
Their loss to the delicately wristed female ball-thrower furthered an ignominious season for the Pirates, they having previously lost in Chicago to a trained bear and in Milwaukee to a German.
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Well, we think it's funny, anyway.
Such was the case last year, briefly, for a Pirates pitcher named Dana Eveland, who we agreed had an impossibly womanly name. Eveland wasn't on the Pirates long but is on the Dodgers now, and happened to beat the swiftly tanking Pirates tonight. So with that background, I share with you the following example of Twin Feedback Sports Humor, in the form of an email exchange spanning fifteen months. I continue to be jealous of Nate's command of old-timey-sounding language.
--------------
Jack to Nate, June 7, 2010
June 7th --- Spectators of this afternoon's baseball match between the Pirates and the the Cubs encountered an unexpected sight, as the home club introduced to the pitching-mound one Dana Eveland, recently of Canada. Perhaps the Chicago men of more broad-shouldered frame were bearers of the occasional guffaw, and if so their disbelief is easily understood. Allowed several innings of presence upon the diamond, however, Eveland was soon seen to be capable at their sport. The elegant windup of Eveland was prelude to a swift, tapering throw, brought off with style and gracious velocity.
How should the devotee of baseball regard this new development in roster-stocking? Perhaps his eyes turn first to the box-score, where the numbers coolly present an unsympathetic portayal of hits registered, runs scored, and not a win by the hosting club. Nevertheless, in at least one progressive sports-writer's view there is much to be lauded here. Why, it may even be noted that today's thrower received rather more success than many of the men the Pirates had of late written into their lineup cards! No doubt, this sportsman alleges, the competitive spirit shall align with the equality-minded spirit of our age; and more than some several hundred ballpark-visitors shall remember this game as the original appearance of Dana Eveland, first woman base-baller.
CORRECTION, June 8th. Dana Eveland is not a woman base-baller. The Pittsburg Telegraph-Courier regrets the error.
--------------
Nate to Jack, September 1, 2011
"Hell hath no fury like a Woman Scorned" — Lady Revenges Pirates Club.
Pittsburg Advertiser-Post, Sept. 1, 1911
Carlson Gillcuddy, sport reporter.
PITTSBURG, Penn. — Brooklyn pitcher Dana Eveland, a woman, today deflated the spirits of the Pittsburg Pirates, the now entirely masculine team that earlier dismissed her services.
The lady Eveland surrendered but one batted run to the rival baseballers while pitching through eight of nine innings. The shamefaced Pittsburg men in attendance attest that the flash of her eye and the red of her cheek betrayed a revengeful mind, and that an unusual aggression showed in her leg-kicks even through the billowing drapery of her hooped skirts.
The mood among the Pirates players themselves as they shifted their uniforms in their changing-pit below the bleachers after their unmanning was even lower.
"It is G———d poor baseball," proclaimed center-fielder Andrew McCutchen, his uncharacteristically coarse language bringing a crimson flush to the Gay Scotsman's face beneath his neatly oiled whiskers. "That such a creature as cannot even achieve a full beard, with all respect to the young Mr. Presley, should even be permitted to take the field is insult enough. But that in the event we could not even meet ball with bat speaks of our wretchedness as athletes as well as members of the male species."
Pittsburg manager Clint Hurdle could be seen upon his dugout-bench sucking a tooth and then twirling his mustaches with a fiery glint in his eye up until the bottom of the sixth inning, at which point he expired of black lung.
Their loss to the delicately wristed female ball-thrower furthered an ignominious season for the Pirates, they having previously lost in Chicago to a trained bear and in Milwaukee to a German.
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Well, we think it's funny, anyway.
1 Comments:
Thanks for assembling it for the blog so that I didn't have to. I stand by humor that sort of requires you to know who Alex Presley is, and that he looks like a fifteen-year-old boy at the plate.
I miss Larry Broadway. Last I checked he'd quit playing and had just been hired as a scout in the Pirates system in New Mexico; I guess we never blogged our little back-and-forth about that either.
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