The fact that you don’t think that we’d believe this is unbelievable.

Which can be taken two ways: Joe thinks Hannity is extremely patriotic, or Joe thinks Hannity is extremely unpatriotic but pretends to be so for good ratings.

I’ll let Joe clarify if he feels like it. He probably regrets making such an unclear joke. It would be clearer as a joke if instead of using Hannity, he chose (say) John Wayne, or maybe Nathan Hale. Or even Betsy Ross (highly patriotic, but not a guy). And out of respect for the wonderful things Joe does here, I won’t comment about politics. But I bet that Hannity isn’t a baseball player.

Nice to see you quote Mr. White’s spontaneous witticism. During the heyday of my Royal’s fanaticism–in my mid-teens–I tried to catch several games a year. After each game, we used to make our way to the gate where many of the “lesser” players would exit after showering. (Of course, George Brett, et al, would invariably sneak away via other routes. Anyway, Frank White was always the last to exit via the fan-predicable route, and always, always stuck around until he assured himself that every kid received an autograph and a kind word. Mr. White, is, and has always been, a number one class act. He is one of the few reasons I still follow the Royals. Thanks for your comments.

Anthony Z–

There were a few responses to your post, I’ll just add that don’t confuse success with winning the World Series. Unfortunately, as we will soon see in Beijing, often only the World Series winner or the Gold Medalist are considered “successful” by our society.

It’s a bit of a sad commentary of how we have come to view things.

For example, years ago Madden was trying to make the point that Walter Payton was so gifted, could do so many things, that it understated his ability to just call him a great running back or a great blocker and that you had to just call him a great football player. That was classic Madden: using something simple to make a good point about one of the greatest players ever. But since then it’s become so overused that it doesn’t mean much more than just “a guy who plays football”

Here’s another one: “walk-off”. When “walk-off home run” came into vogue it conveyed a certain dramatic image. It has finality. Now it’s morphed into any game-ending way of reaching base. I saw a reference to a “walk-off walk” earlier this season. Still waiting for the first use of walk-off pop up or walk-off ground out. It won’t be long.

Football announcers do one other thing along these lines that really bugs me. They never mention the “ball”. It’s always the FOOTball, with stress on the first syllable. I can’t come up with examples, but it bugs the hell out of me. On TV, you’re clearly watching a football game. Just call it the ball for pete’s sake.

Just when I thought hyperbole, straw men and then aggressively claiming to be a victim couldn’t possibly be less interesting or even factually accurate, you said, “No. No, this is a limitation someone like me doesn’t even FEEL or SMELL. Right now, It’s action!” and then barfed a lot into a blog about baseball.

Stop posting.

Sure, who needs a human rights tribunal? let`s just stick a boot in their ass, it`s the American Way, right? (like Toby K and Rumsfeld said!)

peace be with you,

Dr. F