Play Ball

I'll admit it, I'm a fair weather baseball fan.

Put a baseball game on the TV in the middle of May and I'm more likely to switch the channels to the Home Shopping Network or that odd infomercial for the Trojan Vibrator, the one that "blows your hair back."

But come October and the Division Series, the Championship Series and the World Series and I hang on every word uttered by Tim McCarver. I love the action, I love the nail biting drama and I love the convoluted strategy.

Safety squeezes, pitchouts, running on 2-0 count. I can't get enough of it. It's all so heady. It's the athletic equivalent of chess. Played by a bunch of lunkheads who chew tobacco, light each shoes on fire and wet towel snap each other in the locker room without a hint of homo-erotica.

Last week, we had an Arizona Diamondbacks pitcher named Putz. 
And this week, I was happily introduced to the hard-throwing Doug Fister.

I'm going to tread lightly here because this is -- with few minor exceptions -- a G-rated blog and when discussing the practice of fisting and those who are fisters it's too easy to slip into no man's land. Let's just say that when Fister is on the mound I pay special attention and I am on Defcon 5 for any mishandled puns or slips of the tongue.

Speaking of slips of the tongue, I'm pulling for the Cardinals. I hear they're pulling up a utility 3rd baseman from the Toledo Mud Hens in the AA league. His name is Steve Felcher.