So, Do You Like ... Stuff?

Harold Reynolds, 1988 Donruss Diamond Kings I want to say right off the bat that this is the grossest misrepresentation of a player the Diamond Kings series has ever produced. Harold Reynolds is, apparently, Billy Dee Williams. At the time of this card Reynolds was 27-years old. Twenty-seven. ( Here is what Harold Reynolds looks like in real life, a year later .) This looks like the card of a third base coach whose youngest daughter is graduating college next month. If they had drawn an Orioles hat instead, this would totally be Eddie Murray. Also, what is this graphic? This graphic looks like geometry got into a fight with a Cosby sweater. Or maybe it was pulled as a screenshot from the opening sequence of an Atari game. Regardless, like a fine wine paired with the perfect meal, it goes seamlessly alongside a terribly sketched picture of Harold Reynolds, second baseman. Not many people know it because he plays in Seattle, This is the worst premise ever and one of...

Last Thursday evening my wife went out with a few friends, so I took our daughter out to eat on “a date.” We call it a date to be cute, but it is very similar to an actual date in that I spend most of the time trying to figure out what she wants and am very stressed throughout. I picked her up from daycare and reminded her that she should go potty, because we were going on a date. She said she didn’t have to go, but I told her she should try because I was not taking her to the potty when the food arrived. She went, reluctantly. Literally thirty seconds after our food arrived she turned to me and said, “Daddy, I have to go potty.” I was like, “You’ve got to be kidding me.” She gave me puppy dog eyes and I reneged on my promise to not take her. Flashback: Months ago, we were on a date at a different restaurant and eating outside. Right after our food arrived, she squatted and wet herself, leaving a puddle on the chair. I was like, “You’ve got to be kidding me.” I grabbed the diaper...

I get a ton of spam here at work. Much of it involves junk emails that are sent to place counterfeit classified ads using stolen credit card info, so ... America! We can examine those, I hope, soon. Today's spam feature, however, consists of that common and generic invitation to market gold in an unspecified side of the world. Subject: Greeting's To You. There is literally nothing correct about this subject header, which is a fantastic start. Greeting's is possessive, every word is CAP'd, and there is a period at the end, which is, honestly, sociopathic. If this isn't a spambot, it's from a serial killer. Subject headers are always my favorite part of spam emails because they're supposed to draw the sucker in, but are always so terrible that any moderately intelligent person or cat can and will immediately delete them because they are so terrible. Here is how the spam robots envisioned this subject being received. (Note: they envision it being receive...

My morning routine is pretty simple. The time between my alarm going off and me stepping out the door would be five minutes were it not for my daughter/dog/coffee-making obligations. I am very low-maintenance, and as a man this has become a source of pride. As noted many, many times, I do not often represent what society deems as a man—if someone got me tools for Father’s Day, for example, I would be confused and upset—so I’m happy to include low-maintenance on my man resume. In fact, my co-worker asked me recently how I do my hair in the morning, to which I proudly responded, “I don’t. I just get up and go.” Later that day I actually looked at myself in the mirror and the back of my hair was completely sticking out to one side. I looked like a little kid who had woken up after wishing he could become an adult for the day. I retroactively interpreted my co-worker’s question as a definitive statement: “You should start doing something about your hair.” My hair is normally kept prett...

Expos Leaders, 1987 Topps What is “leadership?” Is it inspiring your team to win with a grandiose speech behind the closed doors of a closed-door meeting? Is it marching an oppressed people out of Egypt with Divine assistance? Is it boosting the morale of an army of men, fatigued from battle, by convincing your superiors to get them new boots? Or, is it standing on the pitcher’s mound, hands on your hips, waiting for your relief pitcher to arrive in an absurd bullpen car? Leadership is all of these things, but mostly the last one. In 1987, the leaders of the Montreal Expos were an old man in a baseball uniform, some umpire, and Fitzgerald. A picture is worth a thousand words of leadership, and although the matter is generally subjective, there has literally never been a picture as inspiring as this one. Obviously, an Expos pitcher was not performing adequately, or was tired after throwing a bunch of pitches. What to do? Let’s ask a leader. Me : Buck, what do you do...

You may or may not recall that a few years back it was revealed that certain areas of my beard stubble were turning gray. This existential crisis resulted in a brief experiment with Just For Men. Eventually I got over it and allowed those grays to roam free and unaltered on the sporadic occasions of growing my beard out. Recently, however, I discovered that the gray culprits had crept up to my sideburns. Beard grays are one thing, but sideburn grays are quite another, since I cannot shave them to stubble without appearing as a bowl-headed crazy person. I had been attempting to stifle their impact with the use of an extremely tiny pair of scissors, but recently my wife looked at me and commented gracefully, “Omg—your sideburns are turning gray!” This ultimately resulted in me trying to pluck the hairs out with tweezers in front of the bathroom mirror. My wife walked in and said, “You’re not plucking those grays, are you? Oh no! For every gray you pluck, seven more grow back!” I ...

Dick Schofield, 1991 Score As a retroactive and thus pointless rule of thumb: if a player is named “Dick,” ‘tis better to speak of that player by last name—pretty much a rule of thumb regardless of first name re: journalism—than risk phallic-based innuendos. Or, better yet: don’t nickname a person “Dick.” Listen. I am 34-years old. I have a wife, a daughter, a job. I write for a respected community-based newspaper. I am a moderately responsible adult. But I will not apologize for finding the name Dick to be hilariously silly when used out of context. I do not know how it came about that people decided it would be a good idea to develop the nickname “Dick” for Richard—it’s not even close; why not call people named Larry “Butt?”—but I am happy to reap the benefits in this generation. You can call it immature or what have you, but there are three things that will always remain hilarious to me due to my innate human nature: 1) farts, 2) people falling down, and 3) the name Dick...

Last week a rock hit my windshield on the 101 as I was driving to work. That, or someone was trying to shoot me, because that is what my windshield ended up looking like afterwards. Contrary to my claim last week that warm weather is already forcing me to use the A/C in the morning, a pleasant dawn allowed me to drive with the window open. And let me just say, had that rock made its way through the open window and onto the side of my head, I would not be here today. Because I would be dead. (From the rock hitting my head. I trust I am being clear.) It was nothing new that a rock hit my windshield because rocks hit my windshield all the time here. What is that? During my decade of driving back east, I cannot recall a rock ever hitting my windshield, and if one did, it definitely never caused any damage. But here in the Valley, every time I get on the freeway it feels like my car is getting pelted in a hailstorm of flying freeway debris. My only defense is the hope that none leave a ...