The Great Joltin' Joe and Teddy Ballgame debate.. Part I.

It started out as a simple heated argument and escalated into a tussle.

Propose the "right" idea to a close minded drunk with a short temper and you could end up on the bleeding edge of all that's happening in broken glass technology. Exchange the words "close minded drunk with a short temper" to "passionate Yankee fan" and it shares the same consequences. You could see my quandry.

I don't think Joe DiMaggio was as great as everyone remembers him being. I thought that he was a very good player (way better than Derek Jeter, mind you) but not quite as great as his contemporaries (like Derek Jeter). Not only that but DiMaggio had THE cat (Marilyn Monroe) in the bag and he let her go (to a writer!) or shall I say couldn't satisfy the agreement (sound familiar to Mr. Jeter?)

They might have played each other less times than Drinkey McDrink-drink called me a "c*$*%#$ker" in one short hour

The patrons of what shall always be remembered as "The Bar I Will Gladly Avoid From Now On." were not pleased with my rhetoric, my verification and corrections of their referenced data nor my whimisical attitude towards the Legend of Joe D.

Furthermore if you state that "Ted Williams was better and I can prove it over and over with fact, statistic and all other valid forms of authenticated quantities", they start to think of you as less of an a-hole and more of "worse than than an a-hole". Well in the "right" neighborhood you're just asking for a wicked awesome fight, BoSox Boy!

But that's not what I was saying to the clench-fisted, ultra-spittle endowed master of Bill Cowher impersonations. I was saying that if DiMaggio didn't play in the right hander's cavern of Yankee Stadium and if Ted wouldn't have had the Monster, or if both of them never missed any time due to service time. And on and on and on, we'll never know! There were so many variables!

I started sensing the aura of more of "them" enclosing around less of "us", with the "us" being me... It wasn't just a random conversation bashing the Yankees at a bar with a guy that looked like his blood type is 10W-40 anymore. It was a tripped trigger for a guy that wasn't satisfied with an overall lack of violence in this particular rendition of Tuesday Happy Hour. He had a glint in his eyes you usually only see in tower climbing snipers, long-term residents of padded rooms and the typical unibomber wannabes. And this emepher wanted to fight me!

He's pushing 50 lookin' like he's pushing 70, had a rough life and a rougher day. Maybe his girl wised up and left him, maybe his dog died, maybe his second favorite shotgun busted today while he was using it to fix a flat on his pickup, maybe all of the above stereotypes and more are true. Maybe he was just a psychotic Yankees fan who's existence relied on the simple notion that Joe DiMaggio was an annointed Saint.

And normally, why would I be afraid of this guy? I'm not a violent person. I'm waaay bigger than this dude, I'd crush him if need be! But his 17 or so friends don't appreciate a few things about me:

a) it WOULD be fun kicking my ass, eh?
b) they don't like my so-called resemblance to that "Jolly Green Giant feller"
c) I keep saying the wrong things about the Yankees (nothing good)
d) I keep saying these things to the one guy who REALLY doesn't need to hear it. (drunk angry folk)

But logic fails to cool the boiling heat of rage. Often, it enrages the fumous, impatient and non-rational anger MORE!

"I said you were WRONG! How dare you prove that you're right??!?!?"

For once, I felt the fear that I wasn't going to talk my way out of this one, this time... it was reckoning time; the inevitable day of Manny's comeuppance! I knew only had one possible course of action that would possibly save my "oily hide" from some unwanted facial reconstruction.

I told them I was a Devil Rays fan.