through dangers untold and hardships unnumbered . . .

*facepalm*

Oh, Tigers.

I'm really glad I'm not as invested in baseball as I used to be right about now.

Reasons why the distractions of RP and finals have been a blessing in the past week:

* Terry Pratchett has Alzheimer's. Terry freaking Pratchett. The great big fucking genius himself. I don't even know what to say about that. I love Pterry. Most of my books are in storage, and I fail at getting things in to the library on time, so when I'm broke and my late fees are absurd, it's the ten or so Discworld novels in my possession that I read over and over. I never get tired of them. Terry and Discworld have made a profound impression on my literary tastes and, because of the insights of his satire, the way I interpret the world. I know life isn't fair, but - this is so unfair. Why is it Pterry?

* Evil baseball trades. That this is coming underneath an item about Alzheimer's says a great deal about my ability to see things in perspective, but hell. Too many of my boys are gone now. Something else I don't need to be thinking too hard about.

* Money stress. I'd rather not get into this. Let's just say that my financial situation has been most dire, and the thing I was counting on for relief has been delayed an extra week and a half. Thank god for helpful relatives and selling back textbooks.

* Anticipating the Mitchell report. (For the non-baseball folks on the list, the Mitchell report is regarding steroids, and when properly relased later today, will include a list of names of players who are confirmed as steroid users. I don't expect a lot of surprises, but there will be names on it that have been very dear to me since I got into baseball four years ago.) Some of the names have allegedly been leaked. Do not want. Thanks to aforementioned distractions, it's barely been on my radar, but today is the day to face up and make some decisions on how far my fan loyalty goes.

Those of you I've been roleplaying with, thank you. Having something exciting to think about has been keeping my sanity intact. That's hardly new, but in this past week or two it has been crucial in keeping me from backsliding into sheer panic.

And finals? Well. How can I worry about steroids and trades when I have to write papers and memorize a monologue and study for a final exam in my worst subject? This has been some most fortuitous timing.

Grandpa, the whole time you were alive, your Red Sox won the World Series once. Just once in your almost eighty-three years.

Tonight they won their second title in four years. I wish you were here to see it. I love you.

Ahahaha.

"I just think I'm not in the mood to make a decision right now," Piazza said. "You have to detach yourself, take a step back. It's impossible to make a decision when you're in the washing machine - you've got to get out and dry off. You never make a good decision when you're emotionally charged."

Translated from Diplomatese: "OMG I HATE IT HERE I HAVE TO ESCAPE HELP ME PLEEEEEEZE." You know he's going to be looking back for his inevitable memoirs all, "Yeah, and then there was the year in Oakland. Next!"

In other news, I have had my computer back for a while and am still waiting on the new keyboard, and I don't feel like making a bunch of posts in Kendraspeak (do you guys have ANY IDEA how often G and H show up in English? I hope you never have to find out), so my usual too-long-between posts has a reason this time. On the plus side, going without a computer for a weekend, and counting myself lucky that the worst it did schoolwise was make me late for class because I had to type something, inspired me to finally see about getting my beloved iBook fixed. Man, did I fuck that up hardcore when it first broke! I did everything stupid you can do when your computer craps the bed and you don't know the first thing about getting it fixed. I shall not dwell, but it would appear that I cost myself a good chunk of cash that would been better thrown at, oh, I don't know, overdue bills that ended up in collections. ANYWAY. I am wiser and more learned now, so this time I found an Apple-certified repairperson in town and took it there. I'm gonna be out three-forty for a new logicboard, plus she recommended a hefty memory upgrade, BUT WHATEVER I WILL HAVE MY MAC BACK. And when I EVENTUALLY get the new keyboard (free, hooray for having the brains to buy a plan with Circuit City when I got the Compaq - the learning process started fairly quickly), I will have a backup computer. That way, when the Mac inevitably breaks down in the middle of a major project, I will only be partially screwed when I realize that I neglected to save it to a CD! I will also be using the Compaq for my MP3 player, because I do not have and do not want an iPod, and for all its awesomeness, Apple sucks like that when it comes to those of us who dare own a Macintosh computer and a non-Apple MP3 player.

So that is my computer situation. I am happy with my school situation, as all my classes this semester appear to be good, and I could probably spend a paragraph on each of them, but I will spare the three of you still reading. I will point out only that we are reading Hamlet right now in Intro to Theatre. I have adored that play since I decided to give it another try during my Kenneth Branagh phase - I found I couldn't watch his movie cold, so decided to reread the play, which hadn't done a lot for me in sophomore English, only to discover that it was awesome and I couldn't put it down - and I am thrilled to finally be studying it again now that I appreciate it.

I also have a sleep situation. As in, not getting any. (SLEEP. Not getting any SLEEP.) This is my fault, since I stay up too late at night when I have to get up for classes, and not for schoolwork either. But whatever, I'll live. I'd be confused if I found myself on campus fully rested, anyway.

I have a baseball situation, too. It is TENSION.

Dear baseball gods,

Can't one of my (contending) teams run away with the division/wild card just ONCE? Why do you do this to me EVERY YEAR? HATE.

Ulcerously yours,
Cathryn

I think that about covers it. Dunno when I'll be posting again. Hopefully that keyboard comes in soon. Then it's just a matter of navigating out to Circuit City, which, between the bus schedule, classes, and work, is a treat and a half. There are, like, two four-hour chunks of time a week when I can actually go. Oh, well. Soon it will all be over. Then the Compaq will be - well, mostly dusty, because at this rate I'll get my iBook back first.

A Tigers/Yankees observation:

We are in the eleventh at quarter past three in a game that STARTED at eleven.

Fuck the HECK, you guys?!

Edit: CARLOS GUILLEN WITH THE WALKOFF HOMERUN.

That was totally worth being so tired I could puke. I love you Carlos.

Here's an interesting additional tidbit:

Kendall has a no-trade clause.

That puts an interesting new perspective on things. (I have this image of Kendall jumping at the chance to escape before something can go wrong for him, too, but that's probably fiction. Probably.)

So, usually I leave the injury analysis to people who have, like, the first clue what they're talking about when it comes to anatomy. Because seriously, I have no clue. I don't know which bone is connected to which bone. I mentally smile and nod when Sam at Blue Cats and Red Sox/Roar of the Tigers writes entries about injuries complete with lovely color-coded diagrams to help the scientifically-impaired like myself grasp what she is talking about.

But I had to dive in and do a little poking around in the subject myself, and what I found isn't exactly rocket science.

Backing up for a second. Since Rich Harden's return to the DL, there has been discussion of how much of his lengthy injury history is his body being fragile and how much might be attributable to the Oakland medical staff. By "discussion," I of course mean, "a thread in a friend's locked journal entry," but it caught my attention.

As some of you know, I've been following the Ongoing A's Catching Saga, in which there has been a couple new developments with Mike Piazza in the last couple of days. These are the first new things to happen since my entry about a month ago. The past month has mostly contained the occasional, "Yeah, we're working on the shoulder, but it's not really coming along to throwing strength as fast as we'd like." A few days ago, though, Piazza's agent finally had a little chat with Billy Beane about the whole thing, and lo and behold, Piazza finally started rehabbing for real - as a DH - yesterday in Sacramento. (I also found an interesting observation here about the possibility of the players' union getting involved: "Since the A's signed Piazza strictly as a DH over the winter and he has been ready to hit since mid-June, there's some thought that the union might have grounds for a grievance if Piazza's return is delayed much longer." I wonder if that came up during that little chat.)

In other words, Piazza lost a month of his season trying to rehabilitate to throwing strength a shoulder that was not even catching-ready before his injury, as he had been told specifically during Spring Training not to bother keeping himself in catching shape. And this decision was made at the last possible minute (seriously, Piazza didn't even get the message that they wanted to have him extend his recovery time until he was practically out the door on his way to rehab at Sacramento the first time), so he was not working to come back from the injury with an eye toward catching until almost two months after he hurt his shoulder in the first place. I don't know anything about physical therapy, but that sounds damn sloppy to me. The abrupt change of tune on the catching is just amazingly bad planning - like, hilariously bad - and the injury was bad luck. But, considering that they did in fact make the decision to have Piazza be backup catcher several days before the injury, why not rehab him with that in mind from the beginning? Especially since they freaking traded Melhuse and there was no guarantee that Kurt Suzuki would do in the majors anything approaching what he had done in the minors? There is a lot of wasted time here, and last I heard, Piazza's shoulder is still bothering him when he works it too hard. How severe does a sprain have to be to still be causing problems two and a half months after the fact? With more organized management of his recovery, could he have been back and catching by now? (These are not rhetorical questions. I welcome any answers anyone might have.)

So these are things I am thinking about in the last couple of days, wondering if Harden and Piazza are in fact the victims of crackmonkeys with medical training, when, tucked into the latest article about Piazza's rehab assignment, I find this little tidbit:

Little has been heard from lefty Brad Halsey since he slammed the A's for not properly diagnosing an arm problem he had this spring and for not calling him up for a potential start at Baltimore. On Tuesday, noted orthopedist Dr. James Andrews performed surgery to repair a torn labrum in Halsey's left shoulder. Halsey said he can begin throwing again in four months and be ready for spring training.

Halsey said he has filed a grievance against the A's with the players association over the handling of his injury. He said he was told the problem was biceps tendinitis and he was not given an MRI exam when he requested one. Halsey contends the matter wasn't attended to properly until he was no longer on the big-league roster, which cost him both his big-league salary and major-league service time.

OH MY GOD. He said he was told the problem was biceps tendinitis and he was not given an MRI exam when he requested one. Oh. my. GOD.

And this is where my intro about me and injury analysis comes in, because I had to check this shit out. How, I wanted to know, could a torn labrum be mistaken for biceps tendinitis? The labrum is in the shoulder and the bicep is in the arm, right?

Sort of. The biceps tendon is connected to the labrum, and an injury to the labrum can involve the tendon as well. A torn labrum can be confused with any number of other shoulder injuries. So a diagnosis of biceps tendinitis is not unreasonable, which gets the A's medical crackmonkeys off the hook, right?

NO. Because he is a pitcher, which involves exactly the sort of repetitive motion that can tear the shit out of his labrum, it is not exactly an unheard-of injury, AND THEY WOULDN'T GIVE HIM AN MRI. OH MY GOD.

Creepily enough, the med staff might not even be entirely to blame for this one. If you believe Halsey's side of the story, the A's deliberately delayed the MRI until he was in the minors just to avoid paying him a major league salary if he ended up on the DL. Which, in late April, he did. Given everything I've outlined here already, guess whose side I'm on?

At this point, that entire organization breaks my brain. I want to kidnap my favorite A's and squirrel them away in Detroit and Boston, where the med staffs may not be perfect, but the disabled lists have not been used seventeen times already. RUN, BOYS. RUN.

I would like to conclude by briefly revisiting the Harden question. His official diagnosis at the moment is "shoulder impingement," which I looked up while I was getting all carried away with the research, and damn if that doesn't look to my inexpert eye like something that could be confused with a torn labrum. He did, however, receive diagnosis from a doctor not on the A's staff. I am still disinclined to hold my breath.

By the way, anyone who knows better than I do what the hell I am talking about is more than welcome to chime in and correct any errors I've made.

OMG Alan Embree and I have the same birthday. Why did I go so long without knowing this? Oh, Alan Embree. No wonder I was inexplicably sad when the Red Sox dumped you even though you suuuuuucked. And also no wonder you continue to keep popping up on teams I keep an eye on for one reason or another.

Yup, that makes me, Alan Embree, MacGyver, and Kelly from Saved by the Bell. January twenty-third REPRESENT.

This has been today's pointless spam post.

INCOHERENT POST INCOMING BECAUSE GUESS WHAT KIDS JUSTIN VERLANDER JUST THREW A NO HITTER.

No. Fucking. Hitter. I would like to cordially invite all the people who went on about a sophomore slump to FUCKING SUCK IT.

I am just crazed. After Curt's game last week, I was amped to eleven. I spent much of the game playing Kingdom of Loathing and just listening to the Detroit broadcast. Until the top of the eighth, when I realized I didn't know how many hits the Brewers had gotten and went to go check.

NONE THAT'S HOW MANY.

It took me a minute to even register that. And man, I'm glad I hadn't noticed before, because I was instantly so nervous I thought I might throw up.

So I immediately went right the fuck back to playing KoL and listening. As IF I was going to change a single thing I was doing. Stopping to watch the game would have been DEATH.

And Rod and Mario! The Detroit announcers! I could kiss them both right on the mouth for keeping said mouths the fuck shut. They talked about Justin's Ks (twelve!! by the time the game was over) and THAT WAS IT. No dancing around the subject, and sure as shit no saying the fucking words. Professionals all the way. After listening to the Boston radio announcers jinx Curt to hell and back - god bless Rod and Mario.

And LOVE for Neifi Perez. He executed an outstanding play to start a doubleplay that just narrowly - by one step - prevented a hit in the eight. BLESS. I love you Neifi and shall defend you and your black hole bat of doom forthwith, because that no hitter dies in the eighth without you.

And the offense, especially crazy-ass Brandon Inge with his two RBI, for scoring enough runs to give everyone one less thing to worry about.

And JUSTIN! What do I even say? One hundred twelve pitches. Twelve Ks. Four walks (enough to keep from feeling cheated out of perfection). AND NO FUCKING HITS. Justin Verlander, you have been one of my favorite pitches since you came up. This was an amazing experience. Thank you. Now go get blasted on your teammates' nickels, kid. You've more than earned it.

Final score: 4-0 Tigers. And their first no hitter since 1984. And I am totally not misting up at all.

YES THERE ARE TIGERS ON MY TV AND IT IS A BONDERMAN START.

So much for getting anything done outside the house today.