Closer to Murder

Once, a long time ago, I pitched baseball. Not well, mind you, but I did manage to throw a baseball in the area of home plate, or at least directly at the guy standing next to it. In fact, I didn't have bad linescores in my pitching performances as long as you ignore all the balks (I do). The reason for this usually involved the fact that the hitters stood there petrified for their health and welfare. It's difficult to swing a bat correctly when you dive away from home plate while covering your head, a stream of urine trailing you in the air.

You never see such behavior in the opposing batters of any close ninth inning game with the St. Louis Cardinals. Instead, hitters slobber greedily, their eyes a-twinkle and teeth grinding eagerly. They grip their bat as if it was Excalibur and they were Arthurian gods. They paw the ground with their cleats like angry bulls. You would be hard pressed to find a more eager bunch of people outside of a buffet line at four in the afternoon.

On the mound, mysteriously, stands Jason Isringhausen. He stares into Yadier Molina's sweaty, Latino crotch as if it were a Magic 8Ball about to give an answer to life's most important questions. Questions like... what might happen if I throw this pitch directly over the plate? Would that pitch be more hittable if I hit three people, gave up a walk and a wild pitch, and then stalked around the mound as if it mattered at all?

Only Jason Isringhausen and Tony LaRussa are asking questions like this. EVERYONE ELSE on the field, in the stands, watching on television, listening on radio, and living or dead, know the answer. Such circumstances ALWAYS lead to disaster. And so it did last night for the Cardinals. AGAIN.

I cannot stomach the recap of this gut-punch to any Cardinal baseball fan. Needless to say that Isringhausen couldn't have offered a better pitch to hit if he knelt on the plate and balanced the baseball on his upturned lips. I wish this would actually happen, in the event that a hitter might miss and permanently retire Isringhausen's number. However, hitters never miss with Izzy.

Cardinal Nation spent the evening screeching into their televisions and radios, calling their friends and drinking enormous amounts of beer/Pepto-Bismol. Every fan who has spent over 100 dollars at that shiny new ballpark this year (i.e. anyone who attended a game) wants to understand why this disturbing event continues to occur every ninth inning.

The Dizzy Disaster continues because, even more than Yadier Molina (batting .217) and So Fucking Taguchi (36 year old back up player batting .270), LaRussa loves Isringhausen. And in LaRussa's case, love is not blind, it is acutely retarded and suffering from a stroke-induced coma.

Let's face it: Isringhausen could trot in from the bullpen carrying a kitten, stab the kitten in the neck on the mound, smear its blood all over his face, and then open fire on the crowd in the stands, and LaRussa would classify it as a team failure with a few "missed opportunities." LaRussa wouldn't accept anything less than Isringhausen on the mound in a one-run ballgame even if Jesus Christ landed on the Mount of Busch and offered to pitch the ninth. LaRussa would only reconsider putting Isringhausen into the game if, when he pulled his dick out of Isringhausen's ass, the shit smear on his shaft actually said, "Izzy cannot pitch today." Of course, in the minute Tony spent staring at the message with that emotionless smirk, Izzy would have turned around and sucked it clean, ass-to-mouth style.

So we continue to have Isringhausen on the mound. This will continue as long as LaRussa manages the Cardinals. Fortunately LaRussa is much older than Isringhausen, sparing us the sight of a sixty-seven year old Isringhausen gamely throwing pitches into the dirt from his walker.

If someone would just shoot the jug-eared fucker on the mound, then we could all pitch in and stuff him so LaRussa can satisfy his Izzy fixation in the privacy of his own home, and not on a national stage where it embarrasses every conscious baseball fan and heterosexual male.

Then I could offer my services in his stead. I could blow the baseball out of my ass and get comparable results. And I guarantee, those hitters will be a bit more nervous then.