The Viper

Borsch's preview for his latest blog:

Phillies stunk and I froze last night. Then Chin-lung Hu entered the game for the Mets and I perked up.

I listened to the game on the radio. Hu came up to bat and the obvious thought popped into my head: "Hu's on first." Then the radio guys noted the same thing. Leave it to Borsch to run with a stale idea like this...

Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Hu really is on first

Yep. I can't wait to see how he tries to string this out into a full post.

Jeez, I hope it wasn’t my fault. I finally got to my first Phillies game Tuesday evening. Up to that point, the home team was a perfect 3-0 to start the season. So I show up and everything goes to Hades in a handbag.

Borsch posted a 2-minute video to accompany the game; it's his classic "slow pans across random scenes" style.

Among the things that went wrong: Pitcher Cole Hamels stunk up the joint; it was cold; the Phillies didn’t hit much with runners in scoring position; it was really cold; the New York Mutts, uh . . . I mean Mets, did just about everything right, especially third baseman David Wright, who had four hits, two RBIs and two runs scored; and it was colder than a witch’s watoosie.

Ooooh, the "Mutts"! He went there, folks. He went there. Also, it's spelled "watusi," and it's a dance, not a slang term for "butt." Terrible.

When there’s nothing much to cheer about, I try to think up alternative things for which to root, root, root. Since the Phillies weren’t providing many options, I decided to cheer for:
(1) My hands to stay warm.
(2) My feet to stay warm.
(3) My hind end to stay warm.
All of which were as cold as the Phillies bats seemed to be in the frigid temperatures. Move along pal, nothing to cheer for here.

I'm going to go out on a limb here: it was a cold night, and the Phils lost?

Fortunately, the Mets provided me with a more interesting distraction. In the fifth inning, Mets manager Terry Collins replaced second baseman Brad Emaus with Chin-lung Hu, which immediately prompted me to ask myself, “What’s Hu doing on second? I thought Hu was on first.”

He's on a roll, folks! Can it count as a "joke" when you telegraph the punchline in the title?

Another of the things I do to enjoy the ballgame is keep a scorecard, which I’ve done since I was a kid. Over the years, that has kind of made me the unofficial stat guy for my section. Oftentimes I’ve been asked by those sitting near me how many strikeouts a certain pitcher has or how many hits a certain hitter has at that point in the game.

Can they see the scoreboard? Are they watching the game? Borsch obviously thinks he's slicker than greased diarrhea for doing this. Does he know how absurd this boast is? "Yeah, I'm pretty much the unofficial stat guy when I go to a game. Pretty cool."

The Mets new second baseman, who had entered the game in the fifth, batted in the sixth and singled up the middle. The Phillies fan sitting behind apparently had missed the lineup change.
“What’s the guy’s name on first?” he said after tapping me on the shoulder.
“Hu.”
“The guy on first?”
“Hu.”
“The guy who just got the base hit?”
“Hu.”

Blatantly, blatantly false. Never happened. Not in a million years. Nobody would make it past the second "Hu" and still not get it.

While I was amused by the whole exchange, I thought it best not to push it any further. Phillies fans aren’t exactly known for their patience and I didn’t want to take a chance of getting wacked upside the head by a guy who thought I was messing with him.

You could have just said "Chin-Lung Hu."

I finally had to show him my scorecard on which I had written Hu’s name.
“Oh, right,” he said.
No, he’s on third.

There was once an episode of the old GI Joe cartoon where they get threatening calls from someone known as "The Viper." In the end it's revealed that the guy had an accent and was saying "the wiper," as he was "coming to vash their vindows." This post reminds me of that - one thin, thin little pun dragged out entirely too long. Seriously, a whole post for a "who's on first" reference?

The last "joke" is bad, too. He dropped David Wright's name at the very beginning of the column, but by this point, 70% of his audience will have forgotten it.

Labels: Mets, Mike Morsch, Montgomery Newspapers, Outta Leftfield, Phillies