Recounting: The 163-mph Hoax Is About to Turn 26

This was one of my favorite posts I ever wrote. It's not even really about the Cubs. But since April Fools' Day is almost upon us (it's Opening Day, appropriately enough), I thought I'd break it out in anticipation (and awareness that I won't be posting here when that day rolls around).

One barefoot, boot-clad hurler put one by us in unforgettable fashion.

I'll never forget the cool April evening when my dad came to dinner carrying an issue of Sports Illustrated. That was enough right there, you understand. It really didn't matter what came next from his lips. My jaw hit the table when I saw that strange concoction of contradictions before me: my dad, an open issue of SI in his hand, and a look of transported glee on his face. This. Did not. Compute.

Two things you have to understand about my dad: 1) He hates sports. He likes to listen to Ron Santo and Pat Hughes on the radio because he loves radio and the hilarious interplay that unfolds between the pitches. He used to like to go to baseball games in Cleveland (near where my mom's family lived) and hockey games in Detroit (where he grew up) because he enjoyed strolling the arenas and watching fights break out in the stands. He even liked coming to watch me play baseball or even bringing me and my siblings to Wrigley, because he loves me. But make no mistake—my dad hates sports. 2) He's a professional reader. He is to oral interpretation what Vin Scully is to baseball play-by-play. For almost my whole life he's been the host of the internationally syndicated Music thru the Night, which (if my numbers aren't lying to me) is the top-rated late-night radio program in Chicago. My point is, the man can read a story. And when he finds a story he likes, you can be pretty sure that he will read it to you until you like it even more.

It was this second trait that so obviously won out that night, and my curiosity was piqued as to why a sports journal would, for once, trigger my father's passion for storytelling. He sat down, donned his reading glasses, quieted the room with his eyes (no small feat with six kids huddled around the table), and said in his deep yet gleefully quivering radio voice: "Listen . . . to . . . thissssss."

He began with the headline and subhead: "The Curious Case Of Sidd Finch. He's a pitcher, part yogi and part recluse. Impressively liberated from our opulent life-style, Sidd's deciding about yoga—and his future in baseball."

Okay. My dad was reading me a story about baseball. Or Yogi Bear. I wasn't sure, but either way, he had my attention.

Ten Reasons I Hate the Mets

Playing the Mets feels like a punch to the crotch. Just ask Santo.  

This season has been brutal to watch, painful to listen to, and arduous to describe. It's no picnic coming up with something to write about this team on anything resembling a daily basis, not that you care. Really, you don't. As a collective group, the Chicago Cubs fan base crossed the Care Barrier more than a month ago. I'm not writing about this team out of a belief that people care, I'm writing out of obsessive compulsion.

If I'm to lure you to be likewise obsessed and compelled to the point of actually reading something here, I have to get unethically manipulative creative. So I turn to the wisdom of the wizard of direct-response marketing: Denny Hatch. Denny is an astute business man who knows, among a panoply of other business success secrets, how to trigger the emotions of his audience to move them to the point of action. His arsenal of instigation includes seven emotional catalysts guaranteed to push people's buttons: fear, greed, guilt, exclusivity, salvation, flattery, and anger.

Fear is played out with Cubs fans. Day baseball at Wrigley might be putting the Cubs at a disadvantage and dooming us to centuries of failure, but that's just one monster of many lurking in the shadows. Greed is a chord best strummed in the spring when fans hope to get their tickets and have their money, too. Guilt is best explored during the holidays, because that's what all the celebration is meant to cover up, isn't it? Exclusivity? I'll leave that to people who think the bleachers is a country club from which the $10 crowd should be banned. Salvation? Not until Bobby Scales comes back. I have completely abandoned flattery. That leaves me with anger, so I'll muster all I have for the Mets.

Fortunately, I hate the Mets, so there's a lot of anger to muster. Why do I hate the Mets? I'm so glad I asked on your behalf.

Ten Reasons I Hate the Mets

10. They suck.
9. 1969
8. They let their cats wander out into the on-deck circle.
7. I'm still mad about their fake prospect who could throw 163 mph.
6. They play in New York.
5. Blue and orange? Really?
4. Dwight Gooden
3. I just do.
2. That stupid home-run apple
1. My mom always told me that when a New York Met wore a C on his jersey, it stood for "Cocaine."