Too bad Tsuyoshi Shinjo never looked quite as good playing baseball as he did posing in a baseball uniform. But then again, how could anybody ever look that good?
Photo courtesy of David:
Tsuyoshi Shinjo approves of something
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Daily Archives: January 7, 2010
From the Wikipedia: Curse of the Pharaohs
So disappointing.
From the Wikipedia: Curse of the Pharaohs.
I like a good spooky story even if I think it’s probably hokum, and for whatever reason — some sixth grade history teacher, Scooby Doo, who knows — I really believed that just about everyone who ever opened a mummy’s tomb was dead within a few weeks.
Not the case, it turns out. The Curse of the Pharaohs refers to the legend that any person who disturbs an Ancient Egyptian tomb will be forever hexed by the mummy within.
Stories of the curse really took hold, it seems, when Sir Arthur Conan Doyle — the Sherlock Holmes dude — started perpetuating them and trying to explain them around the time a team of 58 explorers opened the tomb of King Tutankhamun in 1922.
The only problem is that precisely one of those 58 people suffered an even mildly mysterious death anytime soon after the opening — a George Herbert, the fifth Earl of Carnarvon, who died from an infected mosquito bite he cut open while shaving.
Another, George Jay Gould — of the New York Goulds, the railroad people — contracted a fever and died of pneumonia within a year.
But, you know, it was 1922, and people still randomly just got fevers and died of pneumonia back then. All told, only eight of the 58 people present at the opening of the tomb were dead within a dozen years, and I’m willing to guess that if you took any random cross section of 58 adults in 1922, it’d be a pretty safe bet that eight would be dead in twelve years. People still got Typhoid and Scarlet Fever and stuff in 1922.
The Wikipedia — clearly grasping at straws — alternately claims that Howard Carter, the archaeologist in who led the team, either did or didn’t fall victim to the curse when he DIED OF CANCER 16 YEARS LATER. I’m gonna go with “not the curse” on that one. In fact, I’d say it’d be a lot more mysterious if Howard Carter, born in 1874, hadn’t died by now.
Both the Curse of the Pharaohs and its accompanying Wikipedia page are total crap. They are, as Egyptologist Donald Redford once said, “unadulterated clap trap.”
In fact, that phrase coupled with the revelation that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had a totally kickass mustache are the only cool things to come out of this Wikipedia endeavor.
I’m certainly open to the mysterious and unexplainable, but the Curse of the Pharaohs is not that. Come back when you’re bovine excision, Curse of the Pharaohs.
Interview: Elizabeth Wrigley-Field
Continuing a very Second City-themed day of TedQuarters content, I present the type of hard-hitting exclusive interview readers should probably not come to expect of this site.
I was recently included on an e-mail chain that also included someone with the curious name “Elizabeth Wrigley-Field.” I contacted Ms. Wrigley-Field and found she was not only willing to discuss her surname, but quite happy to, and so we did. And this is that:
TedQuarters: Did your parents realize how awesome it was that they were named Wrigley and Field when they met, and consider that their offspring might be named Wrigley-Field? I mean, am I right in assuming that’s how you came to be named Elizabeth Wrigley-Field?
Elizabeth Wrigley-Field: As it happens, my parents — who were also a bit slow on the uptake and didn’t notice the combination of their names until well into their courtship when a friend pointed it out — gave my prenatal self absolutely no credit for a future sense of humor.
They thought I’d be teased too much, and named me Elizabeth Field. I started going by Wrigley-Field when I was seven — partly for the joke, and partly because even at that age, it seemed strange to me that you get your dad’s name but not your mom’s.
We didn’t get around to legally changing it until I was in college, but I’ve been Elizabeth Wrigley-Field in how I introduce myself for the vast majority of my life by now.
TQ: Are you a Cubs fan? And if so, would you be one if your last name weren’t Wrigley-Field?
EWF: Well, I’m certainly a bigger fan of the Cubs than I am of any other team. Which is to say, I don’t follow them, but I root for them. How could I not?
Almost everyone finds their team through an accident of birth. Usually it’s just where they live; mine is just a little more obvious.
Really, though, I think of myself more as a fan of the stadium.
TQ: Have you been to the stadium?
EWF: No… which is so sad. Especially because my boyfriend lives in Chicago (and I’m in Madison, which is pretty close), so I’m there ALL THE TIME. I have no excuse.
When I was young I wrote to them. I guess I was kind of hoping for free tickets or something — at least my name on the scoreboard! But they were just going to interview me for their fan magazine (which a very nice guy at the Baseball Hall of Fame had arranged), and I never really got it together to get out there.
Then I started reading all about this kid, Wrigley Alexander Fields, who got to throw out the first pitch and everything. And at first I was like, “Who is this pipsqueak? His name isn’t even authentic! The stadium is not WRIGLEY FIELDS!” But then I reflected on how he has to go through life with the first name Wrigley, and I decided he deserves all the joy he can find.
TQ: Wait, I’m sorry. So you’ve really never been to Wrigley Field, even though your last name is Wrigley-Field and you’re only a couple hours away? What’re you waiting for? I mean, I’m not trying to make you feel bad about yourself, but for chrissakes, your last name is Wrigley-Field! I mean, frankly I think the place is a wee bit overrated, just because the crowd has been mostly shirtless and brotastic the times I’ve been there, but still.
EWF: I know… I know. I think it’s one of those things where it’s so built up in my mind that the experience can’t possibly live up to the hype. Plus, I’m lazy.
I did go to my first ever Cubs game at Shea Stadium some years back. (Perpetual Post editor Howard Megdal took me, and was kind enough to be happy for me that, miraculously, the Cubs pulled it together.) I ran around the stadium finding everyone I could wearing Cubs paraphernalia and introduced myself. I showed them my school ID so they knew I wasn’t making it up. I had a great time.
TQ: I don’t think it would ever happen, but if the Cubs took on a corporate sponsor, would you consider changing your name legally again? Like would you become Elizabeth Pepsi presents Wrigley-Field?
EWF: No, and I will be VERY MAD should that day come.
TQ: Moving on. I understand I’m not the first baseball writer to interview you about your name. How did you come into contact with Murray Chass?
EWF: I think it was after I wrote a letter to the New York Times. This was back before the 2000 election and the Times had run a profile piece on George W. Bush that mentioned that when he started dating Laura, he brought over not only his own, but all his friends’ laundry for her to do. I wrote them a letter about how lame this was, mostly so I could use the title “George W. Bush’s Dirty Laundry.” But they ditched the title and ran the letter.
Murray Chass saw that in his paper and got in touch with me. Then because of his story, Seth Swirsky heard of me and got in touch with me for one of his Baseball Letters books (I believe, in fact, that my letter is in the same book as W.’s… which is just weird). This was all while I was still in high school, and I had so much fun with it.
Mike Ditka performs my favorite gag
You might have seen this on Deadspin already, but whatever. Before I go on I should warn you that the video linked below contains language that is completely unsafe for work. So wear headphones.
It also contains one of my favorite gags of all-time, and, to be honest, one that’s unfortunately ruined by the title of the YouTube video — “Ditka does interview in his underwear.”
To be fair, I probably wouldn’t have stayed through to the big reveal at 3:07 if I hadn’t seen that title, but clearly, the element of surprise is what makes the no-pants joke works best. Luckily, Ditka’s behavior is outlandish enough in this clip that you almost forget the title by the end, so it’s still funny that he turns out to not be wearing any pants.
I mean the whole thing is, we see people sitting at desks wearing shirts and ties or the tops of fancy ladyclothes all the time, and we never ever see what they’re wearing underneath. And pants are terrible constricting. So it’s only natural to assume they’re pantsless down there. Good for Ditka for getting it. Why wear pants if you don’t absolutely have to?
I had a sports/comedy TV show in college of which, thankfully for my career, no evidence exists online. But I’m pretty sure that nearly every time we stepped away from the desk for one reason or another, we did the no-pants joke. Too easy, probably, but made me giggle every time.
Then, I got an internship at a local network news affiliate to find out that the sportcaster really did give his nightly reports with no pants on! It was amazing. I mean, granted, he wasn’t in his underwear, but a suit top with lacrosse shorts was nearly as silly.
Anyway, here’s Ditka inadvertently performing my favorite gag:
Items of note
Apparently Bud Selig is hoping for a Global World Series between U.S. and Japan after the regular World Series. Not sure exactly how that would play out — especially considering pitchers and innings — but it’s a cool idea, and I believe something Bobby Valentine’s been advocating for a while.
Shaun Ellis does not care for SNY’s Jets programming.
Mark Himmelstein does some fascinating research about Kirk Nieuwenhuis and Minor League groundball/flyball data.
Andre Dawson is Cooperstown-bound. I wish Tim Raines got more support, but I won’t begrudge the Hawk his ticket. The amount of Twitter anger over the whole affair was a bit ridiculous, I think.
Tedquarters 