Has Expos Fever Reached its Crescendo ... It's Fever Pitch?

Montreal is a festive City, it is a City of Festivals galore.

But last weekend that festive nature was transported to a small hamlet by the name of Cooperstown, New York. A total of four tour buses came to see the great man Tim Raines elected to Baseball's most Respected of Shrines ... The Baseball Hall of Fame.

I've written every winter time over the last six years on Tim Raines' Hall of Fame candidacy and now I can finally retire that tradition now that Tim Raines has a plaque in Cooperstown and will forever be enshrined in the temple of the immortals of Baseball. It's no secret that my childhood idol was the one and only Rock Raines.

There was about 3,000 Montreal Expos fans there in full Expos Regalia (I see this couplet of words used sometimes and I think I was one who invented the cool term of "Expos Regalia"). Judging by the news that surrounded it ... it looks like people noticed.

Many national American and Canadian media outlets did stories on this, for example:


ESPN: http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/20204017

NYT: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/30/sports/baseball/tim-raines-expos-hall-of-fame.html

CBS: https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/look-raines-dawson-bring-expos-flavor-to-cooperstown-with-help-of-guerrero/

CBC: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/tim-raines-hall-of-fame-montreal-expos-nation-fans-1.4225928

NewsDay: https://www.newsday.com/sports/baseball/tim-raines-baseball-hall-of-fame-induction-brings-out-expos-fans-1.13861669

CTV: http://montreal.ctvnews.ca/tim-raines-inducted-into-baseball-hall-of-fame-1.3525197

RDS: http://www.rds.ca/baseball/mlb/mlb-cooperstown-est-assaillie-par-des-partisans-aux-couleurs-des-expos-1.4592524

USA Today: https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/mlb/2017/07/29/tim-raines-hall-of-fame-induction/523005001/


.....Lots of news. Lots of news.


As a LIFE LONG Expos fan, this media attention for the city is so good. But as someone who's been following the "Journey" as Cromartie calls it of getting the team back, I knew that the last Expo going into the Hall of Fame with an Expos cap might be the crescendo-ing Fever Pitch of this Movement. Where will the Momentum come from after this?

What's next? Maybe I wrote all those articles about this moment because I knew it might be the last time ever we Expos Fans really have a moment like this. A moment of the entire Baseball World giving us shout outs and stuff.

But something tells me it 'aint over. Something tells me this isn't the last hurrah ... this is not The End to this Journey .... something tells me this is only the Beginning.


The Fever

Lots of Expos things are popping up left and right these days it seems.

1. The Cro is down in Japan and he's decked out in FULL Expos Regalia!
See: https://www.facebook.com/mtlbaseballproject/videos/1443391762410061/ 

2. Budweiser (Anheuser-Busch) has billboards ALL OVER TOWN selling Beer with Expos Names on it (Rock's 30, Vlad's 27, and Alou's 18). Check it out:

Merci Montreal | Thank you Budweiser pic.twitter.com/CnemoEHlB7

— Vladimir Guerrero (@VladGuerrero27) July 24, 2017

Budweiser? That's a big big company man ... and all their Beers have Expos names on them! Vlad's speaking in his native Spanish with French subtitles in that above video ... it translates to English as him thanking Montreal fans for cheering him on.

3. Mr Batting Stance Guy has an Expos Hat on:

All-Star? MVP? Hall of Fame? 125 win season? Tim Raines, you have climbed every mountain. pic.twitter.com/CsmUWp2pHO

— Batting Stance Guy (@BattingStanceG) July 29, 2017

4. Oh Snap. Look at this one. A Very Popular Journalist is in Full Expos Regalia, getting full of emotion over Expos related matters. Wow, look at this:

Here are the couple of minutes @TimRaines30 spent talking about @jonahkeri: pic.twitter.com/M4eQ3JpAfe

— Ryan Thibodaux (@NotMrTibbs) July 30, 2017

5. Oh man. This is too much .... too much Exposness for me in one sitting. Oh man, if I hear a Rap Rock n Roll song about Tim Raines and the Expos right about now I might just lose it myself:

Oh my gosh. Yo, I was in the grocery store the other day buying my frozen Jamaican Patties and my sundries and whatnot .... and I saw FIVE people in Expos t shirts one after another in there. I haven't seen five people with Expos shirts in a public setting since like 1997, man. Like, this Regalia is EVERYWHERE!! I thought I was in a Twilight Zone episode seeing people in every aisle of the grocery store with Expos shirts ... I thought I was dreaming and that Rod Serling threw me back into like 1993. Expos stuff is everywhere I look right now. I cannot honestly believe it. The whole place is getting all Expofied.

Conclusion

Has the Fever hit its High Note and will start receding from here on? I don't think so. I don't think so. I got so much Expos Fever right now I'm rightly breaking out into a Cold SWEAT! HA! A COOOOLD SWEAT! HA! I GOT THE FEVER! OOOOOOH! I GOT THE FEVER!

OOoooooooooOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWW! 

I was worried this would be the last Expos Hurrah. That Rock making the Hall would be last time we'd be tippin' these caps. But, it's not. At least I don't believe so.


Bill Boards talking about Expos, Rappers are Rappin' 'bout Expos with a rip rock n roll sorta sound, and people are in the grocery store DECKED OUT IN EXPOS REGAAAAAAAAALIAAAAA!


OW!


This is not The End of This Story .... This is only the Beginning.

The Seeds of Human Forgiveness ... The Most Powerful of Seeds that Can be Sewn.

When the Chicago Cubs won the 2016 World Series a lot of thoughts crossed Baseball's collective mind. Jubilation obviously, Triumph especially, apparently Sex as well as Chicago's health authority reported a HUGE spike in pregnancies in the area after the Cubs won the World Series.

Everyone was laughing, dancing, singing, and experiencing merriment.... except for one.

One man was in hiding, living a life of fear, solitude, and abject hate cast-upon him like a headstone of shame. A headstone of suffering followed this man wherever he went. Shackled by Shame, this man lived a Life of Pain.

And this man's name was Steve Bartman....

A lifetime Cubs fan, who had a ball hit to him in the 2003 NLCS .... and like any fan would do he put his arms up to catch the foul ball .... yet in the heat of the exciting moment of having a piece of history hit directly at him .... he failed to notice that Moises Alou had a beat on the ball and would be able to lean into the crowd and seize the ball for an Out.

This all happened in probably the span of 3 seconds ... but his torment and suffering for that 3 seconds would go on to last for 13 Years.

Lots of people think 13 is an unlucky number .... and this man's bad luck lasted exactly that ... for 13 years. For in 2016 the Cubs finally did break the seal on their thought-to-be unbreakable curse and won the World Series.

Meanwhile, Bartman made his exit from Chicago many years prior, tormented by hate-pieces by journalists and death threats from fans. A man cast upon with a black mark .... a pariah cast off from Chicago society to live in Chicago-Exile.

True fans must have had a solemness in a small part of their hearts even during the Jubilation, Triumph, and Sex that went on after the 2016 World Series. Even during the celebration some felt that something was off ...... that something wasn't right in the great order of the Baseball Universe.

That something was Bartman.


Forgiveness

Today, The Chicago Cubs organization tracked down this scorned-upon man and offered something to him. Something to say, "Hey Steve, this is for you, man."

It's not some Cracker Jack prize, baby, it's not some cubic zarconian rip-off, no sireee, this is real deal. Steve Bartman is getting his own World Series ring.

If you live in the greater Chicago area and hold hatred in your heart for this man .... it's time to let it go now. He's paid more than enough for his mistake. The Aura of Punishment which follows this man wherever he goes must disintegrate.

When I look at that photo of Steve Bartman, I see a little bit of myself in there. Like looking in a mirror. I've never played baseball professionally, I've never been a GM or anything, or even a bat boy ... I'm just a Baseball Fan .... and when I look at the photo of that man that's all I see .... I see another Baseball Fan.

There's a little bit of Steve Bartman in every single one of us. We all make mistakes.

But .... we also all deserve Forgiveness for those mistakes.

Respect, Steve Bartman.

And Thus Concludes Today's Cubs Sermon from the Mount...
Praise be to Ernie Banks, and may Ivan DeJesus be With You Always
(and also with you....)

The Wheels of the World of Satire Move On an Axle of Speed These Days....

I was following a big Twitter burst last week where someone put up a photo that showed that the talented Thespian and Impressionist Mario Cantone looked very similar to the newest White House Wise Guy in the cavalcade of whackiness that the White House has become of late.

I'm familiar with the comedic stylings of one Mario Cantone because I dig impressionists and I feel the field is sorely lacking now-a-days. I've seen old timers like Will Jordan state that the reason the impressionist trade has died over the years is that no Hollywood persons have deeply unique characteristics anymore and are just good-looking super-model types. I tend to agree with that.

Some people are still good at impressions now-a-days though and Cantone is of that select crew. He doesn't do topical people though which is maybe why he doesn't have mass-appeal. He does .... Liza Minnelli, Judy Garland, Carol Channing, amongst others .... and yeah, these aren't people anyone under 35 has ever heard of.

I read an article once that Johnny Depp pitched a movie where he wanted to play Carol Channing in a full length bio-pic and it sounded pretty cool ... but I can see why an exec would turn that down, I mean who in their demographics their aiming at knows who the heck a Carol Channing is.

I doubt Depp can give Channing due justice anyhow. Mario Cantone does a good Channing though. I heard this guy do a duel of voices with Gilbert Gottfried once (another guy who does impressions of people no one over 35 has heard of) ... it was Gilbert as Hervé Villachez versus Cantone as Carol Channing and it was a dueling of banjos that would probably annoy an average listener to tears .... but I loved it so much. It was so good.

Anyways,

The tweet someone did that suggested Cantone would be a great choice for new White House Press Secretary Impersonator went pretty viral and the next morning people starting suggesting/pushing/demanding that Mario Cantone be the new press secretary on Saturday Night Live's weekly lampoons of the White House and its various goings-on.

Turns out SNL is in reruns right now and off for a while ... so a curious thing sorta happened, everyone kind of realized that this new White House Wise Guy might only be around for like a couple of months or so (turned out to be 10 full days).

Oh well, what can you do you know? But, then another show called the President's Show, caught on to this fan swelling of fan support for this to happen and flew Mario Cantone down to do a live intro on their show.

I've never seen this show but I checked it out that night, President Show is on after the New Daily Show with Trevor Noah in my region. Cantone did a live open and it was pretty good:

....the World of Satire didn't let the fans down in this case. When it looked like White House Wise Guy #4 wasn't going to last until SNL comes out of re-runs and it seemed as if Cantone as Mooch would never occur ... it did. Which was beautiful and great.


Final Thought

The Wheels on the Train of Satire have begun moving at a feverish pace of late. I mean take the variables that were at play here:

The New White House Wise Guy was Born: July 22nd

The Original Tweet of Cantone's likeness to Him went out: July 22nd
It blew up on Twitter: July 25th
Cantone is flown out to do President Show: July 27th

The New White House Wise Guy was Fired/Resigned: July 31st

Wow, this White House person only lasted 10 days but someway and somehow the World of Satire managed to lampoon him and do it with the man an outpouring of demand grew out of social media for. This was a bang-bang play on this one. Wow.

As a person who follows the Wide World of Satire ... I could barely even keep up with this one. This was Lightning Satire.

History Channel: The King of Dumb-Cumentaries

I love the field of History, I always did and always will. If you don't know where ya been then how you gonna know where you're going ya dumbo? Y'Know? So yeah, I love me some old History.

One problem I have with History is that most of it is not adequately documented with concrete proof and evidence of claims and thus I find it can be speculative and romanticized at times.

Romanticization is alright because the author/producer of it usually states something along the lines of "Based on a True Story" and the audience should understand it's like 85% fiction and 15% fact ... but Speculative History on the other hand isn't usually offered up as entertainment data and the author/producer usually states it is to be taken as a truth with no disclaimer or warnings.

I find my personal hobby-related interest in Historical events is usually confined to the area of Baseball and of Hollywood Movies/Tv Shows. I know that sounds weird but as a Historian of those fields the most interesting thing about them is the amount of evidence and records those fields record. (They're not the only two fields with extensive records, mind you, these are just two fields that interest me).

With Baseball, every play for the last 100 years has been recorded and since the invention of the camera many/most/all games in MLB have been recorded with visual evidence so any claim made in the History of Baseball is usually demonstrably provable. And this is the same with Movie/Tv History because now with Youtube it seems everything ever is available to view ... so if someone claims that something was done before or some such actor invented some bit then claims of this nature can be verified 100% because all records of this field have been recorded and are available for viewing. So even though you might find Baseball History or Tv History to be of the trivial/mundane variety .... I think they are very interesting fields of History due to the ease of proving claims thanks to the vast amount of records these fields have made available.

With History in general, once you start going back before cameras, before media documentation, it starts to get a little greyer and claims are less easy to prove. You can say .... Hannibal crossed a trench with 100 Elephants .... and we'll just have to take some historian's interpretation of some ancient text as proof for that ... there's no photos of how many elephants Hannibal had .... there's no videos of it .... maybe there was 200 of them, maybe 2 of them ... maybe none at all. We can never ever know for sure since there's absolutely no proof that it ever even happened. Maybe it's just a fairy tale .... who knows. Y'Know?

At least in more modern eras, in which heavy records were kept, and visual documentation in many cases exists ... we have a good idea of History. From about the 1800s and on we have access to a lot more written data, photographic evidence, and in many cases now-a-times multi-media evidence. It's easier to understand what happened from about 1800 and on thanks to record keeping and cameras.

Nonsense 24/7

Extremely Speculative History of more modern times is still in demand however. The biggest purveyor of Speculative History is the History Channel who will offer the most asinine shows and documentaries that I've ever seen ... and they will offer it with no disclaimers or anything.

The History Channel will air Bigfoot "investigations", Aliens Live Amongst Us "investigations", Robots will Kill us All "investigations" ... and that's fine and good ... it's entertainment and all but they should have some sort of disclaimer on these things telling the viewer it's for entertainment purposes. Bigfoots, Aliens, and Robots aren't running amok, ok? These are fun little stories and nothing more.

Most of the time the media doesn't latch on to a History Channel Nonsense Fest and report it as news ... but recently a case has come up that has graced the pages of just about every news media publication ... and it's a story about a new History Channel Documentary about Amelia Earhart.



Amelia Earhart: History Channel's Newest Dumb-Cumentary

Every media outlet has picked up this story and they offer it up in the headline and in the article without any second-thought or skepticism.

The claim being made in the new Dock is that Earhart didn't crash her plane and perish but she crashed and washed up on shore of a small island where the Japanese kept her prisoner until she died. This is a pretty bold claim and they offer what they call concrete evidence this happened. The evidence in question? A photograph, this one:

??????? Evidence that Japan kept Earhart as a Prisoner ?????

Okay, that's a pretty nice photo. They say if you zoom in you can without a shadow of a doubt see the back of Amelia's head in here... let's see now:

Yeah ... okay there. The back of this person's head is being offered up as concrete evidence that Earhart was taken prisoner by the Japanese after she washed up on a nearby South Pacific island? This is pretty silly stuff to be 100% honest here.



Occam's Razor 

An opposing theory on the internet has appeared today offering up a much less assumption-laden origin of the photo. There's an origin for this photo I saw today on Brian Dunning's twitter feed where one  Samantha Adams has the photo dated in 1935 and a link to a mass produced Japanese travel book:

See: http://dl.ndl.go.jp/info:ndljp/pid/1223403/99?platform=hootsuite 

I put the caption of the 1935 book through a standard OCR program available online as to which we get the basic google translation of the OCR as:

 

The caption of the photo is along the lines of "Lots of interesting goods come via ship into this quaint little harbor".

So we have two competing theories here:

Theory 1: This is a photo where the back of somebody's head proves that Amelia Earhart didn't die but washed ashore this small island and was taken prisoner by Japanese soldiers.

Theory 2: This photo is from a 1935 Travel publication and depicts a small quaint harbor where boats come in to unload various goods.


Now, it's up to you to decide which theory makes more sense and there's two types of people in this world. There's people who will always choose theory 1 over theory 2. Why? I don't know. There's people who flat out will refuse a simple explanation and always prefer the more entertaining one. What if you pile more and more and more speculation on it? Let me make up a crazier speculative theory now....


Theory 1: This is a photo where the back of somebody's head proves that Amelia Earhart didn't die but washed ashore this small island and was taken prisoner by Japanese soldiers.

Theory 2: This photo is from a 1935 Travel publication and depicts a small quaint harbor where boats come in to unload various goods.

Theory 3: This is a photo of Amelia Earhart and D.B. Cooper re-united at last on the Falkland islands after both their daring high air escapades ended with each of them being sucked through a time vortex thanks to the efforts of Ancient Aliens, Bigfoot, J.R. Bob Dobbs, Elvis Aaron Presley, and Papa Legba who's combined secretive powers allowed each daring high flyer to escape death and settle on the Falkland islands where Amelia and DB Cooper had sex and made a baby and that baby grew up to become ...... 

..... Kurt Cobain.

 

Speck is German for Bacon Fat.

Fuck man, my speculative theory makes History Channel's speck look like kindergarten shit. Speck theories? Shucks homie, I was through with it before you even knew what to do with it. If you dopes at History Channel are gonna go Full Nonsense then go full throttle or go home. Go Big or Go Home, History. If you're gonna go full throttle nonsense then do it right. Your speculation/speck theories need I'd say about 700% more Elvis in them. Seven hundred percent more Elvis and maybe about 400% more Papa Legba ... and some Ancient Dwarfs couldn't hurt either. Speck it real good if you're gonna speck it up, baby.

Get a nice ol' fryin' pan there History Channel ... get a POUND of SPECK .... sizzle it up real good .... now you start with Elvis as the base ingredient, then you sprinkle on some Aliens (not too much just a drizzle of Aliens), the real scary aliens the Lizard Aliens I'm talking 'bout, now you let the fat coat up the theory 'til it's a nice golden brown then you cut up some Big Foot cutlets and really work the Big Foot meat in to the Speck fat theory ... really woooork it in there. Now you're cooking, bubba. Now you're cooking with heat there bubba. Now you're cooking up a Speculation reeeeeeeeal good.  

Wooooooooooooooooooooooooo-Weeeee!



Conclusion

History, if you're gonna go full deep fried german bacon fat on these theories then please just completely lose your mind. I have no problem with you H-Channel, I think you make entertaining nonsense at times.

Media, I got a major beef on how many outlets ran with this offering zero skepticism with this story. I mean this story is abso-ludicrous. You're talking big outlets running this story as fact too not just the dumb ones like Daily Mail ... I'm talking like real news outlets here doing this story.

On a serious note, Brian Dunning who has been following this story and where I got most of my info from on this has a nice new movie out that he's offering to schools for free (it's available free online as well) ... in order to teach Critical Thinking to young persons. I think this is important and since I got most of my info on this story from his site/twitter-feed I should give his work a shout out. He's doing good stuff.

Dunning's new film aimed at introducing young people to Critical Thinking is called "Principles of Curiosity" and it's free so teachers can use the material in schools for free.



(Edit July/12/2017: I stated wrongly who first linked to the photo in the 1935 Travel publication. Dunning and Gold tweet is the first place I saw it referenced that day but according to the follow up pieces that media outlets are doing on this story the person to point out the 1935 photo was this writer: http://yamanekobunko.blog52.fc2.com/blog-entry-338.html)