Hey, Ripsters! I’m back – tanned and rested, and no funnier than ever, but still full of attempts, as the following will attest. And as it’s my first day back from Rome, I’ll make it an absolutely true story. (Hey, it’s better than going to confession and trying to convince a priest…)A few years ago, a friend and I bought time on a local radio station to broadcast high school baseball, both of us selling advertising to pay for it as well as put some money in our own pockets. Larry, my friend, had sold a “relief pitcher package” to a local chiropractic clinic, the schtick being that, every time a relief pitcher came in, he would read the ad copy – “This moment of relief brought to you by Burien Chiropractic Clinic, yada yada —” and then ask me, “So who’s coming in to relieve Johnson on the mound?” (or whoever the starting pitcher was) and I would give the name and stats of the reliever. [Note: I didn’t like this schtick at all. When announcing a game, it’s important to keep the stats book up-to-date, and instead, I had to look up stuff we already had. Anyway…]
One afternoon, the Head Coach called “time” and strode out to the mound. Larry, convinced a relief pitcher was on his way in, started reading his ad copy. However, since he had never actually memorized his copy, he had to take his eyes off the field to read, and he didn’t notice that the coach ended up leaving the starter in the game. So when he asked me “So who’s relieving Johnson on the mound?” before I thought about how it would sound, I answered, “Well, Larry, it looks like Johnson is relieving himself on the mound.”
Larry’s jaw dropped…and we couldn’t make eye contact the rest of the season.
Hey, Ripsters! I’m back – tanned and rested, and no funnier than ever, but still full of attempts, as the following will attest. And as it’s my first day back from Rome, I’ll make it an absolutely true story. (Hey, it’s better than going to confession and trying to convince a priest…)A few years ago, a friend and I bought time on a local radio station to broadcast high school baseball, both of us selling advertising to pay for it as well as put some money in our own pockets. Larry, my friend, had sold a “relief pitcher package” to a local chiropractic clinic, the schtick being that, every time a relief pitcher came in, he would read the ad copy – “This moment of relief brought to you by Burien Chiropractic Clinic, yada yada —” and then ask me, “So who’s coming in to relieve Johnson on the mound?” (or whoever the starting pitcher was) and I would give the name and stats of the reliever. [Note: I didn’t like this schtick at all. When announcing a game, it’s important to keep the stats book up-to-date, and instead, I had to look up stuff we already had. Anyway…]
One afternoon, the Head Coach called “time” and strode out to the mound. Larry, convinced a relief pitcher was on his way in, started reading his ad copy. However, since he had never actually memorized his copy, he had to take his eyes off the field to read, and he didn’t notice that the coach ended up leaving the starter in the game. So when he asked me “So who’s relieving Johnson on the mound?” before I thought about how it would sound, I answered, “Well, Larry, it looks like Johnson is relieving himself on the mound.”
Larry’s jaw dropped…and we couldn’t make eye contact the rest of the season.