presents the
Outlandia Gazette
T.G. Buckley-Dockter – Founder; Publisher; Editor-in-Chief; Distribution Manager; Intrepid Reporter; IT Guy; Coffee Girl
MOTTO: Presenting our Truth with a capital 'T.'
Vero Nihil Verius. Nothing is truer than truth.
All editorial All social commentary All for the common good
Issue Number 20
March 6, 2019
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Hot off the AP wire–filed under truth is scarier than fiction: Stephen King makes offer to buy rights to Larry Baer Horror Show, a TMZ video. The setting: A public open-air plaza on a sunny morning in San Francisco. The cast: San Francisco Giants managing partner and his wife. The props: a phone, chair, and concrete. The celebrated author states, “It’s more frightening than anything I could write. That scream is right out of Carrie.” Mr. Baer’s response: “You got a deal! Anything for a buck, pal.”
A big question in America right now: Is another rich sense-of-entitlement white guy going to get away with ugly behavior? We’re guessing yes.
Why? Because even though the Women’s March; #TimesUp; #MeToo; #EnoughIsEnough movements–as well as the 2018 Congressional freshmen class featuring kick-a women–are helping to shift the Zeitgeist Winds, it’s still not enough to put women squarely in the same ‘equal value to society’ box as men.
Here’s a chance for Major League Baseball to step up to the plate, so to speak.
To not accept flimsy explanations and lame apologies. To show what respect and dignity for all looks like. Or has acceptance of “inappropriate behavior” become as American as Mom, baseball, and apple pie? Note to Mr. Baer: “Inappropriate behavior” and physical abuse are not synonymous. The first can imply talking on a cell phone during a movie while the latter can earn jail time.
MLB ownership could make a bold statement by throwing Larry Baer out of the clubhouse for good. What are the chances of that happening? About the same as the SF Giants winning the NL West Division this year. There are no female owners in Major League Baseball. It’s been an exclusive good ol’ white boys club since forever (1876). Think they’re going to root out one of their own?
But if Larry Baer is allowed to return, what kind of message does this sends to kids? Players? Fans? Women? America?
So what the heck is wrong with Major League Baseball?
Why has the sport’s popularity been declining for years? Is it the lack of a pitch clock? No DH in the National League? Too many pitching changes? Tickets, parking, beer, and hot dogs no longer affordable?
Maybe it’s not the game itself but our addiction to lightning-fast technology warping our brains to expect instant gratification–as fast as possible?
Or maybe it’s that the focus has shifted from the splendor of the game to the profits of the owners?
Is baseball’s problem one of showing more concern about the money than doing the right thing? Why is that when gobs of money are involved, some moral backbones wither and turn to dust faster than a grapevine in a Sonoma County wildfire?
Do owners care more about TV rights than putting a winning team on the field? Only one of 30 team wins it all. Is it too costly to try to be that team? With that kind of thinking, who would want to play on that team? Who would want to root for that team?
One thing for sure, people are sick of the lack of integrity in everyday life. Does that mindset bode well for fans keeping their hearts and wallets invested in this glorious game?
And speaking of the Great Game of Baseball, here’s another tradition started in the 1870s: Nicknames. We devised a few for Larry Baer–25 to be exact–a number not deserving to be retired.
Larry “Gigante Boo Boo” Baer
Larry “Dishing Out More than Giants Fans Can” Baer
Larry “Shoulda Had Coffee at Home” Baer
Larry “I Was Joking Like Fozzie” Baer
Larry “The NFL Doesn’t Give a Hoot Why Should MLB?” Baer
Larry “Obviously Not a Gentle Ben” Baer
Larry “Doing the Kerfuffle Shuffle in the Plaza” Baer
Larry “More Harmful to the Bay Area than Smokey Air” Baer
Larry “About Cheating (and robbing an honest ballplayer’s exalted title of Home Run King) I Do Not Care” Baer
Larry “Presenting SF Fans with Another Cross to” Baer
Larry “It’s all Bill Neukom’s Fault” Baer
Larry “On the Altercation Facts I’m Fuzzy” Baer
Larry “If I Don’t Get What I Want Call Me Grizzly” Baer
“Larry “My Phone I Don’t Share” Baer
Larry “Apparently Not as Smart as Yogi” Baer
Larry “At 61 Still Aspiring to Be a Man” Baer
Larry “Needs to Grow a Pair” Baer
Larry “Hall of Shame Incident with a Chair” Baer
Larry “Who’d Ever Imagine a Phone Could Cost 5 Million Dollars” Baer
Larry “Headed to Lefty O’Douls to Cry in his Beer” Baer
Larry “Polar Opposite of a Teddy” Baer
Larry “Hoping to Sweep This Aside Like the 2012 Giants in Detroit” Baer
Larry “Along With *25 Makes A Deuce Pair” Baer
“Larry “Got My Head Stuck Up Somewhere Like Winnie the Pooh” Bear
Larry “Goldilocks, Get Outta My Chair!” Baer
Bob Dylan once asked: “How many roads must a man walk down before they call him a man?”
The answer is more than strutting one’s stuff at Willie Mays Plaza.
The answer is more than sashaying down Privileged White Man Boulevard.
The answer, fellow fans, is blowin’ in the wind–across the Bay, over Willie McCovey Cove, and into Oracle Park. If you listen closely you can hear the voices of the Baseball Gods and Goddesses proclaiming in unison: “Larry Baer, hit the pine, meat!”
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Play Ball!
