The Gift That Keeps Giving

With the Yuletide season reaching its apex, we Rooters are as frenzied as the urchins awaiting a visit from Jolly Old Saint Nick.

But while they dream of sugar-plums, jelly candies and the latest mechanical tin-toy marvels, we hope that the Oligarchs that control the Red Stocking Base-Ball Franchise will deliver us a special gift for the coming season: Perhaps a slugging first-sacker shipped in from the Western Coast? Or another fire-balling hurler to complement our ranks of horsehide heroes?

Yet amidst the aching want, I was reminded of the true "spirit" of the season. For today, un-announced, the letter-carrier delivered to me a special package by parcel post. Inside, lovingly secured in a bed of cushioning chaff, was a bottle of Duffy's Pure Malt Whiskey, sent to me from none other than Mr. Hurdy Chadwick.

A warming gulp filled me with the glow of the Christmas star, and reminded me that base-ball will come again, bringing rooters together in fine company for songs and cheers and even the occasional hoots of derision when our boys on the diamond fall short of their goals. No matter who wears the flannels next season, we will be rooting. We few. We Happy Few. We band of brothers!

So let the wee ones enjoy their stockings full of trinkets and sweets. I shall be preparing a special Wassail this season with Duffy's finest elixir. The green of the Tannenbaum shall stand in for the green fields of the ball-park until the Spring returns -- and with it, our timeless game.

Consarnit!

Crummy chumps. Those rotten dirt clods! I'm hopping mad -- so perturbed my face is breaking out in the hives, and I'm sure to spend the rest of the week-end with an oatmeal-covered cloth resting about my head and neck.

The reason for my dismal mood? Those hucksters in the Boston ticket offices of Red Stockings Incorporated. Those Huns have taken the last of my Saturdays with their infernal waiting rooms and phony promises of "ticketing chances for matches through-out the upcoming base-ball season!"

Thanks for nothin', ya crumbums. Phooey on you.

Stoke up the hot stove, fat man!

I am not a patient man. And the recent weeks of inactivity on the Red Stockings front has made me irritable and ornery. My entreaty to the corpulent cigar chompers on Yawkey Way: Make some news for the boys in Boston with base-ball on the mind, the lads waiting on every tavern stool who want to know who next season's hurler-in-chief will be.

Winter is upon us, the snow a lily-white blanket keeping warm our fair emerald field in the Fens. But after the bottom of the ninth chapter, baseball does not vanish. It stalks the subconscious, waiting to be fed a diet of spinning horsehide and ash clouts. I beseech thee, Theodore Epstein, feed that hankering!

Strike up the band!

Tune the banjo and polish the plectrum, for happy days are here once again in the Old Town of Boston! Word filtered north this afternoon that Lil' Hands Dustin Pedroia, he of the Most Vaunted Player award given at this year's Annual Base-ball Player's Dinner and Consortium, has applied pen nub to paper, his little hands scratching his signature on the dotted line of a contract that will bind his services to the Boston Red Stockings for a whopping six years' time!

And let me tell you, that little ball chaser will get his fair share of clams in the deal. I'm not one to shoot off half-cocked on pecuniary matters, but i have it on good faith that the key word to this deal is simoleons. You heard it from me: Lil' Hands has enough loot to hire a craftsman full time to create custom mittens!

What a time to be a follower of the squad! What a time to be a lover of scarlet hose and the ol' horsehide! What a time to be alive!

Long live Lil' Hands!