The De-Tanning of America

This sporting life brought us recently to the banks of a somnolent tributary of the mighty Mississippi. The evening was drowsy with lingering heat, but the young Texas Leaguers in a ballpark named for Yankees great Bill Dickey and the local investment banking legend seemed quite alert, though unaware they were about to engage in nine innings of cat and mouse that probably has never happened before in organized professional baseball.

You can look it up.

At least, we are reasonably sure it was a first – a game in which a no-hitter was hurled by the combined efforts of two Northwest Arkansas Naturals pitchers, who were bailed out of trouble by an around-the-horn triple play. A scorching ground ball to the hot corner after two walks, the latter a 12-pitch duel that put runners at first and second, started the fun at Dickey-Stephens Park.

The Arkansas Travelers, the singular of which was the creation of an antebellum troubadour, found no way out of the wilderness of futility, just as the itinerant woodsman of lore was baffled by the fiddler who wouldn’t mend his cabin roof and let the rain pour in.

We enjoy the same bafflement in the standoff in Washington (first in war, first in peace and last in the trust of its countrymen) over the debt ceiling increase.

As unprecedented as a combined no-hitter with a triple play, House Speaker John Boehner has lost his perpetual bronze glow, no doubt from hours better spent on the golf course wrangling with Democrats and the renegade Republican rump known as the Tea Party. What an air-conditioned mess! For a man to lose his tan because he’s inside conference rooms fencing with Obama and GOP cultists is simply outrageous.

Be that as it may, we trust all will not turn out well. Though an agreement would prevent financial market Armageddon, it won’t alter the cruel facts on the ground. Unemployment will remain stubbornly high. The government reported a disappointing drop in durable goods orders in June, and the Fed’s “Beige Book” report on conditions in the 12 reserve bank districts points to slowing economic growth.

We, however, are on a roll, having booked 1,500 units by taking Seattle over New York yesterday. We expect no triple plays, much less a no-hitter today in Boston, where the Kansas City blue bloods will face the bloody ankles and Beckett soon. KC will not be waiting for Godot, though, as Vladimir and Estragon did in Samuel Beckett’s absurdist play. Rather, the visiting dogs merit an investment of 500 units from yesterday’s win.
Woof, Woof!