Leftovers...

I hadn't wanted to ruin what was a perfectly good rant about last night's Astros suckfest by actually talking about the positives of the 5-1 drubbing. Those were reserved for this morning:

• Just about every MLB team features a scoreboard race of some variety. In Houston, where our economy is largely driven by oil, our scoreboard race is of ... what else but gas-guzzling Hummers? In Washington, however, the scoreboard race is of the four Mount Rushmore Presidents engaging in a foot race.
  
  They showed excerpts of last night's scoreboard race on the television; I never saw what happened to Jefferson inasmuch as the only remaining competitors were Washington, Lincoln, and Teddy Roosevelt. I'm also not exactly clear on the mishap that beset Honest Abe but, when they showed him, he was simply spinning in place as though he were a piece on one of those old electronic football games.
  
  
  
  Washington won after he kicked a traffic cone that brained Roosevelt, who consequently fell off the racetrack. That hardly seems like the most sporting way to win, especially for a race that features some of our greatest Presidents. Then again, those residing in the District of Columbia probably have a pretty good sense of the sometimes-dirty nature of politics and, in their view, hitting a political opponent with a traffic cone may not be all that out of the ordinary.
  
  Amusing nonetheless.
  
  
• The Astros broadcasters--whose time was certainly not spent in dissecting all three of the hits that the mighty 'Stros sluggers managed--assembled their own all-presidential MLB teams which, of course, featured current and former players whose first or last name matched up with that of a former President.
  
  Jim Deshaies's choice for pitcher was:
  
  
  Calvin Coolidge Julius Caesar Tuskahoma McLish.
  
  When this name came across my TV screen, I was encouraged--nay, compelled--to run check out my Bill James Almanac, and Baseball Reference, to determine if this was a real player.
  
  He was, in fact, a real player... and that was his real name. He explained his rather unusual name thusly:
  

  "There were eight kids in my family, and I was the only one my father was permitted to name, so I guess he figured he'd make up for the situation."

  So I'd like to congratulate Cal McLish not only on making it onto Jim Deshaies's all-Presidential team, but also on having survived a rather rough childhood--clearly, the man who named him had to have been a habitual crack smoker.