LADIES LOVE OBSCURE RIVALRIES: BASEBALL PLAYERS v. THE WATER COOLER

by Dan Raspatello, draspate@indiana.edu

Currently, I am stretching for reasons to watch sports. With college athletes enjoying their drug-test free summers and the Cubs unable to shake their losing ways like my brother can’t chase his current herpes outbreak, I am stuck between a rock and a hard place (I still don’t understand what the saying means). I find myself giving gambling advice on the NBA playoffs, jerking off to World Cup commercials, and not turning the channel when SportsCenter shows NASCAR highlights. I was actually watching non fourth quarter NBA basketball for the first time since Michael Jordan posterized Bryon Russel with my friends the other day. Then, however, my friends told me they had that new station, MTV Jams (which they should spell with a “Z� if they want any street cred) so I flipped the channel immediately. So, once again this week I am not going to write about any human-on-human nonsense, but instead write about something that really pisses me off: Baseball players’ mistreatment of water coolers.

This epidemic has been happening for some time, and most of us never think twice about it. And like the rest of you, I never did either, until the Cubs vs. Marlins series earlier this week.

Forty-year-old Greg “The Professor� Maddux had just returned to reality after his obviously too-good-to-be-true April, and was getting roughed up by National League powerhouse Florida Marlins. Dusty removed his toothpick from his mouth, and walked his no-smallball-playin’-ugly-ass out to the mound to bring in some horrible reliever. As The Professor walked back into the dugout, he showed rare signs of emotion (that same “emotion� most skanky sluts beg for more of out of their heterosexual male targets), and picked up a bat and hit the water cooler harder then any Saudi man has ever hit a woman for showing a little too much lower forearm (sluts) . So this got me thinking. If a guy like Maddux is taking out his aggression on the water cooler then what kind of a chance of survival does a water cooler ever have in a Major League ballpark? And since water coolers are incapable of defending themselves, I have taken the responsibility upon myself.

Seriously, have you ever noticed how in all professional sports, baseball is the only one that mistreats their water coolers? In football, the water cooler gets to be part of the celebration (no better way to tell coach you still like him then a refreshing Gatorade shower), and in basketball it is defended courageously by the dorky kid (Team Manager) that loves basketball but was not good enough to make the team. Yet in baseball it stands defenseless. With bats, balls, helmets, and steroids running rampant around the dugout, what sort of a chance does the water cooler have? A water cooler would have a better chance of long-term survival if it took the short bus to school then it would in a dugout.

Considering the physical effort put forth in each sport of note, how come baseball, the least physically demanding sport, gets the right to treat the water cooler like Macaulay Culkin was treated by his father. The water cooler and I had a sit-down, or a powwow for our Native American readers, and here is what we have to say to pro baseball players:


Water/Gatorade Cooler: Hey dicks. Take the needle out of your ass for one second and you and your barbed wire tattoo around your bicep listen up. Oh, I’m sorry! Was your 30-yard dash to first base too exhausting to talk, Pussy? First of all, I want to talk to you pitchers. You guys mistreat us the most. But I guess we understand. I mean your life is so stressful. You only make millions of dollars every year to play f$cking baseball. I know working once every five days is so draining that it gives you the right to treat me like I am Tina Turner and you are her no-talent-ass-clown of an ex-husband, Ike. Oh, and lefty relievers, I’m sorry that you f@cked up your one responsibility of the day to get out a left hander. You’re right, it’s probably my fault, so go ahead and pick up that bat and hit me with it. American League pitchers, I just wanted to point out that when you hit me with a bat, you handle it about as well as the lazy-eyed kid who has to wear a helmet to school. What’s that disease called anyway? Look, Managers, it is not my fault that you are over the age of 50 and still dress up in a full, extra-tight uniform, so stop throwing me at the dorky trainer because he is my only friend. Least you can do is not cause me to alienate my only true Gatorade drinking buddy.

Thus, I propose we go on strike. Because you needle-popping assholes don’t even really need us. You guys stand around 99% of the time anyways, and when you leg out a double you act like you just finished a f#cking marathon. So go put in your huge dip or chew (or a Big League Chew if you want to be a pussy about it), and leave us alone. Oh yeah, go easy on the sunflower seeds because they will make you thirsty and we aren’t going keep coming back to you like a neglected 17-year-old girlfriend.


Me: Hearing what my buddy, the water cooler, had to say inspired me to apologize to somebody as well, my cell phone. Major Leaguers spiking water coolers makes about as much sense as me throwing my phone against a brick wall after losing in a game of Cornhole. Now my screen just has black ink spilled across is, so it is a full mystery to me every time my phone rings and no caller ID information is there to inform me. This is annoying, because you have to explain to your melodramatic friend that you really do have his/her number saved when you start asking who’s on the other end. So cell phone, I am sorry. You are my alarm clock, you tell what time/date it is, you allow me text message girls to avoid awkward conversation (if it was not for text messaging I would never talk to the opposite sex), you have memorized all my phone numbers for me (even the people I don’t like), and most importantly, I can fake like you are vibrating to get me out of a torture-rack conversation. Therefore, loyal readers, next time you are going to take out your anger on your cell phone think about the water cooler, and instead hit a puppy or a small child. They’ll forget by the time you want to be their friend anyway.