Phil: I know you’re not much of a baseball fan (heretic! commie pinko rat!) but my favorite dreadlocked right-handed hitter is working himself back into playing shape from a 50-game suspension for violating baseball’s drug policy at the Dodgers’ Triple A affiliate in some godforsaken hole in the desert called Albuquerque. Yep, Manny Ramirez is an Isotope (yes, they used to be the Dukes, but Isotopes has the whole Simpsons marketing angle). I guess the ‘topes are sold out through Thursday when Manny is scheduled to head back to L.A. I guess standing room tickets are going fast at $6 a pop. This is more baseball excitement than New Mexico has had since Uncle Rupert got hit in the head by that foul ball back in ‘93.

Steve: Yes, but Uncle Rupert never wore his hair like that, even after he got all twitchy. How the Dukes became the Isotopes is a long, ugly story (as I recall from when I lived in Albuquerque, the Dukes actually moved to another city and the Isotopes arose to take their place), but the upshot was that the city with the funny name got a team with a funny name. And a remodeled stadium that’s the bee’s knees. I’m sure Manny has had a wonderful time there, but who cares, it’s baseball.

Phil: Who cares? It’s the National Pastime, for cryin’ out loud. The game itself has so much poetry in its American soul it ain’t even funny. The geometry is perfect. Like the universe itself it comprises the tiniest of actions (a difference of .0001″ of the meeting and placement of bat on ball could be the difference between a home run and a fly ball caught on the warning track) with the infinite expanse of space. The demarcation of fair ground doesn’t stop at the outfield wall. In theory, the area between the foul poles extends in an ever widening arc forever. We’re standing in Fenway Park’s fair territory now (of course, some of us are always foul). Plus, there’s no clock, no limit. A game is finished when it’s finished, not because some fascist timekeeper says it’s over. Besides, were it not for baseball, most American Males would have absolutely nothing to say to each other. My wife gets upset when one of our sons calls home and only grunts the mandatory “how you doin’s” to her and then hangs on the line with Dad for the next three hours discussing the Dodgers bullpen woes (Joe Torre is overusing the middle relief guys, by the way. They’ll be toast by September).

Steve: I refuse to respect any so-called sport that can be played while chewing tobacco. I want action and bloodshed, such as in pro basketball, or at least giant mutants in football gear whamming hell out of one another. Let’s see some lanky pitcher with a mouthful of chaw try to drop back in the pocket while Ray Lewis or Brian Urlacher charges him. Let’s see how much tobacco juice he can swallow before he hurls.

Phil: Hey, try standing in the batter’s box with a Randy Johnson fastball coming at your head. I believe there is no more difficult task in sports than attempting to hit a pitched baseball thrown by a fellow skilled in the art of making batters miss. It can be awfully intimidating seeing a behemoth like Jonathan Broxton standing just 60 feet away winding up to unleash a 100 mph pitch that, truth be told, nobody knows exactly where it’s going to go. When a guy like Manny belts that pitch into the gap for a double, you gotta be impressed. Shoot, just being a great athlete isn’t enough. Michael Jordan was the best basketball player in the universe but he couldn’t hit his weight. He actually looked foolish up there when he saw a good curveball.

Steve: OK, I’ll grant that there is some risk to the game. You get hit in the head with one of those fastballs, it might make you choke on your chaw. When I was younger, I went for the real blood sports like boxing and bullfighting. This was my Ernest Hemingway Phase. I seem to have outgrown all that, except for the beard and the drinking. As my beard turns ever whiter, I might have a fighting chance in one of those Hemingway lookalike contests. Or, I can work as Santa at the mall. Pretty much the same thing, right?

Phil: Between Papa and Santa you should be busy year ’round! I don’t look anything like Ernie, but I write like Hemingway . . . Mariel Hemingway.

Steve: Didn’t she play for the Dodgers? Two more good reasons to ignore baseball: 1) I hate math and statistics, and 2) summer gives me a break from televised sports, which may be all that’s saving my marriage.

Phil: No, you’re blessed with a wife like mine. A woman capable of looking past the beard and the potato chip crumbs and seeing something in us. Something so pathetic that they cannot in good conscience leave us to fend for ourselves. They feel a moral obligation to do what they can with us. But there are still lawns to be mowed and pickle jars to be opened in the world, so most of us are safe. For now.

Steve: Lawns and pickles may not be enough, particularly during the playoffs. But enough about sports and marriage. Let’s talk about politics and marriage. I have loved, loved, loved the news stories about South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford and his Father’s Day weekend disappearance. First, his staff says they don’t know where he is. Then they say he needed to get away and went hiking alone on the Appalachian Trail. Then he’s caught flying back home from Argentina! Where he apparently has a honey on the side. Holy Evita! The only thing that would make this story better is if the woman in Buenos Aires turned out to be a transvestite.

Phil: Now, hold on a minute, Argentinian transvestites have morals, you know.

Steve: Unlike certain fidelity-challenged Republicans. I believe Sanford will be responsible for a whole new euphemism. As follows:

“Hey, Buck! What did you do this weekend. Watch some baseball on TV?”

“No, me and the missus hiked the Appalachian Trail. If you know what I mean.” (Wink, wink.)

Phil: Sure, that’ll work. Especially if you come home with ticks or some kind of fungus. Dangerous place those Appalachian Trails, no telling what you might pick up.

Steve: Don’t cry for me, Appalachia! And don’t make me play baseball in Albuquerque.

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