Bryan Joiner

We have a giant bag of gummy bears in my office. I like eating them, though I’m not sure they could be any worse for me — I can just imagine a gelatinous sac growing inside me with each one, like The Blob for my tummy. (While we’re at it, I’ll mention that I was absolutely terrified, terrified of The Blob when I saw it at the age of 8 or so). Still, I like the gummy bears and I always get the theme song from the early 90’s cartoon stuck in my head when I eat them:

Gummy Bears
Bouncing here and there and everywhere
True adventure that’s beyond compare
They are the gummy bears
They are the gummy bears!

I’m working on another baseball essay now, this one about Bonds and Clemens. The problem is, a lot of people are also writing about this. (That last one requires a baseball prospectus subscription). One passage from Simmons’ column was particularly spot-on for a particular idea I was pinning down:

The stunning turn of events didn’t leave me as satisfied as I thought it would. Whenever people write about the Steroids Era, they always focus on numbers. After all, the combination of numbers and history makes baseball unique. We crunch them, compare them, memorize them, and eventually they become living, breathing entities. The Steroids Era has made it impossible to say which numbers are genuine, so fans worry that we can’t compare generations anymore. I’d argue that every generation has mitigating factors that affect the numbers, and in time we’ll learn how to weigh those factors from the past 15 years. We just need time.

But here’s what we won’t figure out: how to reconcile our own memories with everything we know now, after all these revelations.

I mean, I have some statistical-based stuff that’s not in Bill’s column, but he pretty much nailed that one, IMHO.

Last night I went out with the editors of Last Exit to a brand-new speakeasy bar in the Village. I talked a lot about the presidential election. Then I spilled beer on my pants and left.