It's a Mad, Mad, Mad World

Pittsburgh Tribune Review ^ | 12/15/03 | Ralph R. Reiland

[thesummerwind]

Playing for the Pittsfield High School baseball team in Illinois, Danny Hannant threw a pitch that a Calhoun High School player hit in a line drive right at the pitcher's mound. The ball bounced off Hannant's head.

Rather than blame the mishap on a lousy pitch or a missed catch, or on the intrinsic risks of the game, Hannant sued the maker of the bat, Hillerich & Bradsby. Seeking in excess of $1 million, Hannant's lawyer argued that the company should have put labels on its Louisville Slugger bats warning that the product "could cause a baseball to be propelled with such velocity that when hit directly towards a pitcher it does not allow the pitcher sufficient reaction time to avoid being struck."

[mylife]

1938 Red Ryder BB Gun
Merry Xmas!!

[mylife]

Warning! Riding this product may result in smiles!

[thesummerwind]

That's you and me, the general public.

I watched with glee

While your kings and queens

Fought for ten decades

For the gods they made

I shouted out,

Who killed the kennedys?

When after all

It was you and me

[zeugma]

Actually, the person at fault in most of these really stooopid cases is the judge. The judge can easily rule that it is frivolous and fine the attorney for being a stupid clod and wasting the court's time.

[Robert A Cook PE]

That game was, er, actually called "Smear the Queer" ...

[agrace]

I know you knew, but they did seem related when I went back and read my initial post. :)

Actually my dad's favorite response when one of us would come in crying with some injury was "Is the ground ok?" He says it to his grandkids now.

[ßuddaßudd]

I was waiting for someone to call the game by its real name.
In gradeschool, if I wasnt playing smear the queer, dodge ball, etc, I was pitching quarters trying to earn enough for comic books. ßß

[BBell]

Now that was a GREAT movie!!!

[Conspiracy Guy]

The real obesity problem is physics not food.

Girth is determined by an individual's resistance to atmospheric pressure (ap). My resistance to ap is low therefore the pressure pushes on my surfaces making me appear slim. Fat people have a high resistance to ap so they spread out. Light people have a high resistance to gravity. Heavy people have little resistance to gravity which makes them press harder on the scale.

Food has nothing to do with it. We can balance the scales by banning atmospheric pressure and gravity.

"Stop the atmospheric pressure and gravity now! It's for the children!"

CG

[Conspiracy Guy]

That aint what we called it. It was "Smear the Metrosexual".

[Fiddlstix]

Ping

[thesummerwind]

Actually my dad's favorite response when one of us would come in crying with some injury was "Is the ground ok?" He says it to his grandkids now.

LOL! My dad used to say, "Where doesn't it hurt, concentrate on that part of your body instead.

A real Zen master. ;)

[Conspiracy Guy]

Osama called me in October and asked where he could surrender. I had him meet me at the Dunkin Donuts. He had been working as a convenience store clerk in North Birmingham. He said that the job was just too dangerous so he wanted to be taken into custody. I am holding him at an undisclosed location until the timing is right. I wouldn't tell you about it but I know the Democratic Trolls lurking around here can't read so it's safe.

[Landru]

"Check this out. We had a neighborhood in the early and mid-50's with about 15 little trouble-making post-WWII kids, I guess we were about the first baby boomers (I hate that phrase)."

Yup, me too.
I'm one of "those."

"We had this one game we all loved. There was this one yard in our neighborhood where we played our "football" games, and everything else for that matter."

I swear every neighborhood had such a lot, even in the urban areas.

"This one game we made up was GREAT, I recommend it highly."

Now?!!
For who?
HA!!
That's funny.

"We'd all get home from school, and all show up in the yard in about 15 minutes after checking in and out at home. We usually had about 8 to 12 kids playing this game. It was called, Kill The Man. Here's how it went. We'd all get in a close group, one kid with the ball would throw the football directly up into the air, and one kid would "have the balls" to catch it. Then he'd try to run around as long as he could before any or all of us "killed" (tackled) him (and there was no such thing as "piling on"). As soon as he would get up with the ball, he threw it up in the air again, and the same thing happened over and over again."

Y'know if that doesn't sound like you're describing an American version of Rugby, I don't know what does.
~Really.

The empty lot in my neighborhood witnessed much.
Lemme tell ya about the 3 brothers who were the biggest "organizers" of our sandlot football games.

The oldest & largest was nick named, "Oddy".
I needn't tell you *why* we called him that because needdless to say "Oddy" was not the "gifted" one of their family.

Then there was "Larry," a HUGE ox-strong redheaded kid with a chipped tooth & freckles.
Something not quite *right* about "Larry," y'know?
Still ain't.

Lastly the youngest, a tall wirey, & very strong blonde headed kid name, "Guy."
Guy was one of those quiet type of kids with a *silver* front tooth (~remember those?) & saddistic streak.
(BTW, none of the brothers had the same color hair & we always wondered why that was too afraid to ask; but, I digress. :o) )

Long story short these brothers had a last name real close to "Bordens." Y'know the diary, with a pic of "Elsie" the cow on the carton??
Keep that in mind.

"Oddy" was gigantic & actually went on the play starting center for the University of Wisconsin after HS, in the early 60s. He was *that* big. So big in fact was "Oddy" that one of us "smaller" guys could each hang onto one of his thighs & "Oddy" just kept lumbering down the field with us waving in the wind.

Now the two oldest of the three one day just HAD to wear their "official" football shoes to one of our games & lemme tell ya those spikes looked damned BIG to kids our size.
We didn't hesitate telling 'em we had some serious doubts about "our general safety", right?
These two brainiacs "assured" us no one would get hurt, mocked us calling us "sissies" & naturally being the suckers we were, we believed 'em.
Of course now in hindsight, I'm almost certain the two winked at each other soon after deducing we'd swallowed their LIE!

Sure enough.
Not long into the game it "appeared" -- to our utter horror -- these two clowns were actaully trying to deliberately step on us; &, the 2nd largest lumox "Larry" succeeded in spiking my hand during a full gallop.
Hurt like crazy.

I've a "short fuse" -- had one all my life -- & so I spring up immediately & begin calling that asshole every name under the sun.
The two brothers just look at each other & laugh uproariously at the pain they've inflicted; seemingly, satisfied they'd attained all or part of some kind of secret, agreed upon *goal*.
~& that really pissed me off.

Buttttt...all was well -- for them -- until I shouted at 'em their old man's picture was on a milk carton!
The two stop laughing & in a normal tone of voice the readheaded kid "Larry" says to me matter of factly, "you die."

I *instantly* took off like a scalded cat, as if I'd wings on my heels, putting 15' between that SOB & myself before he commences & the chase is on.
Good thing I was smaller & as such much quicker, too; because, this kid's temper was something we all were quite familiar with, the stuff of *legend* that temper & somthing to be *feared*.
Unbeknownst to me, I'd *found* the guy's "Hot Button." :o)

I figured my only chance -- for "survival" -- was to climb a tree, a *big* tree, so I navigated toward the largest one just adjacent to the "football" field, a 60' pear tree.

By the time I hit that tree's trunk I'd so much momentum I climbed that sucker using only my hands, without my feet ever touching a branch & just out of reach of this guy's mits taking furious swipes at my feet.

I reached the very top of that tree where lucky for me the combined weight of the lumox & mine, c/would've easily caused the thing to break, sending us both crashing to the ground; so, he slowly retreated back down the trunk & the threats & dire "predictions" of my future once he got his hands on me flowed freely the whole way down.
The top of *that* is where I stayed.

The lumox sat at the base of that tree fuming & working himself into a frighful lather talking to himself, saying stuff I never said which firther enraged him even moreso.
He waited there for me until well after dark.

When he finally did leave he said nothing, just slowly looked up at me (now decended to a safe altitude about 15' above 'em) & slowly waves his finger at me.
Then just walks away.

I -- *instinctively* -- knew what that waving finger meant.
Knew I'd better damned well *never* say that to any of 'em about their pa, ever again. ;^)

That kind of behavior used to be called "establishing a pecking order" & it was those kinds of interactions which served to keep everything on the up & up as well as everyone "honest."
Know what I mean?

Of course our society's long ago did away with "pecking orders" which explains (to my satisfaction) the explosion of loudmouths seen, today.

...also expalins the army of bloodsucker sheisters who're needed to protect 'em.

[24Karet]

In the 70's, when I was growing up, Kill the Man was known as Smear the Queer.... But, I suppose that wouldn't be politically correct these days.

[Badray]

" Trial lawyers always brag, "I haven't found a contract that cannot be broken, yet.""

I was having a lawyer sign a standard auto finance contract some years back and he was reading the whole thing - fine print and all. He started circling this section and that and I laughed at him. I told him that the "XYZ's Bank's attorneys make a lot more money than him and he was wasting his time if he thought that anything was gonna be changed or waived. He was a little shocked that I said that. I told to just make all of his payments on time and the fine print didn't matter. He signed.

Like the old saying goes: "It's the 99.50% of them that are bad that make the rest of them look bad."

And they are so easy to hate.

[Conspiracy Guy]

I have one like this. Browning A-Bolt 270 Win Composite Stock with 3x10 50mm Obj Leupold Gold Ring scope.

[BBell]

I was in Okinawa Japan for a number of years and they had the BEST parks!!! I always said if they had parks like these in the states there would be a gang of lawyers standing around handing out there cards. The Japanese had a very enlightened view of child rearing, WATCH YOUR KIDS! If your kid got hurt on a piece of equipment, why weren't you watching better. Why did you allow your kid on that piece of equipment if they couldn't handle it? My daughter grew from 4 months to over three years on at those playgrounds and she did crack her head open once, but it healed. But man did she have a blast!!

[agrace]

My dad used to say, "Where doesn't it hurt, concentrate on that part of your body instead.

HA, sounds like my dad - he also said "should I hit your arm so you forget about your head?"

[Badray]

"1938 Red Ryder BB Gun"

You'll shoot your eye out!