“Sometimes I get my best ideas after downing a few Jello shots.”–The Captain, March 31, 1999
During the early part of 1999, The Captain would weigh in occasionally with his own unique perspective on White Sox Baseball, rental cars, relationships, and Life In General. Those of us who were privy to his little rants imagined him sitting in the corner booth at the Redwood Lounge, clacking away at his aging ThinkPad, with a cigarette dangling from his lips and an open bottle of hard brown liquor always within reach.
The stories started during Spring Training and continued into the early part of the season. Most are probably lost to the ages, as they appeared unannounced in a chat forum with limited archiving capability. I managed to snag several of them at the time and pasted them into a text file that I tucked away and forgot about. I stumbled across the file the other day and pieced a bit of it together.In honor of the beginning of Spring Training 2005, here a few of the gems, edited slightly for readability, but otherwise exactly as The Captain reported:
"The reason I just got in is because of an asshole cop and that lazy ass Farmer. I locked my fricking keys in the car and had to break a window to get in…So, I'm heading back to the hotel and Smokey stops me for driving without a windshield. The asshole made me leave the damn car…Farmer was pissed, but he came and got me. I sent one of the interns back to get the car this morning and take it to Alamo for a replacement. I'm willing to pay for the windshield, but I told them I flat out refuse to pay the dry cleaning bill unless they could positively identify that as my fluid."It was always somebody else’s fault with The Captain.
Ongoing escapades with two guys named Bowden and Lynch provided a lot of fodder. The Hertz Corporation kept The Captain on the road.
"I see that sonofabitch Bowden has been shooting his mouth off again. I don't actually remember that much of our conversation, but I can tell you that we were about three-quarters of the way through a half-gallon of Ten High when he got up and walked out of the room. I figured it was to take a leak or something, but the bastard disappeared on me. The waitress woke me up because it was closing time and Bowden was gone, along with [my] bomber jacket and shades…""The Ramada was hopping last night. Lynch was there crying in his gin and tonic…. I think I've got him right where I want him on Navarro now. Something funny happened, though, when we went out to his minivan to talk about it. He puts his arm around me and starts talking about how big and strong I must have been as a young man. Said he always admired me and would like to get closer to me. I told him I wasn't sure if that was such a good idea.""Lynch broke into my room last night, I know it was him because his stink is all over the place. Plus, he cleaned up the kitchenette and took out the recycling. I found flowers on the table and a note that I'm afraid to open. I gave the flowers to the maid and will hang on to the unopened note in case I need it to help me get a restraining order.""Hertz is all over my case about the front end and the smell. Screw 'em. I'm sure there's a rental car agency out here somewhere that will still rent to a high-rolling big-league GM."First Mate Farmer usually swooped in to rescue Our Captain at just the right moment, and his caring spirit was seldom appreciated.
"That little son of a bitch shows up at my house last night at 3 a.m., banging on the door and demanding to know what happened to his car. How the hell should I know? I'll tell you what happened to mine, though. I was at Redwood the other night and couldn't find a parking space. A couple of motorcycles were stretched out in my usual spot, so I gently nudged them onto the sidewalk to make room for my car. …When I came out later the front end of my car was all banged up and somebody had taken a crap right on the fricking hood. …Farmer calls me a bunch of names and reminds me that he left his car in my garage while he was out of town. I've been going through rental cars so fast lately that I didn't realize it was his car I had been driving all week…so we go out to the garage to look it over. Aw, shit. I'm embarrassed because I left the engine running again and Farmer starts getting a little light-headed from the fumes. Looks like little Binky, the neighbor's cat, crawled in the front seat for a little nap…Farmer buried the little guy out behind the garage with the others."There is more—I managed to find a total of about 6,000 words of this stuff, which probably represents most of The Captain’s writing from that period. Maybe I’ll repost it all, although some of it simply wasn’t that good, and a lot of it doesn’t really stand the test of time. Still, it might be a considered a service to the White Sox Fan Community to have it out here again, so I’ll think about it.
"Off to the Liquor Barn!…"
