Ladies and Geetles, gather ’round, for I have important news– the King of Jewish Baseball recently, just two days ago, as a matter of fact, shattered what was until recently thought shatter-proof, that is, the 20,ooo readers barrier. It is indeed a slow climb to 1.3 million. It will only take, at this rate, according to my calculations, 217 more years.
Partly, I am sure, because of the 20k news, a wild KOJB media frenzy has ensued in the form of a single article in Details Magazine that hit newsstands today and is sure to create a nasty outbreak of Jewish Baseball Fever across the land. It is hard for me to leave my apartment these days with the sea of photographers and reporters and fans awaiting me in the streets, but earlier, in disguise of course, to say, without cape and crown, I safely snuck down to my local magazine shop and purchased two copies of Details.
Give me the magazines!
So go, now, get your copies of the March issue of Details Magazine– the thoughtfully timed release coinciding with the first days of Spring Training, but be careful, there are mobs, looters, stampedes even, of ravenous KOJB fans lurching closer, magnetically drawn, zombie-like, to magazine shops seeking their fix of Team Israel, the Greatest Jewish Baseball Magic Show on Earth, and a glimpse at the King of All Jewish Baseball himself.
March issue of Details Magazine. That’s me on the cover.
Everyone in publishing knows, YOU PUT THE GOOD STUFF ON PAGE 160. See Shlo?
I will let the protective comedic shield down, momentarily, and I will attempt to write about being written about. For there are only two real options in life, 1) someone else writes about you, or 2) write about yourself. The first is preferable, though I will not hesitate, as clearly demonstrated, to resort to the second.
In seriousness, we, me and Shlo, knew the article was coming out, obviously. Charles, who wrote the article, and Rebecca, who took the photos, were with us for a week in Florida, at the games, around the clubhouse, at the hotel. So we have been waiting almost four months to see it. Every time I am involved in a minor media explosion, which is often, my expectation is that it will somehow transform me. And then the article or the film is released, and nothing changes, I am 99.9 percent similar to my prior self. It is the power media has over us– well, me, anyways. I am not sure what I expect to happen. I have been lead to believe fireworks will fly from rooftops, maybe, or women, I think I expect things to just somehow be easier. Maybe you are a better man, or woman, than I am, and you do not suffer this particular affliction, but I doubt it.
Today, for example, I bought the magazine, and jumped back in the car double-parked outside the magazine store. I found our article between novel-length stretches of men’s fashion ads. About halfway through the article a man rapped on my window and asked me to move, I was blocking his car. He must have thought, what type of horrible idiot sits in his car, double-parked, blocking me, on a Wednesday, at noon, reading a magazine?!?! Startled, I pulled around the corner and finished reading. The whole thing took maybe 15 minutes. Then, I put the magazine on the passenger seat, and drove home. And now I am sitting at my desk. In a couple of hours, if I can muster the motivation, I will go to Richie’s Gym. Tonight, at 7, we have Yeshiva University softball practice. The girls on the team will warm-up, they will stretch, and they will go through their throwing program. We’ll work on defense, hitting, then we’ll condition at the end, like we always do. And life will continue today as it was yesterday and as it will be tomorrow.
I am learning, as the order goes, the book is always better than the movie, but neither are as good as the real thing.