No Kidz in the Hall By Darryl Skeeby

SHabbadaba beepboopbop it is your good friend Darryl Skeeby here to tell you about the dumb things you've done lately.  An awful lot of hullabaloo is being made about a certain (fat) center fielder (old) who used to play (dumb hat) for the Seattle Mariners and a certain bid for the Hall of Fame.  Now, let me say something before I say somethin' else.  The Hall of Fame is a space somewhere east of here reserved for only the toughest of the tough.  Only the grittiest of the gritters get to have their head made in to some sort of copper/iron bust that looks more and more like Neville Longbottom as time wears on.  Yes it is true, in my spare time I like to read Harry Potter.  I don't care much for magic, but I do love a good witch hunt.

This Kenneth Griffey Junior is a player that some say should be a one-hundred percent vote getter his first time on the ballot.  You know who else got one-hundred percent of the vote?  Genghis Khan.  Well the Chinese built a wall to keep him out and I'm suggesting that we, them deemed capable of voting, do the same to Ken.  In this here 2015 I will not be voting for Ken Griffey to make the Hall of Fame and I have many reasons.  Listen up or receive a fate worse than death.*

The Kid

What sort of nickname is that for a grown, baseballin' man?  So all of a sudden we are letting near-babies just waltz in to Cooperstown, have themselves a fountain soda, and get all bronzed up?  No-siree-bob.

The Hat

Respect the game.  The baseball cap was meant to be worn forward and no other direction.  The original purpose of a hat (now worn in all shapes and sizes thanks to Frank Sinatra) was to keep the sun out of the eyes of a batter while Sandy Koufax threw a fastball right at their schnoz.  In later years, its purpose was to help us who have poor vision for keeping track of which team a player was on when they didn't matter.  I would have never recognized Ken because he didn't matter.

Ty Cobb stole 700 more bases and had 100 more RsBI than Kenneth ever had and wore his hat straight as an arrow.  Willy Mays wore his hat straight and had the good, earnest sense to hit 30 more homers than The Grif ever did.

No Rings

Now, I love the program Antique Roadshow.  What can I say, I love a good origin story.  It always gives me ideas for what around the house I could pawn off on some passerby as treasure but really is just a worn piece of chestnut the dog gnawed on that I nailed a cubic zirconium to.  The above "clip" is of some lady making some sort of ballyhoo over a ring that looks like it would open the gates to Hades if properly thrown in to the River Styx.  I listened during my Greek mythology class just like you should have.  I mostly did it to impress a certain shop-keep named Spiros in exchange for cans of pomade and sweet, strawberry candies, but that is another tale.  Ken Griffey "Junior" has no rings.  You know who has a ring?  This lady until she sold it for a fortune worthy of El Dorado.

I have all kinds of rings.  Some I made out of coins, some I forged from Yucatan gold I acquired while trappin' fur in Jalisco.  Some of my rings were given to me without any effort at all on my part.  Yet, somehow, this broad-smiling child has none.  Riddle me that.

Centerfield is easy

There I said it.  Oh, wow, a ball in the air that I have enough time to prepare and digest an entire Ruben sandwhich and take down a Fine American Lager in the meantime has been hit ten feet to my left.  Will I catch it?  Ask the freaking newsboy down the street.  He's ridin' a harder route.

The "Seven Year Itch" Dilemma

Now I am not one who is going to sit up here and tell you everything about the damn pictures but Marilyn Monroe was a hell of an actress and knew a real fella when she saw one.  It was no coincidence that she chose Joe DiMaggio over Babe Ruth and not just the age difference.  Jumpin' Joe the Show DiMaggio knew a few things about a few things and certainly one of those things was how to wear the hell out of cummerbund.  Think of the stress of playing baseball while also having to be a bespoke gentleman simply watching along on the set of Seven Year Itch.  Now, quit your day-dreamin' and imagine now you gotta go play a baseball game in black and white.

I'm not even jokin' back then the whole thing was in black in white and if the baseball passed by a base or the Pirates wearing their home whites you just had to swing a stick of lumber anywhere you damn well pleased.  Marilyn Monroe chose herself a man capable of hitting baseballs in the dark.  Ken got a whole damn dome that kept even the rain drops and birdpoop (mostly) off his precious vests.

Now that is called tearing down the house.  Nothing like getting goosed up on some Simon Without Garfunkel.  So long as we are talking Pauly Boy, let me introduce you to my very favorite song when it comes to singing all about a campfire dwindlin' down just so in the night.

Anyway, back to my dilemma, here.  Famous golfers aside.

Joe DiMaggio inspired the moment that made us all fall in love with subways.  Seven Year Itch was no longer a medical condition thanks to his sweet and beautiful wife and the other films she took part in during their time together were somethin' else as well.  There's No Business Like Show Business, River of No Return, Niagra, even How to Marry A Millionaire (a film I watched closer than most) were all instant classics we have all seen and love.  I am forced to believe he also inspired her performance in Some Like It Hot but Darryl likes to believe he was apart of that as well.  I'm a real Dapper Dan.

A Natural...Liar

Much of the talk around Kenwyne Griffith III is that he has a "natural" swing.  Something markedly easier for a left-hander to have than a righty.  We all known left-handed folks are mostly cheaters and liars but let me show you an example of a person who was a REAL natural, Roy Hobbs.  Not only was he a left-handed CLASS ACT, he was maybe one of the two or three people to ever finish a game of monopoly by himself.  My grandma always cheated in real monopoly and that's how my step-mother owned the Rockefeller building in New York City.

Now this was long before folk had learned the magic of cork and shootin' fancy chemicals into your behind so you know he did it clean and right.  Roy in this clip is seen taking batting practice but, trust me, goes on to plow the fields of every pitch he sees throughout the course of the ten or so minutes remaining in that picture.

Cincinatti

Sounds like a nice town for all the same reasons Portland would be a nice town.  Portland is a shit town full of hippies and roving gangs of kids who won't get a job but have enough money for a ten dollar expresso.

What He Did to Ichiro

Now I have no proof here but I am pretty sure he stole Ichiro's Just For Men hair products.

The Diet

Buffalo meat is overrated and nobody wants your elk burger.  However, both these substitutes for the modern beef are much healthier than whatever it was that Ken liked to stuff his face with.  Lollipops, sodapops, ringpops, all the pops went straight in to that gullet and forced him to have to dive all around the outfield just to catch easy pop outs.  If you want to stuff your face with something seemingly healthy, go get food poisoning at Chipotel or Cue-doughba.  I don't speak the language I can just read it.

I am supposed to vote for a player who didn't love the game enough to eat raw pinto beans and buttercup lettuce every night and day with a side of GrapeNuts for fiber?  Please.  When you have eaten at enough roadside truck stops they all blur together.  Same with Griffey and every other center fielder I ever saw at my cousin Clinton's son's teeball game.

Disrespecting his father

Let an old man die in peace.  No need for this sort of showmanship in the game.

Leaving in the Night

Speaking for myself, I would have to say the worst quality in a lover is one who leaves in the night.  I like to cuddle and especially when the nights get cold and long and the wind and snow seeps in through the cracks between my finely hewn hemlock lumber, it is tough on an old soul when my teddy bear leaves in the evening.  It is even tougher when you learn that they left your cabin just to go eat a bologna, ketchup, and pumpernickel sammich.  The toughest is when you learn they left you for another lover.  Imagine leaving someone for a hell hole like Cincinatti.  Oh sure, the hand-crafted beers are up and coming and the coleslaw tastes a little different, but you're still stuck closer to West Virginia than I am legally allowed.

Whether we like it or not, Kenneth Junior left us, not once, but two times.  Fool me once, shame on me.  Fool me twice, you're not going to the Hall O' Fame, skiparoo.

*That fate is digging a grave for a family of possums my precious Martha, a fierce and unyielding feline, happened upon the Tuesday of three weeks past.

**I am supposed to thank the fellas over at YOUTUBE for all the help in filming the videos that they have done so well in filming.  As a fella like me who loves the pictures it is always good to see a group so committed to fine film and discussion.  Choose YOUTUBE for all your video needs and you are doing yourself a favor.