Empyreal Environs

Unlike the French, I am all for the the continual reinvigoration and evolution of language... within limits. This philosophy leads me haphazardly between my virulent mistrust of truncated instant messages (or, “IMs,” if you prefer) and mobile phone texting and my wholesale embracing of flashy neologisms. The English language, vast as it is with its Germanic origins and Latin enhancements, cannot keep apace with this modern world. Fortunately for us, pioneers like Stephen Colbert are here to help us forge a path through these eerie and unknown forests of syntax.

These days, the distinctions between hope and reality, news and spindoctoring, are ever more nebulous. “Truthiness” comes to our rescue. This toothsome word pertains to that which has “the quality of stating concepts one wishes or believes to be true, rather than the facts.” Although the word is new to us, baseball has indulged in fits of truthiness almost from its inception. Here are my top 10 instances of truthiness in baseball history.

1. Baseball was invented spontaneously by Abner Doubleday in Cooperstown, New York. Tim Wiles’s book on the origins of baseball is an assault on truthiness.
2. “I’m not here to talk about the past,” said Mark McGwire when responding to a Congressional subpoena but not to actual questions on March 17, 2005.
3. George Herman Ruth had a tremendous bellyache the entirety of 1925 season.
4. There was no friction between Larry Lucchino and Theo Epstein.
5. It’s 310 feet to Fisk’s Pole.
6. “This is about me and the mistakes I’ve made. I can’t get into specifics because of all the legal matters involved,” quoth Jason Giambi when giving a 45-minute press conference in February of 2005. He did not say the word “steroids” once.
7. When the Red Sox invited Sam Jethroe, Jackie Robinson, and Marvin Williams to try out for them on April 16, 1945, the club had every intention of honestly evaluating them.
8. Players cashing in on free agency using every justification but money. Roger Clemens was being truthy when he signed with the Toronto Blue Jays. It is a well-known truthi-ism that this particular Canadian city is closer to Texas than Boston.
9. Every rule in the MLB book is justifiable; just ask George Brett about 1.10(b), which has since been repealed.
10. That is Tim McCarver’s natural hair color.

Truthiness. It’s the new black--it goes with everything.

This piece was inspired by NU50’s worship of Colbert and Fiskian Pole Shot’s vast baseball memory.