Hi Identity Theory Readers,
It’s been a while. I’ve been watching a lot of baseball. But also:
Good Is the Enemy of Anything
I haven’t written many newsletters this year. I want them to be good. At least not bad. The subscriber count keeps growing. It’s a lot of anxiety. “What if the strangers don’t like it?” I don’t want to ruin anyone’s Outlook. Or Gmail. But also there is pressure. “HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME.” So this is an email. It is not a good email. But it is something. I don’t know if something is better than nothing. You tell me. I’m going to share some links now. And then I will quickly type words about baseball. (Baseball has a pitch clock now. I am writing this newsletter on a pitch clock.)
New Interview Series
In the Dark Room: deep ganguli and Alan Michael Parker: In this craft series, a poet and a scientist read each others’ work, then sit down to talk about ideas, processes of invention, inspiration, and common meeting grounds for the sciences and the arts. This month, Dr. deep ganguli, a recovering neuroscientist who now investigates the social impact of Artificial Intelligence, sat down with Professor Alan Michael Parker, a poet, novelist, and cartoonist often featured on Identity Theory.
Essays
“On Tangibility” by Michael Wheaton: “I trick myself into believing something’s real by putting my hands all over it.”
“Gender Dreaming” by Chiari Di Lello: “The force with which I wanted to leave my body that day in seventh grade could’ve been a renewable energy source. Whenever a new wave of mortification overtakes me, I capture the current and use it to fuel gender dreams.”
Fiction
“Kincade Fire” by Isabella Barrengos: “I didn’t belong here in October. Ever since I left for college six years ago, I only flew home for the holidays and never stayed for more than a week. But now I was home prematurely, out of necessity, indefinitely, for one of the more shameful reasons: I ran out of money.”
“The Zeb of Total Continuity” by Robbie Herbst: “You consider both Zebs, flanking you like gargoyles. What was it each of them desired?”
Poetry
“Two Poems by Jess Smith”: “I would like, right now, to have lips
so red that even the cheap seats feel kissed. I’m still
pretty with this ghost mouth though. That is okay to say,
okay?”
Back to Baseball
Okay, so the baseball thing. It starts with a hat. Of course. Because it’s baseball.
During the early pandemic I grew a ponytail (no haircuts) and started wearing baseball hats. I hadn’t watched baseball since the MLB strike of the mid ‘90s. During the strike of the mid ‘90s I interviewed a Cincinnati Reds relief pitcher, Jeff Shaw, for high school news broadcast. It was embarrassing. It’s probably on VHS. Thankfully no one has VHS players anymore. That interview was awful. I never watched baseball again. But not because of the interview. Mostly it was the strike and the steroids of the era. Anyway. That's the last thing I remember about following pro baseball.
I started wearing a black Cincinnati Reds hat during the late pandemic because at that point I had become fond of black hats. It was a retro hat with the team’s 1950s logo because I am too cool for normal hats. Most people thought it was a Las Vegas Raiders hat because of the colors and because I live close to Las Vegas.
On Opening Day of this year’s baseball season I went to actual Las Vegas and someone recognized that the hat was a Cincinnati Reds hat and not a Las Vegas Raiders hat. This person was a retired man from Ohio. He was thrilled to see my hat because he was of an age to remember when they used the logo. I told him I had been trying to get back into baseball but that I don’t have time. I told him I remembered seeing my step-grandfather happy lounging in a recliner watching baseball in retirement. I told him that seemed like a good life. He said I should get MLB.tv so I can watch Reds games again. I told him I don’t know if I have time. He said there is a pitch clock now, it could be better.
So that is what I did. I signed up for MLB.tv despite the fact that the Reds were coming off a historically bad, 100-loss season. “Maybe we can watch them win 70 games,” I told my partner. “Maybe it will help the kids get into baseball.”
By late April my investment into televised baseball was paying off. The Reds were terrible but fun to watch because they stole an exceptionally high number of bases and played aggressively and seemed like nice people. We read about all the players on Wikipedia looking for connections. One of the Reds pitchers attended a high school where my partner used to teach. One of the players went to college in Nevada. One of the players won the NCAA championship for my alma mater a few years ago. The MLB Wikipedia dive grew deeper and it turned into a genealogy-like endeavor. We uncovered all sorts of connections, like the fact that manager of the St. Louis Cardinals went to high school with my younger sister and married a girl from our neighborhood.
Also, one of the Reds broadcasters was Barry Larkin. I watched him from Orlando growing up in 1990 as Reds won the World Series. He was my favorite player as a kid. Then he moved to Orlando and sent his kid to the same school system I attended while I was watching him from afar growing up. So did fellow Reds legend Ken Griffey, Jr. (See, baseball is endless connections, statistics, and genealogy. Are you sufficiently bored yet?)
Then out of nowhere in May, the Reds started winning. And winning in fun ways. This meant that I had to watch more games. “There is something magic about this team,” said the exuberant TV announcer John Sadak after one of their league-leading, seemingly constant comeback victories. And it was true.
But the baseball magic extended beyond the Reds. It followed me everywhere. My alma mater made the finals of the College World Series again. The kids got into baseball. We signed one up for the local little league in Nevada. And then, out of nowhere, that little league made its first appearance in the Little League World Series this year and won a few games on ESPN as the kids got to spend their PE class time watching their schoolmates play baseball on TV.
So for Labor Day weekend we decided it would be fun to go to Cincinnati to watch baseball and visit my dad. (My step-grandfather in Ohio had passed away midseason right as the Reds called up their phenom prospect Elly De La Cruz.) We saw two walk-off wins against the Cubs and appeared on some Reds TV broadcasts (that’s me, I’m the guy clapping in the Reds shirt), even catching some swag from the people who throw shirts and foam balls into the stands. It was a blast.
Now the season is winding down and/or getting even more exciting. The Reds are close to making the playoffs for the first time in a decade (not counting the pandemic-shortened year) with two weeks to go. Which would be a cool way to cap this magical ride of baseball that happened all because of a black hat I bought off the internet during the pandemic. No matter what happens, baseball has provided a fun diversion from the rise of AI writing and the demise of the bird app.
But now it’s time to get back to business. I’m going to write an Identity Theory Instagram post now.
Unless this game goes to extra innings.
Play Ball,
Matt Borondy
Editor
Identity Theory
Touch Base: Facebook | X is a stupid name, who would ever name a company one letter, that is so dumb, no one wants to click a one-letter link, you bought a company that has a verb associated with its brand name, which is a rare level of currency, and you renamed the company and ruined the currency that comes with that word, why would you do that, why would you make news writers have to refer to posts on your platform as “posted on the social media site X, formerly known as Twitter” instead of “tweeted,” that is insane, I am not going to post a link that says X or follow us on X, that looks like someone made a mistake or couldn’t figure out how a word was spelled so put the X there as a placeholder while looking it up, this is so ridiculous, just because something hasn’t been done before doesn’t mean it’s edgy, it more likely means it’s a really bad idea that is not done for some really good reasons, just no, just no no no | Instagram | LinkedIn | TikTok
That last paragraph was worth every minute of reading about baseball (hockey fan here)!