Yellowstone National Park

My consumption of televised baseball is not great. A little, Mets, Yankees, ESPN and Fox games are tuned into. I watch for a bit, but lately with all the graphics that are being displayed I'm not sure if I've stumbled onto an interactive SAT math test on the best angle to hit a baseball to achieve the best height, to get it to go the furthest, and eventually plop down so far from home plate that it is declared a home run. I really never thought anything I remembered from trigonometry would help me watch a baseball game.

Given my peripatetic interest in the televised game, I of course tuned in--just a bit--to yesterday's All-Star game telecast. I'm enough of a current viewer that I know most players have tattoos--likely all over their bodies--facial hair and long hair groomed in many styles. But I was not prepared for what I saw at home plate last night.

There was a bear with a baseball bat trying to hit the ball. The bear was batting lefty, but I still couldn't see his face underneath the batting helmet. There must have been eyes in there somewhere, but they weren't visible.

The bear had a Rockies uniform on, so I identified that as a sign that he was from Colorado, a state that sits right below Wyoming, a state that holds a good chunk of Yellowstone National Park. Yellowstone is noted for many things: bears are one of them. Were any missing? How did one make the team?

I'll tell you the truth, I was frightened for a spit second. Even though I'm in my living room and I know I'm watching television my thoughts are, "holy s**t, there's a bear loose at home plate. Alert someone."

I lingered long enough to hear Joe Buck tell us that it was Charlie Blackmon at the plate. I knew it wasn't really a bear, but that didn't happen until something quickly connected in the brain. A receptor signal of some kind traveling along a neural pathway, I guess. You can't be too sure these days what dangers you will incur, and where they'll show up. Better to be prepared than unprepared.

I know nothing about Charlie Blackmon. My encyclopedic baseball friend spent a good portion of our phone call today laughing at me after I told him I saw a f**king bear holding a bat at home plate in last night's All-Star game. He said Charlie was coming in next week to play the Mets next week at Citi Field if I'm interested. (I'm not.)

Okay, if Charlie is not a bear he is surely a member of the Donner Party who was found breathing.

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