![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.fanagrams.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/earlobes-LBJ2.jpg\" "\\"earlobes")
<\/a> tie.\u00a0 As I scanned the crowd for good people watching, I was transported back 30 years to a Cubs game that I went to with my younger brother Tim.\u00a0 We were in the midst of a summer long discussion about ear lobes \u2013 which Tim had generally categorized as either \u201cdroopers\u201d or \u201cconnectors.\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0For example, statues of Buddhas all have exceptionally long droopers, since this is supposed to symbolize a wise man who is \u201call hearing.\u201d\u00a0 As a modern point of reference, Lyndon Baines Johnson had pendulous lobes that seemed to get droopier every year.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\nConnectors are characterized by an ear lobe that is fixed to the face along the length of the jaw line.\u00a0 The ranks of celebrity connectors are thin, perhaps because\u00a0droopers are a genetically dominant At that particular game, Tim and I could hardly contain our excitement when right across the aisle from us we spotted a spectacular set of droopers sitting next to equally spectacular set of connectors.\u00a0 I have no other memories of that game, but that is often the case with baseball games \u2013 there is plenty of time to do other things and the baseball game becomes an occasionally entertaining backdrop.<\/p>\n How would you categorize that useless blob handing from your —?<\/p>\n Does Johnsonian or Maddenesque come to mind, or even chandelier?<\/p>\n \u00a0— they so long that they swing and sway as you begin to dance? Or could Lilliputians host a picnic on this vast and fleshy expanse?<\/p>\n Look at a Buddha statue from a bygone — do your lobes look the same?<\/p>\n \u00a0If any of these are true, you\u2019re automatically in the Drooper Hall of Fame.<\/p>\n Chapter 2.<\/p>\n The people watching was mostly unsuccessful, so I turned to the baseball game.\u00a0 There was not much going on \u2013 scoreless in the third inning \u2013 so I decided that I would intently watch one individual player.\u00a0 In a prior Cubs game, I had decided to focus my attention on the second baseman Ryne Sandberg.\u00a0 It must have been a low scoring game, since even though Ryne batted near the top of the batting order, he was only up to bat 4 times in the entire game.\u00a0 He never got on base.\u00a0 In the field, no ball was ever hit to him, so for the entire game all he did was stand around and swing the bat a couple of times \u2013 he never had to run and I doubt if he cracked a sweat during the entire game, all the while earning tens of thousands of dollars.\u00a0 For this game, I chose to focus on the Cubs\u2019 left fielder, Alfonso Soriano.\u00a0 He ran around a little bit, mostly to and from the outfield, The other notable quirk was that Alfonso, as well as most of the other players, were constantly chewing or spitting – tobacco, gum, sunflower seeds or liquids \u2013 baseball players are truly oral folk.\u00a0 I spent some time looking at the dugout with my binoculars and was horrified to see how untidy and slippery it looked.<\/p>\n \u00a0It was now about the 6th<\/sup> inning, the Cubs were ahead, and the Cubs pitcher, Ryan Dempster,\u00a0 had a no hitter going, which was quite remarkable since his team mate Carlos Zambrano had pitched a no hitter the night before.\u00a0 But still there was plenty of time for pleasurable day dreaming.\u00a0 I have never cared that passionately about baseball one way or another \u2013 but there are certainly many that get all misty eyed talking about how baseball is American\u2019s favorite pastime.\u00a0 The word \u201cpass time\u201d would seem to undermine the image of baseball of a demanding sport, but it is probably America\u2019s oldest organized sport and as such has contributed to the English vernacular:<\/p>\n \u00a0In fact, the most recent 2008 edition of\u00a0 Dickson\u2019s Baseball Dictionary has expanded their listings to 10,000 baseball expressions.\u00a0 I just ordered a copy.<\/p>\n \u00a0With linguistic musings exhausted and the no hitter gone by the 7th<\/sup> inning, I looked for new entertainment.\u00a0 I began to further ponder on my great idea to improve baseball.\u00a0 I first began to think about this when I was a slow moving right handed batter in our ladies softball league.\u00a0 I was always jealous of those left handers who were at least two steps closer to first base, and thought this could possibly account for the fact that I was routinely thrown out as I lumbered down to first base.\u00a0 Our genial coach pointed out that I could best address this situation by becoming a switch hitter.\u00a0 Given my limited right handed skills, I knew that this wasn\u2019t going to work, so I came up with a plan to have a game where you would run the bases in reverse.\u00a0 Let those left handers run that extra distance to third base!\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0This did not seem to be that much more preposterous than the designated hitter discrepancy between the American and National league, which has many subtle, but major impacts on the way baseball is played.\u00a0\u00a0 In the American league, pitchers are not pulled for pinch hitters and the line up of batters is much more formidable.\u00a0 Why not throw another curveball and run the bases clockwise for a change?\u00a0 While left handed pitchers are at a premium, there are limited opportunities for left handed infielders \u2013 with the exception of the first baseman.\u00a0 Left handers are mostly delegated to the outfield.\u00a0 This would all be changed if you ran to third base first.\u00a0 Both the short stop and the 2nd<\/sup> baseman would almost have to be left handed in order to have the optimal angle to throw it to third base for a routine ground out.\u00a0<\/p>\n This also lead me to consider that in the right handed dominated world, the natural tendency is to run counterclockwise \u2013 for example, all races in the Olympics are run counterclockwise, which disadvantages left handers\/footers in general.\u00a0 So maybe every four years they should run the races in the opposite direction.\u00a0 Whoever invented the clock made the seemingly arbitrary and counter-intuitive decision to have the clocks run from left to right.\u00a0 And then why do we write from left to right \u2013 certainly there are many languages that read from right-to-left, notably Hebrew and other Middle Eastern languages, but clocks all run the same direction.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0So many unanswered questions, but I ran out of time.\u00a0 There it was, the last fly ball to Soriano and the Cubs won, essentially burying the Houston Astros on their way to winning the pennant.\u00a0 We stood up, brushed the peanut shells off our clothes, kicked the drink cups under the seats and made our way to the exits.\u00a0 Can\u2019t beat a beautiful afternoon at the old ball park!<\/p>\n ——- me a place in the baseball Hall of Fame,<\/p>\n \u00a0Because I have a great idea to spice up the game,<\/p>\n \u00a0This year, why not run the bases in ——-,<\/p>\n \u00a0Run clockwise instead and get to third base first!<\/p>\n \u00a0Even the fan who ——- the game knows it is an idea worth trying,<\/p>\n \u00a0Because baseball is slow and boring and fan interest is dying.<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n Answers:\u00a0<\/p>\n Chapter 1:\u00a0 ear, are, era\u00a0<\/p>\n Chapter 2: reserve, reverse, reveres<\/p>\nFollow Liza Blue on: Chapter 1. In 2008, a Cubs road game scheduled for Houston got rescheduled in Milwaukee due to Hurricane Ike pounding the Texas coast.\u00a0 Therefore on a beautiful early fall afternoon, Nick and I spontaneously decided to breeze up to Brewer\u2019s … Continue reading <\/a>Another prototypical drooper is John Madden, although I must warn you that you have to catch his lobes at the beginning of Sunday night football game because they are swaddled in headphones for the rest of the game.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/a> trait, but Gwyneth Paltrow is sporting a nice set of connectors.<\/p>\nThe missing words in the following poem are anagrams (i.e. like post, spot, stop) and the number of dashes indicates the number of letters.\u00a0 One of the missing words will rhyme with either the preceding or following line.\u00a0 Your job is to solve the missing words based on the context of the poem.\u00a0 Scroll down to the bottom of the essay for the answers.<\/h6>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> caught a few balls, and maybe got a hit, but the captivating action was how many times he adjusted his crotch \u2013 in fact he did it constantly.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t as if\u00a0his junk\u00a0had gotten disorganized because he had sprinted or made a dramatic slide, he felt compelled to rearrange even if he was standing perfectly still.\u00a0 In the business world, this would be akin to the presenter squirming and tugging on his crotch before every new power point slide.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n
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