Class of 2031

Lionel Essrog
2B
Wears a St. Louis hat.

"He's a private investigator, but he has Tourette's Syndrome" sounds like the sort of high concept pitch that would set the groundwork for the latest Rob Schneider vehicle. Sadly, it is not - it is, in fact, a serious work of fiction. About a PI. With Tourette's. If you pick this book up hoping to spend an hilarious time with a guy who screams "shitfuckcock" while he dusts crime scenes for prints, well, first of all you're an idiot and second of all, the joke's on you. You know what? Fuck this, I'm done with you. Go watch "Monk" and leave me alone.


Panda Bear
RP
Wears a Pittsburgh hat.

Well, I like Animal Collective just fine, but I'm not one of the league's fanboys, and Panda Bear's solo albums left me cold. So I'm not exactly the most qualified person to write this thing. Here are some facts about Noah Lennox:

He is not a Jew. A Jewish mother would never let her son be skinnier than Prince.
He and Brett McKenzie appear to have similar taste in wardrobes. The difference is that Lennox is 100% real.
His stage name is pretty stupid, but not as stupid as that other guy in the band.
He lives in Portugal, a country whose Prime Minister is named "Jose Socrates", which is a better name than "Dana Plato" but not as good as "The Big Aristotle".

Class of 2030

Magic Johnson
SP
Wears a Chicago (AL) hat
Enshrined here for proving to people like Happy that people like Aaron aren't the only ones.


Rocky Horror Show
2b
Wears a Milwaukee hat

Craigles:
It's a pretty stupid story, but it's what I always think of whenever someone mentions Rocky Horror:

I’ve actually seen the Rocky Horror Show performed live. Not on Broadway or anything, it was a decidedly more amateur affair, but it wasn’t bad. I mean, the story is censored stupid, and it’s way over the top, but some of the songs are kind of catchy, and if you strip away all that audience participation crap that gives it such a bad name, it’s not such a bad little show.

Why did I go? Well, that has a pretty simple answer – someone said the magic word. I had a roommate who knew some people who knew some people who were in the show, theater types, and they were putting it on Halloween night (naturally). Well censored , I wasn’t going to go to that. They wanted my roommate to sit in the back and tape the performance, and I damn sure wasn’t going to sit in the back and have to do a goddamned job for a show that I already hated before I’d ever seen it. But, you know, someone said the magic word, and I went, and sat behind that camera, and taped the whole stupid thing. Sober, even. And what’s the magic word, you might ask? Well, nudity, of course. I was told that one of the actresses was going to get her top off at one point (the Susan Sarandon character, I think). It only ended up being for a few seconds, but that’s good enough for me. And hey, I kind of enjoyed the rest of the show too, like I said. Yes, I am that immature. The end.

Dan:
I think of my good friend Harry Waksberg, and of the darkness of middle school, whenever this movie is mentioned. I've seen the movie in his basement a few times, and also in midnight-theaters. It's good that someone turned it into a stageable thing, for the sake of people like this:



The Founder, Abner Doubleday
C
Wears a combined Cleveland and St. Louis hat, with a small Chicago AL feather

Will be forever remembered for creating this great game, sucking at it, and then for cheating death. For a small few of us, this game has never gotten any better than The Doubles.


Marvin Martian
SS
Wears a Boston hat

Forever marks the triumph of all, and indeed, of the OGL itself. It has taken all these years for us, at last, to succumb to our own Hilarity. A great thing has been accomplished here, this day. And Lou, unconscious somewhere, mutters and sputters, and is comforted.

Love.

Class of 2026

C.R.E.A.M.
C
Wears a Pittsburgh hat.

Can Raekwon Enjoy Another Muffin? (It doesn't matter, he's going to have one anyway.)




Dick Diver
SS
Wears a St. Louis hat.

Dives for dicks, and the occasional bag of dicks. (lol, all women are crazy, both fictional and real.)




Emerson Drive
LF
Wears a Cincinnati hat.

The enemy fleet was rapidly approaching. The Captain, sweat dripping from his brow, barked orders at his first mate.
"The Cylons are closing fast! Is the Emerson Drive ready?"
"Almost set, Captain Kirk! Just a few more calculations.....there!"
"Punch it, Chewie!"
The ship lurched, the stars flared into star bursts, and the crew exploded into spontaneous applause. The Drive had worked. The Spice was safe.


Hedda Gabler
3B
Wears a St. Louis hat.

Manipulative cunt. Norwegian.


Iggy Pop
SP
Wears a New York (NL) hat.

Part time rocker, part time bad actor, one-time junkie. Does not believe in shirts. Not Dr. Manhattan.



Monsieur Meursault
SP
Wears a St. Louis hat.

W supposedly read this on one of his brush-clearing environmental rescue trips to his ranch in Crawford. It'll take a team of psychiatrists to figure that shit out.

Class of 2020

Guys and Dolls
CF
Wears a St. Louis hat

The plot summary for this thing is really fucking long on wikipedia so instead of reading it, I'm just going to make up my own.

Nathan Detroit and Sky Masterson are two students in Miss Adelaide's 10th grade class. They both have their eyes on the same girl, who happens to go to the Catholic school across the street and is studying to be a nun, Sister Sarah Brown. They are also tormented by the bullies in the class, Nicely-Nicely Johnson Johnson, Harry the Horse and Rusty Charlie. Along with the kids learning how to count in old-timey increments ("A Bushel and a Peck"), we learn that Miss Adelaide secretly believes she is a man trapped in a woman's body ("Adelaide's Lament") and that Sister Sarah has an undiagnosed case of schizophrenia ("If I Were a Bell"). Eventually, Nathan and Sky engage in an old-fashioned game of War in order to determine who will win Sister Sarah's affections ("Luck be a Lady"). Nathan wins the contest and Sister Sarah is forced to marry him after being caught in a compromising position with Nathan behind the bleachers ("Marry the Man Today"). Everyone returns for the last number ("Finale") including a very pregnant Sister Sarah.

Class of 2016

Sir John Falstaff
OF
Wears a St. Louis hat.

Falstaff shows up in 4 works of Shakespeare's (The two Henry IV plays, Henry V and The Merry Wives of Windsor) although he doesn't have any lines in Henry V and the character in The Merry Wives of Windsor is kind of a Bizarro (not to mention: sucky) version. First, Falstaff is fat. If you want to play him, you have to be fat, or wear a fat suit. Second, Falstaff lies, steals, cheats and generally acts like kind of an asshole. But everyone loves him anyway, especially Henry V. Probably because he's just so goddamned fat. Like Santa Claus, if instead of giving you toys, he came down your chimney every Christmas to steal your jewelry and consumer electronics. Other characters who are based on Falstaff include Harry Mudd, George Costanza, and late period Orson Welles.

Class of 2011

Kilgore Trout
CF
Wears a St. Louis hat.

Kurt Vonnegut's fictional alter-ego, Kilgore Trout is both a brilliant thinker and a terrible, terrible writer. Mostly he gets his science-fiction short stories published in porno mags - he's sort of like Philip K Dick, but without the paranoia and crippling methamphetamine addiction.


Sachin Tendulkar
CF
Wears a Cleveland hat.

Would you believe this guy is Indian, and that he plays cricket? No? You have some attitude, jackass. Well he is, and he does. One of his nicknames is "Master Blaster" which is a game that's always seemed like more fun than it really is. Anyway, Tendulkar is crazy popular in all those loser countries that play cricket like India and Australia where they drive on the wrong side of the road and spell words wrong. Hopefully this will be my last cricketer because I have clearly run out of ways to make fun of the sport and my next bio will simply be a treatise on the book "Life, the Universe and Everything".

Basil Fawlty
SP
Wears a Washington hat.

English people think this show is fucking hi-larious. I saw it a couple of times - some hijinx, a few misunderstandings, some over-the-top physical humor. Nothing ages worse than a sitcom. Okay, Mickey Rourke. Nothing ages worse than a sitcom other than Mickey Rourke.

Class of 2009

Dilsey Gibson
SP
Wears a St. Louis hat.

This is, of course, a relatively easy bio to write - Dilsey Gibson is the Mammy character from William Faulkner's best-known work, The Sound and the Fury. You can write your own Aunt Jemima joke here (Aunt Jemima herself actually has a pretty colorful history, no pun intended. Look her up some time). The Compson family is privileged, Southern and white, is (naturally) full of retards and fuck-ups, and Dilsey is the black servant who takes care of and observes them.

I learn more from some bios than others. Doing the bio for, say, Duff Man doesn't require a lot of research, but sometimes I don't know a lot about the subject and I try to read enough to give a reasonably rounded portrayal. I've never read Faulkner - I knew him as that guy who wrote all those stories about a fictional Mississippi county (Yoknapatawpha). He grew up during, and wrote about, the post-Reconstruction, pre-civil rights era South, so naturally his books have been studied extensively in terms of their racial politics. There is anecdotal evidence
that suggests he actually had a servant when he was little who he called Mammy, so it's hard to fault him for what might be a less than full portrayal of a central black character. His own view of the civil rights movement (he died in 1962) is difficult to pin down, but near as I can tell it went something like this: full civil rights for blacks is a morally unimpeachable position, but practically speaking it is better for blacks to be slowly or partially integrated into white society, rather than fully and all at once. That seems kind of stupid really, but I would wager that many ostensibly liberal white Southerners felt that way. Faulkner obviously had a lot of affection for Dilsey Gibson, even if it was impossible for him to draw her as a fully three-dimensional character. His writing captures a time, and a place, in American history, and I would guess that he will remain an author that can be enjoyed more than just ironically (yeah, I'm looking at you Harriet Beecher Stowe).

Class of 2005

Bernie Brewer
3B
Wears a Cleveland hat.

Normally, I'm pretty ambivalent about mascots that involve a dude dressing in a foam rubber imitation of a person. And by ambivalent, I think they're fucking retarded. I mean, isn't this way cooler and less creepy than, say, this? This goes for Halloween costumes too - when you buy a Halloween mask you've basically said to the world, I refuse to put any thought into this costume at all. But I'll give Bernie Brewer a pass because he used to go down his little slide into a mug of beer, and anything that encourages children between the ages of 4 and 11 to consume alcohol is alright in my book.


Fear, Itself
OF
Wears a Kansas City hat.

Franklin Roosevelt once said that the only thing that we have to fear is fear itself. And I guess that's mostly true, unless it turns out that there's a maniac with a knife camped out in your closet, waiting for you to go to sleep so he can eat your eyeballs. In that case, you're probably justified in feeling that there are more immediate problems in your life than fear.


Max, King of the Wild Things
Catcher
Wears a St. Louis hat.

Maurice Sendak's scholarly dissertation on inducing hallucinations in children by temporarily starving them was picked up on by the mainstream media and ultimately made the rounds as the partially dumbed down novel version, "Where the Wild Things Are". Sendak's follow-up, "The Wild Things Experiment with LSD and Peyote", was less successful.


Senator Benjamin Wade
SP
Wears a Detroit hat.

How big of an asshole was Benjamin Wade? When Andrew Johnson was impeached in 1868, he was acquitted by one vote. Now, Johnson was a total asshole. But Wade was an even bigger asshole, and it is said that, were anyone but Senator Wade to take Johnson's place as President (since he was President pro tempore of the Senate, Wade was the first in the line of succession at the time, since Johnson didn't have a VP), Johnson would very probably have been chucked from office. The Senate, ultimately, decided to stick with Johnson's everyday assholery rather than deal with the gargantuan, monumental assholery of Senator Wade. Just look at his picture. You can tell, immediately, that this is an asshole. And he always looks like that in pictures. Like an asshole.

Class of 1999

Cocky
2B
Wears a New York (AL) hat.

I'm going to let Cocky's official biography tell his story:

Cocky first took action at USC events in 1980 when he came in to take over his father (Big Spur's) place. Cocky soon won the hearts off all the Gamecock fans all over and now is one of the most recognizable figures to young and old at USC.

I'll leave out the obvious Michael Vick joke here, but it's a bit surprising that the PETA people aren't as vocal as the Native Americans when it comes to borderline offensive nicknames like "Gamecocks". Leaving that aside though, the mascot's main claim to fame is probably his association with hats that adorn the heads of douchebag frat boys (and too-old-to-be-frat-boys-but-still-just-as-retarded-men) the world over stating, simply and quite proudly, "Cocks". If that's not enough hilarity for you, another quote from Cocky's official bio:

One of Cocky's trademarks that is highly recognized by all Gamecock fans is his 2001 Magic Box entrance.

No comment.



Harry Truman
2B
Wears a Baltimore hat.

Harry Truman was a little nerd with glasses who hated, in this order, Japanese people, Korean people, people who smoked corncob pipes, other nerds with glasses who wore coonskin caps, and cocksuckers who asked him what the S stood for. He is probably most famous for being absolutely delighted to learn that he had been beaten in the Presidential election by Thomas Dewey, only to learn later that the news had been a mistake and Truman had actually won, after which he went into a deep funk that he only re-emerged from when the Cardinals finally won the Series again in '64. In his later years he became infamous for his crotchety reclusiveness, and he ultimately died, friendless and alone, in a cabin on Mount St. Helens in the 1980 eruption of that volcano (Thanks to Whiskybear for pointing me toward the relevant portion of his biography that discusses his bizarre death).



Rorschach
2B/RF
Wears a St. Louis hat.

Who is Rorschach? Well, he's a guy who wears a weird mask and, sort of, fights crime. If fighting crime involves things like murdering rapists in cold blood. He's an archetype of a certain character, found often in comic books, who uses any means necessary to fight the "forces of evil", and who is supposed to be some sort of hero, at least in the eyes of the reader. He was based directly on The Question, created by Steve Ditko (a noted Ayn Rand enthusiast, and if you can't suss out how I feel about Ayn Rand, you haven't been paying attention), but aspects of the character show up in many, many superheroes - The Punisher is basically Rorschach played completely straight. Which is actually kind of frightening, since it's a book that's targeted at kids.

Anyway, if you think Rorschach's point of view seems kind of right on and you can totally did what this cat is saying, you're probably Michael Savage, which would lead me to ask you why the fuck you were reading my blog, and to suggest that you're almost certainly a closeted homosexual. If you're not a fascist, and I hope you're not, then you are probably repulsed by Rorschach, even while you kind of admire his complete devotion to his absolutist views. Rorschach's decision at the end of Watchmen, and the consequences of that decision (both for him and the for world at large) are the stuff of legend, and have cemented his legacy (in my not-at-all-objective opinion) as one of the great characters of 20th century literature.

Class of 1996

Florian Schneider
3B
Wears a Detroit hat.

Florian is one half (with Ralf Hutter) of the core duo that makes up legendary German electropop pioneers Kraftwerk. You can always pick out Florian in group photos - he's the one with the big nose. Besides having one of the most distinctive catalogs in popular music, the band is famous for being incredibly reclusive - Johnny Marr of the Smiths tells of repeatedly phoning and mailing their studio to try to talk with them to no avail, finally being told by the record company to call on a specific date at a specific time. When he called the studio, Hutter picked up the phone without a single ring. Does music influence the people in the band or is the music a reflection of who they are? After years of playing psychedelic hippie folk for burnouts, David Crosby ended up a burned out hippie relic of the 60's. Kraftwerk played robotic music about machines - they are now seemingly devoid of any real human connections. And after years of singing self-righteous anthems, Bono is an insufferable douchebag. It's probably a little bit of both.



Gus Orviston
RF
Wears a St. Louis hat.

Gus Orviston is the main character in David James Duncan's book, The River Why, a novel about fly fishing, obsession, weird families and....some spiritual shit. I don't know, I haven't read it. Those Pacific Northwesterners sure do love themselves some fishing. Put it this way - if you're totally down with Jesus and think he's pwns all, read A River Runs Through It (yes, the book that was made into the movie with Brad Pitt; no, not the one that he spends the whole damn thing shirtless, that's Legends of the Fall). If you think Jesus kind of sux0rs, but still think that fly-fishing is a spiritual experience and it pwns all, read The River Why. I don't know if that's right, but I bet it would look good printed on the back of the dust jacket.

Class of 1995

Bronko Nagurski
1B
Wears a St. Louis hat.

A 235-lb. Ukrainian/Canadian Adonis, Bronko Nagurski carried the ball (and played defensive lineman) for the Chicago Bears from 1930 to 1937 and again in 1943, when the war caused a player shortage. He was also a professional wrestler, but I'll just go ahead and pretend that didn't happen, for Jack Palance's sake.

As the great Burgess Meredith once said, Bronko "Waa waa waa waa waa". No wait, that's not right. He "ate lightning and crapped thunder" except picture crusty old Burgess Meredith saying it. His career-best 586 yards on the ground in 1934 has only ever been surpassed by....well, everyone who can walk upright and carried a football out of the backfield for a football team from the pro level down to Pop Warner. But that must have been hot shit back in 1934 because Bronko went into the Hall of Fame as a charter member in 1963 and he was a member of the NFL's 75th anniversary team. Truth be told, he was probably a complete meathead, but there's something endearing about those old-timey, black-and-white, the bully-just-kicked-sand-in-my-face-so-I'll-send-away-for-the-Charles-Atlas-program-and-show-him meathead. At least you know he never wore Zubaz.

Class of 1994

Sancho Panza
SP
Wears a St. Louis hat.

(Guest written by whiskybear)
The straight man to his master Don Quixote's bumbling incompetent, Sancho Panza is an agent of empiricism in Cervantes' masterpiece. While the knight errant is gripped by his fairytale quest, Sanco describes for his master the world as it actually appears -- the windmills are not giants, they are windmills; the sheep herds are not columns of advancing infantry, they are sheep herds; the wineskins are not dragons, they are wineskins (and a terrible waste to pierce with one's lance). But just as Don Quixote blindly pursues his own heroic idiom (derived from the books of chivalry that were essentially pulp novels of the 16th Century), Sancho willfully deludes himself into thinking that he will follow his master - -this frail and quite obviously insane man, who indiscriminately attacks windmills and wineskins with equal fervor -- all the way to the halls of Valhalla, where fame and untold riches await. To follow the master, the servant abandons home, family, and vocation (Farmer? Shepherd? Mudpile-mover-arounder?). In his novel, Cervantes poses to the reader an honest question: Between master and servant, which one is the more delusional?

Class of 1993

Romesh Kaluwitharana
C
Wears a Cincinnati hat.

(guest written by velguth)
Quite unlike with Brian Lara, who I got to know a lot about and is a true star in world cricket, Kaluwitharana got his name almost entirely because he has a funny name. "Romesh" + six syllables? Hell, yeah! I mean, a boatload of Sri Lankans have long, funny names, but Romesh had one of the best.
It should be said that he was the wicketkeeper for the Sri Lankan national team in that 1999 World Cup that introduced me to cricket. So he must have been fairly good, as I bet there were a few million other Sri Lankan lads willing to play that role. And as I look him up, I find adjectives like "diminutive" and descriptions like "extremely popular" and "loved for his perma-smile behind the stumps". And apparently he did some great things in the 1996 World Cup. But that's all news to me. I just liked the name.

(Commentary by FuriousGiorge)
Sri Lanka used to be called Ceylon. It is shaped like a tear drop. They grow a lot of tea. Arthur C. Clarke lives there and is able to maintain dual citizenship, which is a nice side benefit of coming from a country that once controlled something like 50% of the world's brown people. Like, of course, Romesh Kaluwitharana.

Steve Jones
1B/RF
Wears a New York (NL) hat.

I think it's safe to say that Steve Jones is the coolest ever punk who also has Peter Sutcliffe's dodgy perm. Johnny Rotten may have been the public face of the Sex Pistols when it still existed, and Sid Vicious may have become the unfortunate public face of the band after its dissolution, but Steve Jones was the person most responsible for whatever musical quality the band possessed. Never Mind the Bollocks.... is a misunderstood album in many ways - it's regarded as this raw, un-selfconscious punk opus, but in reality it's as slickly produced as any horrible 80's hair metal album. The guitars, in particular, are overtracked and give the album its distinctive sound. It's not the sound of a punk band on stage, but it's an interesting sound nonetheless and it's Steve Jones that makes it unique.

Paul Weller claims the Pistols stole the riff for "Holidays in the Sun" from The Jam's "In the City" but no one really cares what Paul Weller thinks anymore.


?uestlove
RP
Wears a St. Louis hat.

This made me laugh:

Henry Adaso: Realistically, how long do you think The Roots has as a group?
?uestlove: Rich [Nichols] thinks we have four more relevant records in us, before we become the Neville Brothers or the Rolling Stones.

Take that, Aaron Neville! And, the other Neville Brothers! Whoever the hell you are! The Roots are at the forefront of the burgeoning Philadelphia Hip-Hop Scene which I probably just made up right now but which seems like it should exist if only to wipe the horrible aftertaste of The Band Which I Will Not Name But Which Also Comes From Philadelphia out of my mouth. The Roots are as good as advertised. I'm even willing to forgive them for their close association with professional wigger Scott Storch. Here's a question that has (almost) nothing to do with ?uestlove - why are rappers always talking about/sampling/working with Coldplay? It's puzzling. It's as if George Clinton was constantly playing covers of songs by Bread or Air Supply.

Class of 1992

Brian Lara
RF
Wears a Cincinnati hat.

(Guest written by velguth)
I first started paying attention to cricket in the 1999 World Cup. Working with a New Zealander and an Indian who were big fans of their national teams, I adopted the West Indies as my team to support, largely on the grounds that they were the only team that mattered from the Western Hemisphere. Brian Lara was by far their best player, and still is. Essentially he's been the only "world class" player they've had during the last decade or so, which is kind of sad because in the past (e.g. 1980's) the West Indies were as good as anyone in world cricket.

Anyway, Lara quickly became my favorite player. He's a proud black dude with an attitude somehow more remniscent of U.S. athletes than most cricket "gentlemen". He's outspoken, often selfish, and not a particularly good leader (he was stripped of national team captaincy -- a big deal -- at least once). Vaguely Iversonian. And he's also been erratic over his career, with extended highs and extended lows, perhaps best likened to Jaromir Jagr's career arc.

But in his good stretches, he's a monster. At times he gets called "probably the best batsman in the world". Of the 10 greatest batting performances in the history of cricket, he probably has 3 of them (more than any other player). He periodically wins matches ENTIRELY by himself with his batting. Even when he's been scuffling for a while, every opponent fears him getting back on track that day. Basically, and I wouldn't say this about perhaps any other cricketer, he's a bad ass.

(FuriousGiorge's comment on the guest-bio):
Did you know that they make a cricket game for the PS2? Of course you did, how silly of me. And on the cover? None other than Mr. Lara himself. That's right - for sheer, mind-numbing....awesomeness, it's Brian Lara Cricket 2007. Not sold yet? Okay, here are some funny cricket words:

Gazunder
Googly
Hoik
Jaffa
Perfume ball
Quack trick
Slog
Windy Wush
Zooter

Cricket - it's not just for twee British fairies anymore. Okay, it's still mostly for twee British fairies, but occasionally a bad motherfucker like Brian Lara slips through.



Capital City Goofball
Everywhere
Wears a New York (AL) hat.

Capital City Goofball is the mascot for the Capital City Capitals. He is big and goofy and looks a bit like the Phillie Phanatic. If you think the Phillie Phanatic is inherently funny, well, first of all, you're probably 7 years old. And second, you probably think the Goofball is hilarious. These are the Goofball's funniest lines:
"Ah Mancini. The mascot's best friend."
"If there's anything I can do for you, just squeeze the wheeze."
He only featured prominently in one episode, that crappy one where Homer tells the story about going to the big leagues as a second-rate mascot and going down in flames. Occasionally he still shows up out of nowhere in an episode, like the unloved version of Bumblebee Man or Sideshow Mel. And he honks his fucking nose. Pure. Comedy. Gold.


Tony Reali
SS
Wears a Cleveland hat.

I could go both ways on Tony Reali. On the one hand, he seems like kind of a douchebag. On the other hand, I could easily believe that he's just a dude who plays a douchebag on TV. We can all probably agree on this - he's no Max Kellerman, mostly because he's not borderline retarded. Have I mentioned that Jay Mariotti is a cum-guzzler in this bio yet? Oh, I guess I just did. So, in conclusion, Jay Marrioti guzzles cum.


Don Quixote de la Mancha
SP
Wears a St. Louis hat.

I'll be honest - I've never read the novel. If you want a proper bio of the man read the book or, perhaps more appropriately, the Cleland Notes version. So I'm no expert on Don Quixote the character, but what I do know about are urban legends and movies. Cervantes, in the original text of Don Quixote, wrote:

For me alone was Don Quixote born,
and I for him; he to act, and I to record;
in a word, we were destined for each other...
let the wearied and mouldering bones
of Don Quixote rest in the grave...

This was directed at another author who wrote and published an unauthorized sequel, but the message remains clear - don't fuck with Don Quixote, or Don Quixote will fuck with you. Orson Welles attempted to film Don Quixote: he died before he could finish it. Fernando Rey died while he was filming a version for Spanish television. The film version of Man of La Mancha is...sort of a piece of shit. Okay, that's a bit weak. But the big one was when Terry Gilliam attempted to film his version (The Man Who Killed Don Quixote) - flash floods, a star that developed a double hernia and could no longer film his scenes, color changes that made earlier shots unusable, fighter jets that wiped out dialogue on the soundtrack. Just a disaster from day one, a movie that would not be made. Cervantes, it seems, is a petty son of a bitch, even from beyond the grave (Orson Welles got some measure of revenge when he put his own curse on Heart of Darkness, and you can ask Martin Sheen how that one worked out).

Class of 1991

Clara Barton
3B
Wears a Washington hat.

Clara Barton was, without question, one of the great humanitarians in the history of the world, a tireless and selfless woman who did so much good that it is almost unfathomable. She also once murdered, in cold blood, every man, woman and child in the small Texas hamlet of Bridgeport because a rumor reached her ears that a man living in the town called her a "wide-hipped cow with the bosom of an 8-year old girl". I leave it to you to decide whether her charitable acts balance that heinous crime out.


Ruby Faucette
SS/3B
Wears a St. Louis hat.

Ruby Faucette was born on April 25, 1898 to Joseph and Eustice Faucette in Tucker, Mississippi. The young Ruby was noted for being exceptionally bright and curious, and it is this curiosity that would fuel her interest in biology, physics and the black arts. The little girl was known for being restless, even for a denizen of this sleepy town, and at 18 she took a train to San Francisco, where she boarded a steamer to the Orient be tutored by the mysterious Li Shoon in the use of black magicks. When Ruby was next spotted in San Francisco, in late 1965, she had refashioned herself, through occult rituals known only to herself, as a man by the name of Danny Glover. Ruby was able to live out an entire lifetime as Glover, becoming a very succesful actor and political activist, and her secret was only known by a select few. Upon the apparent death of Glover in 2023, from "natural causes" (in which no body was displayed at the funeral, and the coffin was placed in an unmarked grave), Faucette once again disappeared, and her whereabouts at this time are unknown. It is to be guessed that she has assumed a new identity, having become weary of the old one (and the difficult questions that an unaging Danny Glover would bring about), and this identity will make itself known soon.

Class of 1974

Lolita Haze
3B
Wears a St. Louis hat.

ROY win, 3 MVP wins. 3 other top 5 MVP finishes. Top 20 all-time in 9 statistical categories (HR, Hits, RBI, Runs, Slg, OBP, OPS, Avg, SB)
There are no two ways about it – Nabokov was ahead of his time. Still, let’s be honest here: in real life, Humbert Humbert doesn’t look or act like James Mason. At all.


TARGET
3B
Wears a Brooklyn hat.

ROY win, 1 MVP win. 3 other top 5 MVP finishes. Top 20 all-time in 8 statistical categories (HR, Hits, RBI, Runs, Slg, OBP, OPS, Avg)
Like Wal*Mart, not really the corporate entity but a third-rate alter-ego that bears some tangential relationship to the corporate entity. Still, TARGET’S singlemindedness is occasionally funny, in kind of the same way that saying “Tar-zhay” is funny. In other words, not really, unless you’re a mom.


Francis Macomber
RP
Wears a St. Louis hat.

ROY top 5. 8 Fireman Awards plus 1 other top 5 finish. Top 20 in 3 statistical categories (Saves, ERA, WHIP)
Some people might consider a story about a pathetic middle-aged man who has to go on a hunting trip to prove he’s not a sissy to his castrating wife, only to ultimately be shotgunned to death by the wife because he can’t shoot straight, to be an example of Hemingway’s rampant misogyny. But I’d like to remind you that Papa didn’t truck with no homosexuals either (a theme we will continue to explore in our next biography). Either way, I think we can all agree on this much – don’t take your wife hunting with you.

Jay Gatsby
SP
Wears a St. Louis hat.

8 Cy Young awards plus 3 other top 5 finishes. Top 20 all-time in 5 statistical categories (Wins, Shutouts, ERA, WHIP, K's)
Good Lord did those early 20th century authors dislike women. At least Gatsby had the good sense to live the good life and (presumably) bed a lot of hot New York debutantes before he was destroyed by his love of a woman who, ultimately, probably didn’t give a shit about him anyway.
Zelda Fitzgerald was convinced F. Scott and Ernest Hemingway were having an affair but honestly, she was a woman so what the fuck does she know about the love that dare not speak its name. Hussy.

Class of 1969

Morrissey
C
Wears a New York (NL) hat.

Top 5 in ROY. 1 MVP, 3 other top 5 finishes. Finished his career in the top 20 in HR, Hits, RBI and Runs. Is an effeminate nancy-boy who writes overwrought, "poetic" song lyrics and doesn't like synthesizers. But at least he's not a ginger like Mick Hucknall.



Yossarian
2B
Wears a St. Louis hat.

1 MVP. Finished in the top 20 for his career in OBP, Slg, OPS and Avg. Is...ah shit, I have nothing clever to write here. Read the book.



Doug E. Fresh
SP
Wears a New York (NL) hat.

5 top 5 finishes in Cy Young. Finished in the top 20 for his career in Wins, Shutouts, ERA, WHIP and K's. Not quite as funny as that guy from Police Academy. Has probably spent more time with Slick Rick than is generally recommended by the Surgeon General.



Megaman
SP
Wears a Detroit hat.

1 Cy Young plus 5 other top 5 finishes. Finished in the top 20 for his career in Wins, Shutouts, ERA, WHIP and K's. For some reason is known as Rockman by the Japanese, which is just more proof that the Japanese are a goddamn weird bunch. Unless, I guess, he's made out of rocks.

Class of 1968 (Initial Class)

Shawn Michaels
CF/3B
Wears a Chicago (AL) hat

1 MVP, 3 top 5 MVP finishes. Finished his career in the top 20 in HR's, Hits, RBI, Runs, Slg, OBP, OPS and Avg. First pick in the initial OGL draft. Winner of "Most Steroids Used" and "Most Latently Homosexual" Superlatives.



Big Red Bear
CF
Wears a New York (AL) hat.

1 ROY, 4 MVP's, one other top 5 MVP finish. Finished in the top 20 in HR's, Hits, RBI, Runs, Slg, OPS. Is just as adorable as Cornell's attempts to play big-boy sports.



Rev Run
2B
Wears a Chicago (NL) hat.

4 MVP's. Finished in the top 20 in Slg, OBP, OPS and Avg. Once part of the biggest act in hip-hop, is now sort of pathetically irrelevant to the point of attempting an Osbornes-esque reality show. Wears a hat.



The Red Terror
LF
Wears a Cleveland hat.

3 MVP's plus one other top 5 finish. Finished in the top 20 in HR, RBI, Slg, OPS and Avg. Continues to be a piece of molded plastic touched only by hands which have never known the loving caress of a woman.



Youppi!
LF
Wears a New York (AL) hat.

1 MVP plus 5 other top 5 finishes. Finished in the career top 20 in HR, Hits, RBI, Runs, Slg, OBP, OPS, Avg. Is tragically unloved.



Alice
SP
Wears a St. Louis hat.

2 Cy Youngs plus 3 other top 5 finishes. Finished in the top 20 in wins, shutouts, ERA and WHIP. Unanimous HOF selection. Winner of "Most precocious" and "Most likely to have adventures in a dreamworld which scares the crap out of all right-minded children" superlatives.



Beavis
SP
Wears a Boston hat.

4 Cy Youngs plus 3 other top 5 finishes. Finished in the top 20 in wins, shutouts, ERA, WHIP and K's. Unanimous selection. Used to like lighting things on....something. Winner of "Most annoying impression for your idiot buddy to do, 1994-1997" superlative.



Mario Mario
SP
Wears a Detroit hat.

2 Cy Youngs plus 4 other top 5 finishes. Finished in the top 20 in wins, shutouts, ERA, WHIP and K's. Generally considered an archetype for Italian people, all of whom are fat plumbers with ridiculous Old-World accents and questionable taste in clothing. Winner of "Most likely to appear in some crap Nintendo game that had Mario and his friends hastily added to the engine to ensure it'll sell" superlative.