This town is called Splitsville. It was created by an act of Manfred. Splitsville measures seven innings wide and seven innings long — and seven innings wide and seven innings long all over again. Some folks say there’s a couple of innings missing on each side of town. I don’t know about that. But if we get through seven and it absolutely has to be any longer, we put a runner on second and see what happens.
In Splitsville, we take our coffee with half-and-half. Our bakery’s best-selling cookie is the black & white. The middle school math department has been recognized for excellence in division. There isn’t a self-respecting Splitsville jukebox doesn’t offer two plays of “One Way Or Another [1]” by Blondie for the price of one song…even if both times it’s the short version.
We also have the dadburn hummingest MRI tube in the state. I’d give you a brochure to read more about it, but everybody who picks it up seems to get the nastiest paper cut or ligament tear or lat strain or hip impingement or calf strain and has to miss work for at least ten days, so you’ll just have to take my word for it.
Or you could ask Joey.
Or Robert.
Or Jeurys.
Or maybe Jonathan.
Between you and me, I can’t keep track, but I sure wish I had the MRI concession.
This is Splitsville’s busy season. We opened for business last weekend and will repoen for business this weekend. We were open for business yesterday, too.
We had a win. We had a loss. Upon reflection, it was neither wholly satisfying nor altogether gratifying. But it could have been worse.
Could have been better, too. As we say in these parts, “That’s Splitsville for ya.”
On this side of town, we have our ace starter, Jacob deGrom [2]. We just call him ol’ Jake. He’s practically perfect. He’s the best.
On this other side of town, we have our contingency starter Jerad Eickhoff [3]. We’re still checking on the spelling. At best, he’s perfectly adequate.
Ol’ Jake gets us nervous, but only in the sense that he might hurt himself and need the MRI tube. When he doesn’t, there’s nothing to be nervous about. Oh, maybe we’ll fret that he’ll give up a hit or, less likely, a run. That’s hardly a problem to get nervous over, but you know how folks are. Really, the fretting about his ERA ticking up a notch or notching up a tick is just for appearances — sort of like the town cops searching ol’ Jake up and down for so-called illegal substances. The men in blue are just doing their job. Another act of Manfred, I guess. What we don’t much fret is that ol’ Jake might give up too many runs. It could happen, but it hasn’t happened in so long most folks on this side of town barely remember what it’s like.
Jerad gets us nervous, but mostly because we just met him, we’re not confident we can spell him and we know he wouldn’t be here if we had somebody more obviously qualified to do what he does. He calmed us down eventually, but we definitely had the feeling he and we got lucky. He’s welcome to come back soon. It’s not like we won’t have room for him.
On this side of town, with ol’ Jake, we had ourselves a nice late afternoon and early evening with just enough clutch hitting and no overtly deleterious bullpen doings. Everybody was so pleased that some folks lobbied to change our name to Pleasantville. “Hold your horses,” the old-timers said. “It’s pleasant [4] now, but let’s see what it’s like later.”
On this other side of town, with Jerad, the night wasn’t so pleasant. The bullpen doings weren’t quite undeleterious, the clutch hitting that was supposed to arrive before 10:30 PM must’ve gotten held up in shipping, and hoo-boy, you don’t want to know about the baserunning. Splitsville’s known for several things, but fancy baserunning oughtn’t be one of ’em. The visitors sure liked how it worked out for them, but while we do appreciate the tourism, the folks who live around here were pretty unsatisfied and ungratified. In fact, they lobbied to change our name to Doomsville. “Hold your horses,” the old-timers said. “We feel doomed [5] now, but it was pretty pleasant earlier.”
In Splitsville, we always want more, but we’re glad we didn’t get less.