NUGGETS

• Billy Beane and Brian Sabean have spoiled my July 31st.
• Here's one of the funnier things I've read recently, several weeks late.
• And here's what to do when your asshole friend whips out the Blackberry. I once went to a natural history museum in Ulan Bator where there was a hedgehog in a cardboard box & a designated hedgehog pokin' stick for self-evident purposes. It was awesome.
• Many towns construct their identities around One Thing. Come visit Leggett, CA, where you can drive through a redwood tree! Stop by Tillamook, OR: cheese! Visit Chiaravalle, birthplace of Maria Montessori! The prostitutes of Homestead, FL are 39% syphilis-free! Etcetera. Well, I am pleased to report that Baltimore has more than One Thing. It has crabs, Camden Yards, and John Waters. That's pretty much it. Several additional icons of local pride are tearing up AAA, waiting for September call-ups: Barry Levinson, pit beef, National Bohemian, Hon, and scrap metal theft. They all swing the bat well, but lack plate discipline.
• I received an alarming email this weekend from the new father of a child named Rufus [the "Work"]. It read, in part: "I demand that you immediately cease the use and distribution of all infringing works derived from the Work, and all copies, including electronic copies, of same, and that you desist from this or any other infringement of my rights in the future, bitch." No bloodsucking lawyer, friend or otherwise, will intimidate me into changing my screen name. I am Rufus, the Chippy Highboy.