Dirk Hayhurst

Note to self: if you’re going to show-up the president and your team, and polarize America in the process, make a bigger statement than a Facebook message.

Yes folks, I get Timmy was trying to make a point—and he did, kinda—but he could have really went the distance.

I have two major critiques:

1)   Tim could have made public his plans not to attend before the day of— getting it out there in the news so his team wasn’t overshadowed by his right to exercise individual freedoms. I’m all about individual freedoms and enjoying them, but Tim, who knew about this event well before it happened, could have given the media a heads up so that his team didn’t get stuck with explaining “well, uh, the thing is Mr. Obama… Tim hates you” while at the president’s house. If you’re going to do something like this, which is totally all about you, do it in a way that doesn’t screw up the attention earned by your teammates who may not agree with your stance on things. (more…)

Back by popular demand—and/or boredom—is the great, international Garfookie contest!!!!

What is a Garfookie, you ask? Why, it’s a Christmas cookie (or similarly baked good) identical in shape and form to a real Garfoose.

Caution: baking something as terrifying as a Garfoose may cause damage to your oven, nightmares, and hallucinations involving moose and giraffes. (more…)

Here’s what the advance reviewers have to say about OUT OF MY LEAGUE.

‎”Dirk Hayhurst writes about baseball in a unique way. Observant, insightful, human, and hilarious.”

— Bob Costas.

“Even more than he did in The Bullpen Gospels, Dirk Hayhurst teaches us here what happens when a ‘dream career’ collides with reality. There is such universality in his struggles, that if by the book’s end you don’t become him in your mind, there’s probably something wrong with your heart.”

—Keith Olbermann

“Not many pitchers have replaced future Hall of Famer Greg Maddux. Only one has written a delightful book about it. This isn’t the story of any old Triple-A veteran trying to finally reach the majors. This is the story of Dirk Hayhurst finally reaching the majors. Which makes the story worth reading.”

—Rob Neyer, Sports Nation 

(more…)

“Hey Driftwood, how are ya?” Said an excited Sid.

“What?” I said, getting off my twelve-speed and shaking Sid’s hand.

“Driftwood,” he repeated, “or would you prefer Castaway?”

“Your puns are usually bad but at least they’re decipherable. This one, however, has got me completely baffled.”

“You know, your new name, ‘cuase you’re all washed up.” (more…)

“Did you see Manny got arrested?” I asked my dearest Bonnie, presently standing at my side with matching coffee cup and pajamas.

“Shocker,” she said

“Yeah,” I took a sip, “I guess. Though I was kinda surprised. He wasn’t the smartest guy I played with, but he didn’t seem like the violent type either, especially not with all those female fertility drugs in his system. I thought he’d be more inclined to cry during a fight than smack his wife around?”

“Nothing he does surprises me anymore,” said Bonnie. (more…)

“If I tried to lift that over my head, the weight would crush me like one of those Super Mario Goombas,” I said, making a raspberry noise.

Big J, laughed at me as he stepped out from under the weight rack. He always laughs at me when I say stuff like that. I didn’t mind because saying I was weak in comparison to him was not only true, but also a testament to how okay I was with my manhood not revolving around this obsession with lifting large piles off heavy stuff for hours of a day like Big J’s did. It was a very liberating sense of inadequacy. (more…)

Once again I was on the yellow line edging the football field, the same yellow line this annoying mom with an inferior camera ran me off of earlier because, as she said, “It’s against the rules.”

“I just want some good shots of my cousin, no reason to get your panties in a bunch” I said as her shrill voice assailed me from behind.

“Excuse me?”

“Jesus age, lady. I’m not worried about what line I’m standing on at a midget football game” I say, not bothering to pull my eye from the camera’s viewfinder as I talked.  (more…)

Honestly, I took History of Jazz because it was an easy A. In fact, the instructor knew this was why most kids took it; one of the reasons he didn’t take attendance and kept his tests relatively idiot proof. He wasn’t tenured yet and needed students to pass the class so he could keep his job.

Easy A classes are students dream, right up there with the “10 minute rule.” You know, that rule about how if an instructor doesn’t show up to the class after 10 minutes of its scheduled start time everyone can leave? Well, that was the case in my History of Jazz class the morning of September 11^th, 2001, though no one in the class left. (more…)

“Why do all the people in here look so white and scaly?” I asked, standing outside the mob of people eating the post event spread.

“They’re musicians honey, they never go outside” said Bonnie. “They have to practice all day.”

“Lord, they’re like vampires. I feel like this is the same group that assembles at a midnight preview of a Twilight film.” I took a sip of my coffee and scanned the room from behind the steam coming off the cup, “Which one is their leader. If you kill the leader, they all die.” (more…)

I wandered over to the Microsoft site today to check out a sneak peak of Windows 8 and I wasn’t quite sure what to think. It’s not that I’m a fan of one company over another (though I am writing this on a Mac) but the Windows 8 tiles interface looks a little confusing. Cool, but confusing. I guess I’m just accustom to what we commonly know as the desktop space—a sort of mirrors real life interface that lets me keep track of my data’s location more intuitively. Windows 8 seemed to be anything but that.  (more…)