I don’t have time for much commentary tonight, and none tomorrow, so this will have to do:
- Pittsburgh leapt back over the Rosebuds, pounding the Kangaroos 2.8 wins to 1.2. The Alleghenys are playing the spoiler role big time with the Kangaroos this week. Does this give their season meaning? If so, what does that say about the Alleghenys? Are they utility vampires — deriving pleasure from others’ pain?
- The Roman Colosseum with its gladiators, and its Christian-eating lions, was one giant cesspool of utility vampirage.
- While looking on Wikipedia for confirmation that I have the utility vampire concept right (yes, these updates should count as scholarship for promotion purposes — but I’m already a Professor Emeritus, and there’s nowhere from here to be promoted to), I discovered the idea of a “happiness pump.” This is someone who accepts suffering to give other happiness. The Wikipediaists were clearly skeptical about such an approach, treating it as irrational, unsustainable, and doomed to failure. But I think they’re wrong: if the sacrificer gets enough pleasure out of other people’s pleasure, everyone can come out ahead. Isn’t this largely what parenting is? And marriage? Then the happiness vampire becomes a happiness pump.
- But in competitive play, a noble sacrificer ruins the game. No one over the age of 10 wants to be given wins. They want to earn them. This, I assure you, is why I was sad about Andre Pallante’s 1/3 ip, 4 er chulk tonight: it kept the W’s from getting back to within 3 games of the Seraphim, making Salem’s first title march too easy to allow them their maximum enjoyment!
- That time the Alleghenys won by almost 20 games was a real downer in Pittsburgh, I bet. The W’s had a little burst of winning at the end to get back to 19.5 games out (something like that) which made me happier because it made the Allegheny’s win a teensy bit less of a walk-over.
- Wikipedia has nothing about “utility vultures.” A search on the internet comes up with nothing by references to appliances and power strips that suck electricity when they aren’t doing anything useful. That is surely useful — utile — information, but what would have made ME happier would be something on the concept of a utility vampire in utilitarianism.
- Oh, well, back to baseball.
- The Balk are giving the Dragons a taste of their own recent medicine, letting Haviland fans know how it feels to lost 3.7 out of 4 games when you are trying to stay in a pennant race. Haviland is over 10 games out now, with 26 games to go and four teams to pass… not looking great. Someone needs to pump some utility Haviland’s way right now.
- Lewis Brinson is back, playing for the Giants. He hit two homers today and is batting .364, .364, 1.000 in 11 AB over 4 games since he got called up. There’s a guy who was a utility sink for the W’s for years — the guy we gave up Christian Yelich for two minutes before Yelich began his brief superstardom. But I am now deriving pleasure from Brinson’s sudden re-emergence from the minor leagues, and his (probably temporary) success. He’ll be in the FA draft next spring, at a very reasonable salary.