This article mentions RBI Baseball :D
http://daily.stanford.edu/tempo?page=content&id=16931&repository=0001_article
Will write for food
By Dan McCarthy
Sports Editor
Wednesday, April 20, 2005
Getting a job out of college, I've been told, is difficult. Unless you're an engineering major and are slowly building your life arc toward a dramatic re-creation of the Michael Douglas meltdown in "Falling Down," chances are good that you will spend the next two months wondering if your detailed knowledge of (insert meaningless liberal arts major here) will translate into a salary.
Let me provide the majority of you with a sneak preview: You will spend your twenties in a Sisyphan quest for meaning, and the final result of your labors will be less financially rewarding than being a gigolo at the Lilith Fair.
This column is not for those of you who will be attending medical school (thanks for providing that tricky "social conscience" thing I never found), business school (make sure you like Briani power ties) or law school (someday you will realize the error of your ways). Virtually everyone I talk to has a plan of some kind, as if they were reading up for the MCATs at age seven.
Meanwhile, my personal career aspirations have been pretty one-dimensional. At age 10, I wanted to be the centerfielder for the San Francisco Giants; at age 13, the centerfielder for the Modesto A's; at age 16, the centerfielder for a Division I program. This dream flamed out pretty quickly in high school, as I gradually realized that when scouts/coaches/my mother shouted "Hey, we got a future Beltran out there!" they were being sarcastic.
By 18 I had realized that the only thing I was capable of achieving that would make me genuinely happy was to make enough money to buy a George Foreman grill, a bag of boneless chicken breasts and a plasma TV with all four ESPNs. And now, at 21, armed with a Stanford education, I want . . . exactly the same thing.
As far as preparing myself for my undoubtedly illustrious future, too, I have come up a little short. I managed to graduate from college in three years, something that never fails to impress people until I reveal that I was a political science major, at which point their facial expressions mimic the response of a distracted mother to her three-year-old's finger painting.
I also expend significantly more effort organizing intramural softball practices than I do examining nation-building policies in sub-Saharan Africa. The concept of a five-day work week is entirely foreign to me, having never attended a class meeting on Friday. If I ever mistakenly think about the harsh reality of gainful employment, I am reduced to cowering for days in the corner of my room, where I subsist entirely on David sunflower seeds, Belgian beer and Big League Chew.
So what are my career goals? I want to throw a ball back from the bleacher seats at Wrigley. I want to own a Santurce Cangrejeros jersey. I want to eat ballpark food in Japan. I want to go to work wearing a shirt that says "Douchebags" in the L.A. Dodgers' script font. These are, unfortunately, not things that usually pay well.
A small percentage of us are born without a passion for any particular kind of work. What do you do with your life if you don't like anything except sports and video games, and you aren't good enough at either of them to make a living? The obvious answer is that you suck it up and spend the next 40 years of your life behind a desk, filling your off time with enthralling conversations about Merlot and rustproofing your deck. (Actually, that's pretty ambitious; what sounds more realistic is rustproofing the aluminum walls of the abandoned Quonset hut I'll be living in on the local Air Force base.)
I know there are more of you out there like me. I know some of you read ESPN.com and think to yourself that Bill Simmons probably pulls down six figures, and that you could write at least as well if you sat down and watched every movie that came out between 1983 and 1991, with the added bonus of not leaking emotion like an overtaxed Hefty bag at the mere mention of the Red Sox or Brandon Walsh.
At worst, one or two of you share my unique traits: the ability to recite the batting orders of every team in the original RBI Baseball and an appreciation for the Baby Bull Sandwich at SBC Park. We represent the new lazy man's sports proletariat: unclean, unskilled, abhorrent to those who do any of the actual work.
We are needed. We long to feel important. And someday, when the fate of the human race is dependent on me defeating someone in a game of RBI or Wiffle ball, you will be thankful for keeping my skills in peak form.
So someone, please, hire me. My title could be something understated, yet classy, like "Amateur Outdoor Recreation Consultant" or "Junior Sports Entertainment Critic." I can promise you my best work, if only because I am motivated by the abject horror of putting on a tie every morning. It would be nothing short of a national tragedy to let an individual of my indispensable talents go to waste.
And I am all about applying myself.
Dan McCarthy is a junior. E-mail him at dmcc23@stanford.edu
I think we should ask this guy to recite the entire batting order of every RBI Baseball team in order. If he mixes up a Nokes with a DaEvans, he should be shot in the head immediately. That is all.
Good finds on the articles, Cecil
did anyone email him yet about this site?
That article strikes way too close to home.
Very nice article, going to drop that fellow an email, also added to the Links Page (http://dee-nee.com/rbi/links.shtml#ARTICLES)
Heard back from Dan within minutes, he's been a fan of the site for a couple years now. The world of online journalism needs more Dan McCarthys....
Are you guys friends now?
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Quote from: CurtFlood on 05/06/05, 11:25:04 AM
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Quote from: BDawk on 05/06/05, 03:06:48 PM
Quote from: CurtFlood on 05/06/05, 11:25:04 AM
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you arg butt pirate.