OK literary mavens, you all know it was Possum himself who contradicted Jeff Chaucer by declaring April the cruelest month. So far, for the Boston Red Sox, it has been. But as anticipated in my previous blog, the Swawx didn’t disappoint Red Sox Nation by losing their seventh straight, at home no less, to the Big Bully Bums from duh Bronx, otherwise known as Yankees Universe. One-and-six looks a lot better than oh-and-seven, even though it was “only yesterday” (in the depression-era phrase) that the balance of major league teams had their home openers. (By the way, a loss possibly would have been the worst for the Red Sox since the depression. Depressing? What, me worry?)

Baseball fans are flexible. Bats, too, are bendable. Check out this photograph (AP Photo/Lenny Igneizi) of San Diego Padres catcher Nick Hundley in the process of mashing the ball with his ash bat from San Francisco Giants star hurler, everyone’s favorite pitcher Tim Lincecum. Stephen Dedalus carries an ashplant through Dublin. As a high-schooler, I misunderstood this as the carrying of a potted plant. Who would walk the streets, talking about Saint Thomas Aquinas (a different sort of padre for sure) and Pico della Mirandola, lugging a potted polypody? Or a dead-ash baseball bat? Only a real writer I concluded, that’s who!…Now, how did I get from Eliot to Fenway to bending bats to Pico-like? Lift me back to baseball please!

See Dick run. See Jane run. See bat bend on contact with ball.