I've always been fascinated by the routine ticket scalpers use to stay out of trouble. I'm not sure it really works, frankly, but it's fascinating. Like a perpetual motion machine, or a French tickler. You know what I'm saying.


In my experience, scalpers never say that they have tickets. They always ask -- of no one in particular, usually -- whether you've got tickets. And for most of the fans in the throng, the answer is 'yes'. Which really means:


'Yes, I'm walking into the stadium, and I have a ticket. I'm not a player, or a hot dog vendor, and I don't enjoy being dumped on my ass by beefy security guards. So I'm travelling with a ticket, yes; and thanks so much for asking, you greedy, lawbreaking bastard.'


See, that's called the 'high road', folks. Many people who attend sporting events are able to take that approach, because in their 'real lives', they don't have to deal with this sort of smarmy underhanded bullshit.


(Of course, these are the same people who have clicked on every attachment in every lousy email they've ever received, because they're not equipped to handle smarmy underhanded bullshit. They're completely unprepared for any sort of evil shenanigans that the world might unleash upon them. See what the 'high road' gets you, there, smartass?Three lousy viruses and a Trojan Horse up your FireWire slot. Think about that next time you're climbing up on that pedestal.)


Me, on the other hand -- well, sometimes I have a ticket. And sometimes, I don't. If I always thought far enough in advance to buy actual tickets for events I was supposed to attend, well then I'd have a hell of a time getting anything else done, wouldn't I? That's a full-time job.


(Plus, I'd probably be dragged to way more operas and ballets and shit. So this silver lining pretty much has another silver lining, right inside. How cool is that? It's like finding a Snickers bar in your bottle of beer. Double your pleasure!)


Anyway, I've been known to chat with scalpers before. And I've found that they'll never make the first move. They ask if you've got tickets. So then, you have to say, 'No -- but do you have any tickets?' That's the only way the conversation can progress. I guess there's some crazy, complicated rule about 'entrapment' or something that says they're in the clear, so long as they don't offer the merchandise first. It's all a game of some kind, where they've got to seem surprised to be holding a stack of field-level box seats:


'Oh, do I have tickets? Why, no, I was just asking for -- hey... wait a minute. Well, would you look at that? I do have tickets. Lots of tickets, too! Well, huh. What do you need, buddy? Only seven grand and your left nut for a pair. Best deal in town!'


Of course, then there's the ace in the hole -- their 'stay out of jail free' card, apparently. Just in case they've screwed up the entrapment thing, or said something incriminating, scalpers always say the same thing, just before the money changes hands:


'Hey... you're not a cop, are you? Because you have to tell me if you are.'


Now... honestly, folks, think about this for a minute. 'You have to tell me'? Does that really work? Come on.


Just imagine an undercover vice cop, or whoever it is that would cover such an event -- the Football Bureau of Investigation, maybe, or the Department of Home Plate Security -- working his way into a scalper's confidence. He's making all the right moves, saying all the right things; the poor scalper really believes he's just a regular guy, trying to get into a game. And just when the cop is about to drop the hammer and throw the cuffs on, he's pimp-slapped with:


'Are you a cop? 'Cause you have to tell me.'


Oooooh. Rejected.


'Yeah... you got me. I'm a cop. Curses!'


I just don't see it. Call me cynical, but I'm thinking the cop says, 'no', hands over the money, billy-clubs the bastard in the babymakers, and carts him off to jail. How the hell else would it work? Nobody would ever go undercover, for any reason, if they knew that anywhere, at any time, a perp could put a gun to their head and just ask if they're a cop. And that they'd be compelled to say, 'Aw, shucks. Yeah, I am. No hard feelings, eh?'


On the other hand... what if it did work that way? And what if you could use that technique in other walks of life? Like dating, for instance:


'So, it's nice to meet you, Nancy. Before we go to the restaurant, I just want to ask -- are you an uptight freaky bitch? Because, you know -- you have to tell me.'


Man, would that have saved a lot of time back in college.


Or how about in a job interview:


'Well, this looks like a fine resume, Charlie. But I wonder -- are you just going to come in here, coast by, take three-hour martini lunches, and blame your coworkers for all of your failures? And remember -- you have to tell me.'


See? Now that would have saved a boatload of time, in the years after college. For the people who hired me. Oh.


Come to think of it, maybe that's not such a good system, after all. I can see where I'd be on the wrong end of that particular stick, most of the time. Wow. I've never felt so close to scalpers before. I think I need a shower now; I feel dirty all over, only without the scads of cash and ready access to professional sporting events. Bah.

I think my fantasy baseball obsession may have finally gotten out of hand.


This year, I drafted five fantasy teams. Five. I've never had that many teams at once. And for a guy who can't balance his checkbook -- or count to twelve with his shoes on, for that matter -- it's a bit much.


It started out innocently enough. I've always been a big baseball fan, and when fantasy leagues made the jump from pencil and paper drudgery to internet automation a few years back, I hopped on the bandwagon. For the first couple of seasons, I managed one team at a time, and I was content with that. Not very good at it, mind you. Who starts Bret Saberhagen on the road after the All-Star break in an even-numbered year? Me, that's who. I'm an idiot, clearly.


After a while, the 'drafters remorse' started to get to me. I'd come out of a fantasy draft, when I should've been thrilled with my new team -- looking their stats up online, memorizing their lifetime on-base percentages and wives' and kids' names -- but I wasn't, really. I had these nagging doubts, like: 'Was Mo Vaughn really the right pick in round six?' Or: 'What made me think this was the year Bill Pulsipher would put it all together?' Or even: 'Rafael Belliard?!? How many fricking beers did I drink?'


So, I started playing two teams. The first was a 'practice' team of sorts -- I'd play out the season, sure, but that squad was littered with idiot picks. I simply couldn't be trusted to make good decisions without the benefit of a little experience. You wouldn't go to a mechanic that had never rebuilt a tranny, right? Or a stripper who'd never wrapped herself around a pole. How about a gynecologist who'd never smeared a Pap? I think not.


Of course, my strategy was predicated on actually learning from my mistakes, which is clearly not my strong suit.


(I'm still writing here, after all. Not to mention here [link], and even here [link]. 'Exhibits A through C', ladies and gentlemen.)


So, I'd end up with two lousy teams, bursting at the seams with scrubs and has-beens and part-time platoon pinch-hitters. Often they'd be different no-talent jackasses, but they were no-talent jackasses, just the same.


It was about that time that ESPN started offering three teams at a discount. Those shifty, conniving, weaselly marketing bastard geniuses. Three's a charm, right? Why the hell not -- what else have I got to do all summer?


From there, it's snowballed further. A couple of friends want to play on another site, so I start a team there. Other people I know wanted to set up a 'keeper' league -- ooh, so now I can hold on to light-hitting utility man Khalil Greene for five whole years? Gee. Where do I sign up?


It's funny how these things sneak up on you. Not 'funny ha-ha', mind you. More 'funny hey, why don't I spend two and a half hours every morning checking box scores and batting averages, wouldn't that be a hoot?'.


The whole game experience has changed now, too. With five fantasy teams, I've pretty much got everybody in the major leagues, on one team or another. I looked the other day, and I think I've got a clubhouse attendant from the Mariners and the Dodgers third-base ball girl on one roster. In terms of 'coverage', I'm in good shape.


On the other hand, it's rare that I have a particular player on more than two or three of my teams. So I find myself watching highlights, saying things like:


'Yeah, a double off the wall! But shit, that's my pitcher, too. Bitches!'


'Damn, I can't afford another hit to ERA, or batting average. Call the game off! Rain, damn you!!'


'A home run! Forty percent hooray!'


I think the situation would be completely intolerable, if I didn't follow one simple fantasy baseball rule: 'Never draft anyone you can't stand to cheer for.'


Finally, fantasy mirrors real life. No matter which team I need to pick it up, or which player I'm rooting for, the Yankees can all go to hell. There's one thing we can all agree on, fantasy or no. Play ball.

I'm thirty-six. I'm competitive. And I'm not particularly svelte, in the traditional sense of the word.


(Or in any sense, really. I just wanted to make it sound a little less flabbety. I failed. And we move on.)


Given my unfortunate-but-not-so-uncommon circumstances, I find myself playing various fat old man sports, like softball and pool and golf. Though it's often less 'play', and more 'attempt to play'. Or 'make sure my pants aren't falling down while the ball sails past me'. When you've developed your body into a fully unhoned, unoiled, and creaky machine like mine, those are pretty much the same thing.


With that in mind, I've decided to give something back to my fellow huffing and puffing sporting compatriots. For those other aging, husky 'athletes' out there, I'm happy to present:


The Fat Old Man Sport 'Rules of Engagement'


1. It's okay to let them see you sweat. If you didn't sweat, you'd keel over in a quivery heap in the middle of the game. So sweat it up. You weren't going to look pretty out there anyway.


2. One of the worst things you can do is to change directions suddenly. That's how fat old men get hurt. If you're particularly old, you could break an ankle, or even a hip. And if you're especially fat, that quick shift in momentum might get you slapped in the back with a roll of your own flab. That's a big 'ouchie' in the pride department; personally, I think I'd prefer the shattered hip.


3. If you should find yourself on the ground -- whether knocked there, fallen there, or collapsed there after a short sprint -- don't get up too quickly. When we were lithe young warriors, the goal was to leap up to prove to the opponent that we weren't hurt. At this point, our primary concern should be preventing a coronary while we're crawling to the bench.


4. The latest wave of fancy athletic shoes and equipment are not for us. The only reason to buy and wear the hot new Mike Vick cleats or AI cross-trainers is that they might help your game. Trust me -- our games are unhelpable. It doesn't matter which shoes we wear -- we'll still have two-inch verticals and run thirty-three second forty yard dashes. Sometimes, it doesn't gotta be the shoes.


5. At no time should you run so hard during a game that your manboobs jiggle. Nobody wants to see that; for your aging pride's sake, make sure it never happens. If you feel you must move quickly, then make certain to wear a shirt sufficiently loose to hide any doob movement that might occur. If you're comfortable enough in your masculinity to pull it off, a muumuu is perfect for this purpose. It's not stylish, but it gets the job done.


6. Your taunting days after a good play or win are over. Not so much because it's unbecoming for an old fart who probably didn't contribute much in the first place to get in the other team's grill. It is unbecoming -- but you're out there in your thirty-year-old Chuck Taylors and a pink muumuu; what do you care about 'unbecoming'? The bigger issue is that you're ancient and fragile. One errant finger waggle, and you could be sitting out for weeks. Don't risk it, grandpa.


7. It is acceptable to gently rib the whippersnappers on your own team with the occasional 'When I was your age...' story. But if you do, you can never complain about your creaky joints or aching back in front of them again, or they'll taunt you mercilessly into the offseason. Decide whether you're 'annoying pedantic old guy' or 'one foot in the grave complaining old guy', and stick with it.


8. Three words: 'shirts and skins'. Just walk away. Unless you're one of the captains, and for your first pick you plan to choose, 'leave my tent on and not unleash my hairy beer gut on an unsuspecting crowd', then walk away. Otherwise, there's a fifty-fifty chance you'll be out there playing, and looking from the waist up like a wrinkled-up Jabba the Hutt. I don't know about you, but I don't like those odds. No, thanks.


9. By all means, stretch your muscles out before playing any sort of sport. In this context, you can take 'sport' to mean 'walking to the bathroom', 'getting out of bed', or 'scratching your ample ass'. These are strenuous and aerobic activities for our kind; prepare yourself accordingly. Just don't overstretch; there's nothing quite so exquisitely painful as being carted off the field with a tweaked hammy or groin before you've even taken off your warmup togs.


10. You're still allowed to go out after the game for beers with the team. In fact, you're encouraged -- in your condition, it's appropriate to celebrate simply getting through a game in one piece. Just be aware that those extra hours sitting your can on a bar stool will give those creaky muscles time to tighten up and give you grief. You may well need to call a cab to get home -- not because you're drunk, but because you simply won't be able to use your legs for a couple of days. Just try explaining that to a cop giving you a field sobriety test.


Hopefully, these tips will help the other fat old guys out there play sports the way that we fat old guys should play -- slowly, without injury, and with a minimum of exposed aging flesh. There'll be plenty of time for slipped discs and bare flabby chests when we're relegated to our rocking chairs.


Which in my case will be any day now. You might want to avert your eyes; it's not going to be pretty. I'll do my best to keep my muumuu on; it seems like the sporting thing to do.

I watched sumo wrestling on ESPN this afternooon.


Why? I'm not sure, really. Perhaps NFL lineman asses just aren't enormous or bare enough for me any more. I sincelrely hope that's not the reason, but now I'm having trouble replacing so disturbing a thought with anything else. I'm hoping alcohol will do the trick. Lots and lots of alcohol.


Meanwhile, I was watching sumo, which is cool. I'm always interested in tuning in to events that are on the fringes of the American sports collective radar screen -- sumo wrestling, trick-shot billiards, curling, Cleveland Browns football, that sort of thing.


(Okay, not that last one. Even Drew Carey couldn't stomach watching that.)


Sumo, though, is cool. And it's one of the few places where I can watch overweight foreign men trotting around in thong underwear without feeling all dirty. Lord knows it doesn't work at the YMCA.


The most interesting thing about this match, though -- yes, more interesting than jumbo warriors in ass floss; let it go already -- was the commentary. Or rather, the lack of commentary.


It seems the sumo booth was manned by two gentleman. The first was one of those more-or-less anonymous ESPN announcer clones. You know the ones, with the pretty hair and the shiny teeth that remind you of your uncle, maybe, or that old roommate of the guy your brother used to know, if he'd shaved his pornstache and gotten a decent haircut once in a while. Pretty harmless, these guys -- they're just there to describe what you're seeing and fill in the obvious gaps. They leave the really interesting bits of chitchat to the 'expert in the booth'.


And therein lay the problem. The second announcer was a sumo wrestler himself -- apparently quite an accomplished one, at that. He was approximately the size of a largish SUV, or perhaps a smallish Victorian house. He was a foot taller and several hundred pounds heavier than his partner, and appeared in the initial introduction to be deliberating over whether to eat the entire camera crew. Seeing as how many sumo wrestlers come from non-English-speaking countries, I imagine he was selected to provide color commentary because we speaks English very well.


He did not, however, speak English very much. Which provided a sticky situation for his boothmate. Their 'banter' went something like this:


Skinny Commentator: Well, here we've got a wrestler who's had a lot of success in the sport in the past few years. You must have faced this guy an awful lot!
Sumo Commentator: ...

Skinny Commentator: You, um... did, right? Face him a lot?
Sumo Commentator: Yes.

Skinny Commentator: And how was that?
Sumo Commentator: What?

Skinny Commentator: Facing him, there. In the ring.
Sumo Commentator: Hard.

Skinny Commentator: It was hard?
Sumo Commentator: Yes. Hard.

Skinny Commentator: I see. Well, he's got quite a weight advantage on this next competitor. You were one of the bigger wrestlers out there; how was it for you facing a much smaller man?
Sumo Commentator: Hard.

Skinny Commentator: 'Hard'. Great. Any special strategies you employed? Anything you'd do differently in that situation?
Sumo Commentator: No.

Skinny Commentator: No. Of course not. How about a bigger man? Anyone significantly bigger that you competed against?
Sumo Commentator: No.

Skinny Commentator: No. Similar-sized then, most of them?
Sumo Commentator: Yes.

Skinny Commentator: And how was that? No, wait -- let me guess. Was it hard?
Sumo Commentator: Yes. Hard.

Skinny Commentator: All right, then, that's just peachy. Another sake over here, please! Domo.


I suppose I can't blame the big guy, really. Stringing multiple words together takes a bit of energy, and when you weigh nine hundred and eleventy pounds, you've got to conserve your reserves, I imagine. He'd hate to be winded and all tuckered out from gabbing next time he needs to take a tinkle, right? I'm guessing that's an entire process unto itself for a dude so hefty; perhaps one involving a periscope, a tire jack, and a pair of salad tongs. But that's only a guess, of course.


Apart from that, the wrestling was fun to watch. Any sport where a viable strategy for winning involves throwing a man to thr ground by his own wedgie is going to have entertainment value. Figure skating, just as an example, could definitely tap into a larger market with rules like that on the books. Spelling bees, too, maybe. I'm just thinking out loud here.


In the end, the truly disturbing thing -- even more than the near-mute mountain of an announcer or the G-stringed behemoths slap 'n' ticking each other in the ring -- was that a few of the athletes weighed in within a few dozen pounds of my own wieght. Granted, those were the leaner and shorter wrestlers -- and none came all that close to my current mass -- but the message was pretty clear: there but for a couple of extra microwave burritos go I. Plus, now I have an idea of what I might look like as a stripper.


And that's the most disturbing thought of all. I'd better start with the alcohol now. Can I get that double sake over here, please? Domo arigato.

Tonight, I played softball for the first time this year. The first game each season is always an adventure, as various muscles are awakened from their winter slumber and put to use in... well, in popping the ball up a lot and coaching third base, apparently. Some of those muscles have hit the snooze bar, it seems.


I like to go into each softball game with a set of goals -- something to keep in mind, and strive for while I'm on the field. As the season winds down in the fall, my list of goals might look something like this:

• Get two hits to the opposite field.
• Be aggressive; take an extra base.
• Make good decisions on defense and hard, accurate throws

And in August, I might have a chance in hell of doing any of those things. Tonight -- after a winter's worth of hibernating inside with a TiVo, a couch, and an impressive supply of Guinness -- not so much. My plate appearance in the first inning was the first time in six months I'd swung a bat in anger -- unless you count shooing Jehovah's Witnesses off my lawn last November. Do those people not have Thanksgiving, or what? Honestly.


So, my list for this first game was just a wee bit less ambitious. Here's what I was shooting for:

• Don't throw out your back getting off the bench.
• Hope to hell your pants don't fall down.
• For the love of god, don't strike out.

Eh, two out of three isn't bad. And it's not like I'm a worse third base coach with my shorts around my ankles. On the contrary, I think I'm better -- you should have seen how fast the girls on our team rounded the base and scampered home. Even on walks, or fly balls, or when the other team was batting. I had no idea I could be so motivating.


Honestly, I was happy just to make contact with the ball at the plate, and to not contact the ball -- with my face, chest, or nethers -- in the field. Also, I was happy they played me at third base, so it was a short walk from the coaching box to my position. Hey, this is softball -- we're not out there to exert ourselves, for crissakes.


Now I just need a couple of weeks -- and a new elastic band -- to improve my play, and I'll be all set. I need to step my game up on the field if I want to really enjoy the obligatory beers afterwards. It's softball, after all -- we've got to hit the bar after the game; it's in the rule book.


At least there's one aspect of my game already in midseason form. Batter Bottoms up!