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Bugs & Cranks. Not Cranky. Or Buggy.

If there’s one thing I’ve realized in the three-and-a-half years I’ve been hammering away on this site, it’s that I really enjoy writing. There are days when the ideas come slowly, or when it’s hard to find the time, but if I don’t write for more than a day or two, I start to miss it. I guess you could say that writing is my one true love.

Well, that’s not entirely accurate, of course. My wife is my ‘one true love’. Without her, there’d be no web site. Or writing. Or laughs. I’d be an illiterate destitute wretch, spending the rest of my miserable existence penniless and friendless, weeping for all I’d lost.

(That’s what she tells me, anyway. She’s a great girl!)

So, my wife and writing are my two true loves.

And Guinness. (Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!)

Let’s be honest, now. An expertly poured Guinness in a proper imperial pint glass is a thing of beauty. Especially if the bartender draws a little shamrock on top with the tap stream.

(Yes, I know it’s just a novelty for the tourists. I don’t care. You show me a shamrock drawn on a crappy Bud Light draft, and I’ll stop thinking it’s cool. Nyah.)

“Thirty percent less boob jokes. Ninety percent more ‘wood’ and ‘getting to third base’ jokes.”

There’s more to Guinness than visual appeal. There’s the taste, of course. An acquired taste, to be sure — like caviar or pate or mustard gas. But there’s so much more — the heritage, the trivia (it’s nitrogenated, you know), the excuse to talk in a really bad Irish accent. A good Guinness isn’t just a beer; it’s an experience.

And that’s why my wife, writing, and Guinness are my three true loves.

And then there’s baseball.

I don’t talk about it too often here, but I’ve been a baseball fan for as long as I can remember. Other sports are great, but baseball is special. The hundred-plus years of history, the legend of the greats from today and yesterday, and the umpteen-hundred kinds of statistics measuring performance in everything from ‘runners left on base with less than two outs after the sixth inning’ to ‘tobacco wads spat per at bat’.

(For the record, Lenny Dykstra holds the career mark in the modern era. Sadly, wad-related statistics have only been tracked since the late ’70s.)

So why have I provided this guided tour through my most precious and cherished entities? To announce that I’ve been given the rare opportunity to combine two of the things that I love the most.

(No, it’s not dipping my wife in a bathtub full of Guinness. I thought of that, but she wouldn’t go for it. She says the bubbles tickle her nose.)

I’m happy and proud to announce that I’ve recently signed on as a regular contributor to a new baseball-related web site, Bugs & Cranks. The B&C mission is to ‘cover the good, the bad, and the ridiculous’ happening in the major leagues, and offer ‘humorous and insightful’ commentary on all things baseball. Each writer covers primarily one team; I’m assigned to the Atlanta Braves, and I’m looking forward to a season full of stats and yuks. And Bobby Cox blowing a gasket sometime in May if the team’s not playing well.

So what does this mean for you, the devoted reader — or casual reader, or occasional lurker, or Google searcher looking for ‘Latvian hooker llama porn’?

Well, if you’re a baseball fan, then you’ve just found a new site in Bugs & Cranks (permalink to your right atop the sidebar) that will entertain, enlighten, and inform you on a daily basis, no matter your favorite MLB team. The writing staff being assembled there is top-notch, including published authors, freelance humorists, and accomplished writers (like Dan Tobin of Surgical Strikes fame, featured on this site’s blogroll for many moons now).

You’ve also got the means for us to have an extra conversation or three a week. My writing over there will be much the same as it is here, with three slight differences:

• All the posts will be about baseball.
• There will occasionally be statistics spouted. Some of them might even be real.
• Thirty percent less boob jokes. Ninety percent more ‘wood’ and ‘getting to third base’ jokes.

When I post a new entry at B&C, I’ll let you know in the next post here with a quick link. It might look something like this:

Bugs & Cranks: Braves’ New World

That’ll be your cue to check out the story, or to click the main link and see what’s new and gnarly around the rest of the league.

(Go ahead, try it now. The links are real, and it’s never too early to get into game shape.)

But what if, horror of horrors, you’re not a baseball fan?

Well, then you get nothing, I guess. You’re one of those leering Latvian llama lechers, aren’t you? Sicko.

At any rate, nothing much around here will change. I’ll still be slinging the same nonsense on this site several days a week, and occasionally managing to get a piece published elsewhere.

(Speaking of which, keep an eye out on Wednesday. The Valentine’s Day post for this year has been accepted on another site. Very exciting.

For me. For other people, maybe not so much.)

So that’s it for now. I hope you’ll come visit us at Bugs & Cranks for baseball fun, and stop by here again for semi-daily shenanigans.

(Or Dial ‘M’ for Moron for shenanigans from the archives, lovingly dusted off and reprinted for your nostalgic enjoyment.)

Personally, I’m just squealingly happy to combine two loves into one, and spend some time waxing poetic about the national pastime. And as long as I have beer in the fridge, I can drink Guinness while I write and combine three loves at once. Oh, mama. That’s as good as it could possibly get.

Just, you know, don’t tell my wife I said that. I’m not ready for ‘penniless and friendless’ just yet.