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‘Tis the Sweating Season

Yikes. It’s been a busy week, and a few days since we’ve talked. First, let’s get the Bugs & Cranks updates on the table:

Purging Platoons — The Bravos started the season with some time-sharing positions. But will they end the year with any?

Ding Dong, the Witch Is Dead! — With the release of Mark Redman comes the vanquish of a ravenous, filthy beast — his ERA.

Daily Predictions: Heartfelt, or Headstrong? — Predicting the winners of Thursday’s games. But not particularly well.

Titanic Tussle, Take Three — Smoltz versus Glavine, again? If these guys weren’t so damned good, this could eventually get old.

Whew, that’s a lot of baseball! Now back to the usual silliness — and I promise not to be gone so long before the next batch of yuks. Happy weekend, folks.

Summer seems to have elbowed its way into the Boston area this week. That’ may be good news for the thinbloods and mosquitoes, but not for me. I take little pleasure in ninety-degree swelter, for a very good reason. It’s already too damned hot to beat around the bush here, so I’ll come right out and say it:

I’m a sweater.

“There are only so many times a man should have to spend three hours dripping in an underventilated gymnasium with the bodies of thirty slicked-up strangers.”

That’s right. Some people ‘perspire’. Others ‘bead’. I’ve had several ladies of the female persuasion try to convince me that they simply ‘moisten’. I’ve never actually seen such ‘moistening’, so I’ll have to take their word on the matter. Or so the restraining orders say.

Meanwhile, my perspiratory puddling is somewhat less than dainty. I’m just like other people in the fall through spring, but when the summer swelter sets in, life gets just a little bit sticky. I’d frankly be happiest if it were a cool sixty-five degrees Fahrenheit all year round — like a global-warmed Anchorage, say, or a nicely chilled San Diego. Sadly, Boston doesn’t work that way. In January, it’s twelve below zero with three feet of snow. By late May, it’s an oppressive eighty-five. This is one time where taking the ‘law of averages’ is a big fat sweaty load of no help.

The worst times for me are the last few sessions of indoor spring volleyball. The leagues run through early June — but by mid-May, jumping around in those gyms is like flashdancing in a steam sauna. And in my case, slightly wetter. When it’s hot and humid — like last night — I walk out looking like I’ve been sprayed down with a fire hose and dipped headfirst in a hot tub.

I had to change into a new shirt just to get into my car. If I’d hopped in with those slick clothes on, I’d have slid down the seat and split my testes on the brake pedal. I’m all right with sustaining injuries in the course of a game, but how the hell would I explain that to the missus? I ask you.

Luckily, we only have a couple of more weeks to play indoors. There are only so many times a man should have to spend three hours dripping in an underventilated gymnasium with the bodies of thirty slicked-up strangers. It’s not like I’m training for the Olympics, for crissakes. Or shooting a movie on the Hustler network. No mas, already.

So things should dry up a bit soon. There’s still the matter of a hothouse home sans central air conditioning, and three more months of sunbaked, sweaty summer. But it’s nothing a few sticks of antiperspirant — and maybe sweat gland removal surgery — can’t dry out. Or at least ‘moisten’.

Man, it’s gonna be a long summer. Can a brother get a towel?