Retarded Neighbors & The Hall of Fame

The three of you who actually read this blog know that a few months back I moved into a new apartment. Overall I am very happy with the place … it’s a bit smaller, it’s a bit cheaper, it has a nice view of Manhattan (see crappy phone camera picture), my commute to and from work is as easy as ever … but my neighbors are, well, retarded.

Now, don’t go getting your panties in an uproar … by “retarded” I don’t mean mentally handicapped or any such thing. They’re just stupid. Stupid and annoying.

For one, they like to smoke in the hallway. I can understand this … they have young children and I agree that you shouldn’t smoke around kids. My old man smoked around my brother and I and God knows we’ve had our share of medical problems. I also understand that, even though they have a very nice fire escape they could smoke on, maybe they’re not used to the dipping temperatures (although it has been unseasonably warm lately) and would prefer to smoke indoors. However, I do NOT understand why they think the hallway is an ashtray in and of itself.

Do they bother to ash or put out their butts in an ashtray, a soda can, anything? No. They feel that stairs serve the same purpose … and they’re nifty for getting up and down. And who, pray tell, winds up being the one who sweeps and mops up after them? You guessed it.

But in truth, this is the least of my complaints. I’m more concerned with their maltreatment of our building’s plumbing.

It all began several weeks ago when both my shower and my kitchen sink backed up. Neither was all that severe. A bottle of Liquid Plumber seemed to do the trick … for a day or two. And then it happened again. This time I took the plunger to the shower drain and yielded minimal results. I switched gears and tried the same in the kitchen sink. After three or four minutes of active plunging (that’s a cool word, you gotta admit) I pulled up handfuls (plural, not singular, please note) of rice! I don’t eat rice! These a$$holes had apparently forced about a pound and a half of rice down the drain. Jeez!

Then this week, after returning from Jamaica (I’ll write about that in the next post … probably) I found my shower backed up with about six inches of disgusting brown, hair-and-gunk filled water. Joy! I took the trusty plunger to the drain again … and after about 10 minutes the water slowly drained away. Two days later, it happened again. I repeated the process. Two days later, it happened again …

But this time was different. This time it reeked of bleach. It was next to impossible to breathe in my apartment. This time I had no choice but to call my landlord and have a plumber come and “snake my shit.” (That’s a shout out to JB … we’re both amused by the phrase “snake my shit.”) He couldn’t get out until the next morning … and by then I realized that whatever was causing the bleach odor was eating away my damn shower!

The problem is now resolved … but my poor shower has been scarred for life.

Big Mac & The Hall of Fame

Here are the only two questions that need to be considered whenever Mark McGwire and Hall of Fame are brought up in the same sentence -- as they will be a lot from now until the Class of 2007 is announced early in January. And maybe long after that.

First, do McGwire's on-field accomplishments merit his selection to Cooperstown? Yes! But, does anything else -- we all know what that might be -- demand his exclusion? I have to say no!

McGwire is among the 17 former Major League Baseball players on the 2007 Hall of Fame ballot, the first such group of prominent players linked to the use of performance-enhancing drugs.

This group includes Jose Canseco and the late Ken Caminiti, former MVPs who admitted steroid use. In fact, Canseco made the accusation that he and McGwire did steroids together while teammates with the Oakland A’s.

Members of the Baseball Writers Association of America who have covered the sport for at least 10 years determine which players make the cut. That’s who votes. Sports writers. People who are always looking for good copy.

Their consternation centers on whether to admit McGwire, who finished his career with 583 home runs, which ranks seventh on MLB's all-time list. Five-hundred home runs, 3,000 hits … both are usually considered automatic entries.

If only Big Mac hadn't gone to Capitol Hill last year. Things might be different.

The slugger was peppered with questions from opportunistic lawmakers wanting to know what he put in his body to become Paul Bunyan. His response is exactly what will unfairly doom his selection into the Hall, ``I'm not here to talk about the past.''

The Associated Press earlier this week surveyed about 20 percent of eligible voters. Only 1-in-4 who gave an opinion said they planned to vote for McGwire this year.

That's far shy of the 75 percent needed for induction. In fact, it's closer to the 5 percent needed just to remain on future ballots. And that’s a shame … nothing has been proven and there wasn’t even a policy in place banning steroids until 2002. Are we gonna ban the man that in many ways saved the sport with his run at 61 homeruns on hearsay and innuendo? Knowing baseball writers … probably so.