Part 2
The History of Baseball: 175 Years of Snug Pants & Balls

Okay, there aren't actually any pictures of naked breasts. Sorry about that, I just wanted you to keep reading. If it helps any, I promise my next article will be devoted exclusively to breasts, and how extremely naked they can sometimes be. If I present it scientifically enough, I might be able to sneak some red-hot pics past the Lost Brain editors, so long as I label them Exhibit A or Figure 1: Results of Findings or something. Between you and me, they're not really all that swift.

Anyway. Eager to retain my Lost Brain paycheck gravy train, I commenced that most hated stage of the writing process — research. I spent the morning reading up on the history of baseball, in an effort to sound knowledgeable about a sport I know absolutely nothing about. What I discovered both astounded and bored me.

Evidently baseball was being played as early as the 19th century, and was originally based on a British game called rounders. Rounders is apparently very similar to baseball, except that the bats are a lot smaller and more dildo-esque, and every player gets to carry one throughout the game. I've included a picture (right) because honestly, I wouldn't believe me either without proof. I couldn't be bothered to look up the rules, so your guess is as good as mine why everyone needs to carry around little sissy-bats throughout the game. Maybe they have to bat the ball back to the pitcher instead of throwing it. Maybe they get to club to submission anyone trying to steal a base. Maybe, and I suspect this is the most likely reason, it's because they're just British, and nothing the British do ever makes an ounce of sense.

Baseball also used to be called "townball" because, get this, it was played in towns — towns populated by the most unoriginal namers on the planet, at a guess. People had fun playing townball for decades, and because it's impossible for certain people to sit back and let other people actually have fun, eventually a self-righteous prick named Alexander Cartwright had to take the game, formalize a list of rules and tell people what they could and couldn't do when playing it. This ensured that every last drop of innocent fun was sucked from the game, thus making it the lumbering, snug-panted exercise in statistic memorization it is now.

Despite Cartwright's contributions, people still seemed to enjoy baseball, and it continued to rake in the fans in the North Eastern states well into the 1860's, when Civil War rocked America like Whitesnake rocked Cincinnati. Baseball players put down their small, penis-like bats and picked up their larger, big-penis-like rifles, marching all over the U.S. playing that other great American pastime, shootball. During breaks in killing the enemy, Union soldiers taught them baseball. By 1868 the sport had swept the nation in much the same way that plagues had swept it in the past: quickly, leaving mounds of corpses in its wake.

In 1876 the National League was instituted, allowing the Chicago Cubs (then called the Chicago White Stockings, after the slightly less gay-sounding Chicago Homosexuals was nixed) to begin their proud tradition of getting their asses handed to them in baseball. On April 25, 1876, Chicago won its first NL game, beating Louisville 4-0. It would be their only game win in 127 years of playing.

In 1877, the term for a ball hit up really high in the air, 'deep fisting', was officially changed to 'fly ball'. This was also the year that the League decided to force players to wear pants four sizes too small while playing, thus allowing umpires to better tell if they were concealing anything that could be used to unfair advantage (cork, brass knuckles), and also to discover at a glance whether or not they were circumcised.

In 1878, baseball players continued to play baseball; a proud tradition they have successfully maintained to present day, The End. I'm sorry, I'm sure some other stuff happened in there too, but I was getting a little bored of the history of baseball and wanted to wrap this part up. Here's the drive-by version: homeruns, Babe Ruth, World War II, unions, Todd McFarlane buys Mark McGwire's ball for two hundred bazillion dollars. There you go.

Bringing us as comprehensibly as possible to present-day baseball, Game 6 of the NL Championship Series with the Cubs and Marlins, and Steve Bartman. Hold on, phone.

Lost Brain Co-editor Brandon Stahl: "Jesus Christ. Did you just call baseball a 'snug-panted exercise in statistic memorization'?"

Um. Yeah.

Stahl: "Jay. Clarify this for me. People are enjoying some of the most exciting baseball they've seen in years. The World Series is about to start. The Chicago Cubs almost won for the first time in decades. The entire nation is living and breathing baseball right now."

Right.

Stahl: "So you just spent 2000 words pissing all over it."

Um. Yeah. I told you, I don't really watch baseba—

Stahl: "You're going to be killed. You realize that, yes? That you're going to be murdered."

Look, if I'm going to discuss the impact of Steve Bartman deflecting a foul ball, I need to see it from all angles. I need to take the delicate Autumn rose that is Steve Bartman and pluck him by the stem, so as to better examine his roots.

Stahl: "Just talk about fucking Bartman before I murder you myself. If I ever ask you write a sports article again, remind me to dunk my head in a bucket of chaw spit."

Fine, fine. Jesus.

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