We've found our third starter

Two big news stories today that I must touch upon.

The first is that Sluggerrr, the Kansas City Royals vaguely lion mascot, has been sued for damaging the eyesight of a fan with a hot dog. Not one from the hot dog cannon either. He literally put a man’s eye out with a thrown hot dog. This would be the best throw that a Royal made all year. I’d even expect the settlement to be reduced because the plaintiff will no longer be capable of watching the Royals.

Sluggerrr (and yes that is two g’s and three r’s for those wondering the state of the Kansas City school system) is simultaneously the most baffling and least effective mascot in baseball today. He is a lion, which is fair enough as you can somehow make a king of the jungle connection to the Royals. However, his crown is apparently growing out of his skull as a result of some bizarre experiment. Seriously, kind of like how Doctor Octopus had the robotic arms melded on to his body. Also, since the Royals introduced Sluggerr in 1996 the team’s record is 950 wins and 1,314 losses with a grand total of one winning season. I place the blame solely on the mascot. Clearly he does not inspire the team nor the fan base and should be removed immediately.

(Sigh. It is stories like this that make me embarrassed to even have lived in Kansas City. That is really difficult given that I now live in Delaware a state that only exists to provide tax free shopping for residents of Philadelphia. We’re less of a state and more of an outlet mall.)

The other story is that the inventor of the Easy Bake Oven has died. There was something unique about the Easy Bake Oven as even though I never owned one I have to say that it is one of the most memorable toys of my childhood. Mainly in that it wasn’t a toy at all. It was a method of feeding yourself after school before your parents came home from work. True, it was just slightly more effective than cooking over the lamp in the living room but it still marked a pretty big change in generational lifestyles.

See, for the most part kids were raised to play kitchen in the sense of pretending that you are in a working kitchen. It was all imaginary as no one would expect children to actually cook. The Easy Bake Oven changed that as kids could now fend for themselves, which is interesting because that is precisely what they had to do. Instead of coming home from school to a parent (almost certainly the mom in those times) who had something for them to snack on before dinner they were left with an empty house, Brady Bunch on syndication and an Easy Bake Oven. This is how Gen X learned to be self reliant at an early age. We had to bale our own chocolate cakes as a nine year old and it wasn’t going to get any easier from that point out. So tonight, give thanks to Ronald Howes. The man who taught a generation the importance of independence.