Ash Wednesday

[Heikki Raudaskoski]

On Mon, 1 Mar 2004, joeallonby wrote:
>
> Whatever happened to Stan Papi? Bill Lee still pops up every now and again.
> The only pitcher who can claim to be more colorful might just be Doc Ellis,
> who has also been discussed on this list.
>
> There is something about the Red Sox that inspires lofty literary prose.
> Maybe it's the awe-inspiring futility. But on April 9th, I will nail another
> Red Sox cap to my wall and head on down to Fenway to buy its successor. Doc
> Ellis should have pitched that insane psychedelic no-hitter for the Sox. I
> may be a godless heathen, but the Red Sox are a weird religion of their own.
> We sox fans are the Shiites of the secular world. The false caliph Frazee
> sold our Messiah to the Infidels down the road for filthy lucre. The world
> has been upside down ever since. I know otherwise reasonable people who will
> argue that the demise of Boston as North America's premiere seaport can be
> traced to the financing of the Broadway production of "No, No, Nanette" by
> the dismantling of the world champions and the sale of Babe Ruth as if he
> were just another stud bull.
>
> Damn the Evil Empire. Satan laughing spreads his wings next to the Deegan
> Expressway. Route 85 is truly the Highway to Hell.
>

I guess this pretty much solves the 700-year-old problem concerning
a seemingly meaningless line in Dante's _Inferno_. What Pluto, this
infuriated Red Sox fan of the fourth circle, really uttered was not
"Pape Satan, pape Satan, aleppe!", but, of course, "Papi Stan, Papi
Stan, a leper!"


Heikki