My Herman T. Zweibel Is a Little Rusty- Perhaps Some Smeckler's Powder?

From the Archive: March 21, 2005

A friend of mine who works for the Sox and responds to emails written to Redsox dot com, likes to share his befuddlement caused by certain crazy letters, to which I suggested a reply.

so the friend wrote to me...

“is this fucking guy for real?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: xxx
Posted At: Mon 3/21/2005 5:00 PM
To: fanfeedback@redsox.mlb.com
Posted To: Fan Feedback
Subject: bos - Other - None - Mo Vaughn

E-mail From: xxx

I was looking through the Red Sox roster and the name Mo Vaughn did not appear. Did I overlook it or is it true that Mo Vaughn is no longer a part of the Boston Red Sox. If so where did he go?
Thanks,
xxx
"

And so i wrote to my friend:

“perhaps you should respond thusly:

xxx-
Unfortunately, a base-ball "roster," which is a list of those eligible to play on the team, can include no more than 25 "base-ball men", or "players." Because there are many "positions" to fill, such rosters can include only so many players at each position. The Boston Americans, colloquially known as the "Pilgrims", the "Somersets", and just recently as the "Red Sox," already have two "first base-men" within their employ, which is typically the maximum number of "first base-men" carried by a ball club to meet the requirements of efficiency. You may be familiar with the concept of efficiency, as it has been popularized in recent demonstrations of that newly invented marvel, the steam engine. Mr. Vaughn, of whom you speak, exclusively mans the first base position, and so was deemed expendable by the club, who feel that the conjoined efforts of Abner Doubleday and Charlemagne is sufficient to satisfy the competitive needs of the ball-club on the field-of-play, and who also prove more "cost-effective" for the owners' coin-purses.

So in response to your second and conditional query, Mr. Vaughn is currently seeking work as a smithy in a gold-rush town on the oregon trail.

Thank you for your telegram, and we hope to see your horse and buggy hitched outside the ball-park sometime during the summer season.

Verily yours,

Ye Olde Towne Teame