A California Cardinal in Theodore Hoskins' Court
The Missouri Legislature lived up to its well-earned reputation of a regular gathering of notorious jackasses, recently, renaming a stretch of Mark McGwire Highway to Mark Twain Highway.
Mark Twain would get a hearty laugh, I'm sure.
Jim Caple says it better than I could in his column ways back in March about the plan.
The Adventures of Huckleberry Mac
"You don't know about me without you have driven on a road by the name the Mark McGwire Highway in St. Louis; but that ain't no matter anymore, on account the Missouri Senate voted to rename it for Mr. Mark Twain this week. They had been talking about this ever since the book "Juiced'' was made by Jose Canseco. He told the truth mainly, but there were some stretchers in his book, like him and me taking a dead cat to the graveyard and running off to be Pittsburgh Pirates and injecting syringes full of steroids into each other in a cave. But that is nothing. I never seen anybody but lied one time or another, without it was Ozzie Guillen.
Anyways, the Missouri legislature named that piece of highway for me after I hit 70 big taters to break the record of 61 made by Roger Maris many years before. When I done it, reporters from all over the country took to following me around from city to city like I was the lost dauphin of France, writing stories about me being almost a god out of scripture just cuz of how I hit so many round-trippers and all. They said my circuit clouts practically saved the game, what with all the fans who been turned off before by the players' affair and the commissioner canceling the 1994 World Series and Ken Burns "Baseball'' series. The way everyone went on, it was like going to your own funeral and standing in the back of the church listening to folks who was no relation all praying and sobbing about what a wonderful soul you was and how lucky they was to have knowed you and how you made everyone everywhere happier. Not that no one could attend their own funeral, without signing with the Pirates.
The thing is, I pretty much whitewashed them all, the reporters and the fans and everybody. I was taking steroids -- just to keep healthy, mind -- but no one never cared a bit at the time. They seen how big me and my acne was and knowed I took androstenedione, but they didn't mind none. All they wanted to talk about was all them round-trippers. Fooling them was easier than an owner getting taxpayers to pay him to build him his own stadium by fibbing how it will create jobs.
Only one day, they all turned against me. All of a sudden, they decided steroids was bad and I was going to hell or jail or Kansas City for taking them. I don't know why; maybe it was the Widow Douglas stirring them up or the U.S. Congress subpoenaing me to testify. All I know is all them people who went on and on about me saving the game in 1998 when they must have knowed I took steroids now said I done ruined it. Well, I was blindsided. It was like afloating on the river, bound for Cooperstown and enjoying a smoke on a corncob pipe and watching the stars in the heavens with your best friend all peaceful like and then having a steamboat run you over and smash up your boat and leave you for dead on the river bank. Or like being a Cubs fan.
Well, I snuck off and lived alone on an island and didn't talk to no one for awhile, not even Congress. I was practically a hermit, sort of like Milton Bradley. But now I am back in baseball with my old manager, Skipper Tony, learning his Cardinals how to hit. But I will take a blood oath (which is different than a blood test) that I won't have nothing to do with those steroids anymore. I learnt my lesson. I just think maybe I can give something back to baseball after all it gived me. And maybe I can make people remember that I wasn't such a bad egg after all. That I was friendly and helped kids and made people feel happy and hit 49 home runs as a rookie before I was on the juice.
I certainly ain't doin' this for the money. Thanks to all them taters I hit, I got more money than a body could tell what to do with, lessun he had a vengeful ex-wife and bad judgment, which was definitely the case with Canseco. That is why he wound up doing time in jail and appearing on reality shows. I don't know which was worse, though if I had to guess I would say boxing one of the ex-"Partridge Family" kids is about as low as a player can sink. Without it was ratting on your teammates in a book.
I also hope the state House votes to not change the highway name. It seems to me that if you name a road for someone, you shouldn't a go and change it without he does something real low down and despicable. I mean, Pete Rose still has a street named after him but that's a story for another book entirely."
The Missouri Legislature has obviously never read any Mark Twain. The man's whole life was dedicated to getting people to accept themselves for their failures, not rub their noses in it.
It's like having a Stone a Prostitute Fundraiser for Jesus. It makes no goddamn sense. Except to anybody with no goddamn sense.
The Missouri Legislature should consider changing the name of the Three Stooges Highway to the Missouri Legislature Highway. It's a more appropriate switch.
And would better acknowledge the Legislature's appreciation for the legacy of their favorite son. Both of them.
And the ever shortening distance between their heads and their posteriors.
