The Columnist Manifesto

It really comes as no surprise that I got zero comments on yesterday's post. The occasional post about baseball and my self-identification as a "Mets fan" are really not enough to generate much of a baseball readership. And the post was incredibly long.

But at least I have this satisfaction. You see, yesterday, while vacationing in LA, I ran into baseball writer and ESPN baseball analyst Peter Gammons on the bus. Gammons and I are acquainted through my friend Josh, who seems to be a key "degree of separation" between me and everyone I know. For instance, it was from an invitation from somebody I met through Josh that I wound up at the birthday party where I first met B, my wife.

Anyway, Gammons, looking cute and dressed down in a scrawny, plucked-chicken sort of way in white shorts, a T-shirt with holes, and white sneakers and gym socks, was on his way back from the Dodgers game. I asked him whether this getup was his way of traveling incognito, and told him I was impressed that he would ride the bus in LA. We bantered about the game.

Unfortunately, he and his friend got off the bus before I could wind the conversation around to what would, for me, have been too good to be true. "So, Peter, how about I send you this blog post about the Whale Curve? It's just this baseball idea I have -- I just thought you might find it interesting." Still, I feel like I can just email it to him without awkwardness on the strength of our chance encounter.

I'd really like to do some travel posts about LA, which was looking incredibly beautiful as a result of some flower festival they happen to be hosting. The streets were festooned in a riot of color, and I couldn't believe that I didn't whip my camera out of my backpack.

The fact is that I wasn't on a bus in LA yesterday, wasn't even in LA and I don't think there's a flower festival going on there. I didn't meet Peter Gammons on the bus, and in fact have never met him. Nor did I first meet B through a friend of Josh. I do have a friend named Josh, a wife named B, a camera in my backpack, and there is a city called LA. The rest was a dream.

But the bizarre thing is this. I wrote out the foregoing blog post about running into Peter Gammons, in my head, during the dream. I'm pretty sure this is the first time I've dreamed about blogging.

What do we make of that?