The Case of What Happens to Traitors, or Eating Bitter Goddamn Crow

Your ol’ pal Steve Baltimore has tasted pain this weekend. Where to begin? How about the way Odense crashed out of the Royal League? No, that’s small time. OK, how ‘bout how Werder Bremen and Bayern Munich fucking tied, dunking me on two bets with one game? (All you gambling historians out there, I had Werder for the win – based solely on Miroslav Klose being available for the game, and then he pulls out moments before the start.) Sure, that hurt, but my gold standard for the year, my clockwork assassins, my beloved Celtic; Celtic. Celtic – lost – in the derby – to fucking Rangers. RANGERS. I spontaneously shit myself over that one. And then the crying started.
Oh, but I didn’t know pain, not real, biting sorrow, until I checked the League Championship scores. The Tigers of Kingston-on-Hull, the brave men of the ancestral hometown, won. Handily, as well, at 2-0.
And I had bet against them.
I had bet against them.
Why?
I’d bet for them every game this year. At 6-2-10, I’d weathered a terrible beating, financially and emotionally, at the hands of Hull AFC. But I stuck with them. Marmey, Windass, Ricketts, Barmby, Forster and my personal favorite, The Beast Jon Parkin, I backed them every tie. But with Preston fully 12 slots ahead of them, I thought I’d bet with my head. With the statistics and the probabilities and the likelihoods – I’d go with those, and stop betting with my gut. My rotten, booze-soaked gut, which had thrown me down the hole too many times this year. I thought I’d take the shortcut, and make some of my Hull money back by betting against the boys. Parkin was on loan to Stoke, anyway – I was hurting.
2-0 to Hull. Lucky seventh win. Three spots (by dint of goal differential) clear of relegation.
I have learned a terrible lesson.
This gambling is a metaphor for life. I have piloted many a sinking ship to the bottom – but always to the bottom of a safe harbor. You see? You can’t abandon a sinking ship just because it’s sinking. Not even when the shoals are looming out there in the night-black waters. Not even when the engines die. Not even when the captain’s drunk.
Because that sinking ship is YOUR ship, and it’s your goddamn duty to stay with it until the bitter end.
I heard you, Hull AFC. I’m back on board.
300 on Hull to win this weekend – I’m back.

The Case of the Goddamn Bath

If I were a religious man, I’d claim that God was trying to kill me. But if God was trying to kill me, he’d have made Scotch dangerous for human consumption in large quantities, and not the bracing pick-me-up that starts and ends every day. Besides, God’s too busy telling fat women and their ugly children that he loves them to worry about a sorry sonuvabitch like me. But come on: I called two winners out of thirteen matches this week, and Celtic drew in the Champions League. Two for thirteen. I’m so far in the hole I can smell my own ass. I need to sweep this weekend or I’m actually going to be in my own ass. Goddamn Hull went down hard yesterday, too. I can take the losing – it’s my natural state. But those sentimental losses, they’re taking years off my life. Tigers; Parkin. Parkin, I’m begging you – turn it around. Do if for your old pal, Baltimore.

The Case of the Bloody Ass

If you’re one of my ex-wives, you’re no doubt wondering where my alimony check has been. Listen, it’s not something I want to talk about at the dinner table, but I got hemorrhoids the size of kielbasa. That’s a pretty picture on a cold winter night, innit? I spent the last few weeks sleeping on my stomach and drinking standing up in the hopes that the south of Baltimore would right itself, but nothing seemed to work. I finally got around to talking to a doctor, or as close to a doctor as I’ll get – Doc Ettinger, one of the finer barkeeps you’ll ever encounter. Doc’s advice on the subject was to stay outside with my ass-end facing the North wind. “Freeze ´em up and chip ´em off, Baltimore,” the Doctor ordered.
I took him up on half his prescription. I stopped wearing longjohns, tried changing my pants every couple days, and basically stayed outside as much as possible. My ass has never been colder – but it is drier, and everything seems to have tightened up and gone back inside the hole like a good little groundhog. I’ll take another six weeks of winter if it means that “soupy” and “loopy” will no longer describe my nether regions. Standing at the bar just makes it easier to hit the falling down drunk part of my job description.