IN A WAY, WE ALL PLAYED FIRST BASE

Hat tip to Off Wing Opinion for plucking a couple gems from the Interweb: The first is BC Beat calling out Keith Hernandez for false-hipsterness during a Mets broadcast:

Instead of playing along with the joke, Hernandez attempted to assert his hipster cred. “I like Eddie Vedder,” he responded.

OK, maybe Hernandez is cooler than we thought. But Keith couldn’t leave it alone. “I like him when he’s solo more than…with the band.”

... what the hell has Vedder ever done solo? I’m a fan, and can’t think of anything. An “Eddie Vedder” search on Amazon.com revealed one Pearl Jam-less recording: Vedder did an album with a South African high school choir called Molo Sessions.

Let's not pick on Hernandez. His dilemma, his struggle, his pathos, is that of all guys:

A) trying to act cool to impress women;
B) thinking someone you dated or had an unrequited crush on a virtual lifetime ago is still interested.

We all do it. We all labour under the deep-down delusion that Christina Hall or Alison Migneault or whatever her name may be is waiting by the phone, when in all probability she's forgotten you, assuming she even knew your name in the first place.

Am I alone in thinking Hernandez has never gotten past his Seinfeld appearance and being unable to seal the deal with Elaine Benes? ("I'd keep an eye on the third-base coach, because I don't think he's wavin' you in.")

You have to move on, Keith. Yes, you were a baseball player, you won the MVP in '79, and you can do whatever you want -- and I say this with an unblemished record of staunch heterosexuality, Just For Men has helped you look not half-bad for 52 years old.

But it was only a TV show, and it was 14 years ago. Move on. Elaine has another show, on another network, and it's pretty much unwatchable.

Unless, of course, you were a horny but well-read teenage boy when Seinfeld began its run and fell in love with Elaine then and you're still pretty much a horny but well-read teenage boy today even though the Big 3-0 is fast approaching. So you're just grateful to see Julia Louis-Dreyfus back on TV, even if it's only till her show succumbs to the Seinfeld Curse some time between now and the middle of the next TV season.

You can't live in the past, Keith. Some of us are beyond saving, but as George Costanza once said, Live, dammit.

(Now, sorry for the overshare.)

Mr. Sager lives in Ottawa, Ontario, and through way too many hours devoted in front of the idiot box, would likely make a stellar contributor in any round-table discussion over the "Ten Hottest Women On Network Sitcoms Since 1985," especially if that round-table discussion is fortified by beers and spirits. Yes, Elaine Benes was hot, but how does she compare vis-à-vis Christine Sullivan from Night Court? Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.