{"id":4268,"date":"2018-07-11T22:12:43","date_gmt":"2018-07-12T03:12:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.revolutionsf.com\/revblogs\/geekcurmudgeon\/?p=4268"},"modified":"2018-07-11T23:02:35","modified_gmt":"2018-07-12T04:02:35","slug":"astroball-by-way-of-lovecraft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.revolutionsf.com\/revblogs\/geekcurmudgeon\/2018\/07\/11\/astroball-by-way-of-lovecraft\/","title":{"rendered":"Astroball by way of Lovecraft"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/pbs.twimg.com\/media\/DhwYgS6VAAA10Eb.jpg\" width=\"789\" height=\"1200\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>I was very excited to get my copy of Ben Reiter\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.penguinrandomhouse.com\/books\/586547\/astroball-by-ben-reiter\/9780525576648\/\"><i>Astroball<\/i><\/a>, which chronicles the Astros rise from the being the worst team baseball to the best. After all, Reiter was the brain child behind the prophetic June 13, 2014 <em>Sports Illustrated<\/em> cover featuring the image of then-rookie George Springer and proclaiming \u201cYOUR 2017 WORLD SERIES CHAMPIONS\u201d. The previous three seasons, the Astros become the only team in MLB history to lose over 100 games seemed ludicrous. The Astros, of course, won the 2017 World Series with Springer honored as the series MVP.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com\/images\/I\/A15pGb6WBjL.jpg\" width=\"1914\" height=\"2560\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>I eagerly opened up the book and starred with amazement, disbelief, and shock at the epigraph.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: #181818\"><span style=\"font-family: Liberation Serif, serif\"><span style=\"font-size: medium\">The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.<br \/>\n<\/span><\/span><\/span><strong><span style=\"color: #181818\">\u2013 <\/span><span style=\"color: #181818\"><span style=\"font-family: Liberation Serif, serif\"><span style=\"font-size: medium\">H. P. Lovecraft, &#8220;<\/span><\/span><\/span><span style=\"color: #181818\"><span style=\"font-family: Liberation Serif, serif\"><span style=\"font-size: medium\"><i>Call of Cthulhu&#8221;<\/i><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"color: #181818\"><span style=\"font-family: Liberation Serif, serif\"><span style=\"font-size: medium\">Yes, <strong>THAT<\/strong> Lovecraft. The one whose seminal works inform much of modern horror and science fiction. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #181818\"><span style=\"font-family: Liberation Serif, serif\"><span style=\"font-size: medium\">That certainly was far from the first book that I\u2019ve read that offered an HPL quote but certainly my first such occurrence in a baseball history.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #181818\"><span style=\"font-family: Liberation Serif, serif\"><span style=\"font-size: medium\">Weird stuff.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div style=\"width: 744px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/pulpcovers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/Weird-Tales-February-1928.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/pulpcovers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/Weird-Tales-February-1928.jpg\" width=\"734\" height=\"1116\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-caption-text\"><em>Weird Tales<\/em> &#8211; February 1928 with the first publication of &#8220;The Call of Cthulhu&#8221; by H. P. Lovecraft<\/p><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"color: #181818\"><span style=\"font-family: Liberation Serif, serif\"><span style=\"font-size: medium\">The second quote was almost as surpring.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: #181818\">\u201c<span style=\"font-family: Liberation Serif, serif\"><span style=\"font-size: medium\">A mix isn\u2019t done \u2018til I feel it in my gut.\u201d<br \/>\n<\/span><\/span><\/span><strong><span style=\"color: #181818\">\u2013 <span style=\"font-family: Liberation Serif, serif\"><span style=\"font-size: medium\">Dr. Dre<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"color: #181818\"><span style=\"font-family: Liberation Serif, serif\"><span style=\"font-size: medium\">Both quotes are apropos to the subject.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #181818\"><span style=\"font-family: Liberation Serif, serif\"><span style=\"font-size: medium\"><i>Astroball d<\/i>efinitely moves to the top of to be read pile.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; I was very excited to get my copy of Ben Reiter\u2019s Astroball, which chronicles the Astros rise from the being the worst team baseball to the best. After all, Reiter was the brain child behind the prophetic June 13, &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.revolutionsf.com\/revblogs\/geekcurmudgeon\/2018\/07\/11\/astroball-by-way-of-lovecraft\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[247,4],"tags":[274,273,275,278,276,279,277,280],"class_list":["post-4268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-baseball","category-books","tag-astroball","tag-astros","tag-ben-reiter","tag-dr-dre","tag-h-p-lovecraft","tag-sports-illustrated","tag-the-call-of-cthulhu","tag-weird-tales"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v15.2.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.revolutionsf.com\/revblogs\/geekcurmudgeon\/2018\/07\/11\/astroball-by-way-of-lovecraft\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Astroball by way of Lovecraft - The Geek Curmudgeon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"&nbsp; I was very excited to get my copy of Ben Reiter\u2019s Astroball, which chronicles the Astros rise from the being the worst team baseball to the best. After all, Reiter was the brain child behind the prophetic June 13, &hellip; Continue reading &rarr;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.revolutionsf.com\/revblogs\/geekcurmudgeon\/2018\/07\/11\/astroball-by-way-of-lovecraft\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Geek Curmudgeon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-07-12T03:12:43+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2018-07-12T04:02:35+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/pbs.twimg.com\/media\/DhwYgS6VAAA10Eb.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@rickklaw\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\">\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"The Geek Curmudgeon\">\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\">\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\">\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.revolutionsf.com\/revblogs\/geekcurmudgeon\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.revolutionsf.com\/revblogs\/geekcurmudgeon\/\",\"name\":\"The Geek Curmudgeon\",\"description\":\"Where opinionated geek Rick Klaw expresses his views\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":\"https:\/\/www.revolutionsf.com\/revblogs\/geekcurmudgeon\/?s={search_term_string}\",\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.revolutionsf.com\/revblogs\/geekcurmudgeon\/2018\/07\/11\/astroball-by-way-of-lovecraft\/#primaryimage\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/pbs.twimg.com\/media\/DhwYgS6VAAA10Eb.jpg\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.revolutionsf.com\/revblogs\/geekcurmudgeon\/2018\/07\/11\/astroball-by-way-of-lovecraft\/#webpage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.revolutionsf.com\/revblogs\/geekcurmudgeon\/2018\/07\/11\/astroball-by-way-of-lovecraft\/\",\"name\":\"Astroball by way of Lovecraft - The Geek Curmudgeon\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.revolutionsf.com\/revblogs\/geekcurmudgeon\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.revolutionsf.com\/revblogs\/geekcurmudgeon\/2018\/07\/11\/astroball-by-way-of-lovecraft\/#primaryimage\"},\"datePublished\":\"2018-07-12T03:12:43+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2018-07-12T04:02:35+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.revolutionsf.com\/revblogs\/geekcurmudgeon\/#\/schema\/person\/5aff9b51d7f4ac07b16a90e522e59e87\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.revolutionsf.com\/revblogs\/geekcurmudgeon\/2018\/07\/11\/astroball-by-way-of-lovecraft\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.revolutionsf.com\/revblogs\/geekcurmudgeon\/#\/schema\/person\/5aff9b51d7f4ac07b16a90e522e59e87\",\"name\":\"The Geek Curmudgeon\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.revolutionsf.com\/revblogs\/geekcurmudgeon\/#personlogo\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/d8fef42bf3bfaecca46077e79bc05d3c47c12cd563bfc6f2de4e29467f85f832?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"The Geek Curmudgeon\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/rickklaw\"]}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revolutionsf.com\/revblogs\/geekcurmudgeon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revolutionsf.com\/revblogs\/geekcurmudgeon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revolutionsf.com\/revblogs\/geekcurmudgeon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revolutionsf.com\/revblogs\/geekcurmudgeon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revolutionsf.com\/revblogs\/geekcurmudgeon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4268"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.revolutionsf.com\/revblogs\/geekcurmudgeon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4268\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4273,"href":"https:\/\/www.revolutionsf.com\/revblogs\/geekcurmudgeon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4268\/revisions\/4273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revolutionsf.com\/revblogs\/geekcurmudgeon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revolutionsf.com\/revblogs\/geekcurmudgeon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revolutionsf.com\/revblogs\/geekcurmudgeon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}