Local Headline Uses Pun, Terror to Grab Readers

We all saw it.  Well, except for me, the guy who just wrote the words “We all saw it.”

I was flipping between the Phillies game and the Orioles game between pitches, because of my inability to focus on a thing for a second and my natural inclination to push buttons that make machines do things.  I think it was during a particularly humiliating Mark Reynolds swinging strikeout, one of those ones where you’re like, “Geeze, I hope his spine’s okay…” when I noticed Twitter was exploding with “Oh no” and “Oh Cole…”

Assuming he had just given up a three-run home run or sacrificed all of his surmassed maturity people are talking about by sprinting into the outfield to high-pitch scream in Raul Ibanez’s face for not diving to trap a sinking liner, I searched desperately for the remote.  It escaped me.  Things are always doing that.  Remotes.  Forks.  Dogs.  People’s respect.

Anyway, by the time I got back to the Phils game, all of the infielders were standing around on the pitcher’s mound, like a falcon that had been stalking Cole all afternoon had finally made his move.  This was partially true.  Only the falcon’s name was “Middle-back stiffness.”

Naturally, I reacted as if I had just discovered a nuclear bomb timer ticking down in my tupperware cabinet.

“This was going so well!  This wasn’t supposed to happen!  I finally found the lid that matches up with this weirdly-shaped container!”

Tom McCarthy’s voice did little to quell my nerves.  In fact, as usual, it only furthered the enragement.

“Well, we don’t know what’s wrong with Cole, but we hope that he’s okay!” Tom stated quite jovially for a man who’d just watched one of our best players suddenly leave the game with a mysterious injury.  Tom seems to respond to most things on a baseball field as if they’re being told to him by a neighbor over a white picket fence as they’re both taking a break from lawnmowing and sipping sugar-free lemonade.

I woke up this morning to the Philly Inquirer’s attempt at humor, or mass panic, or whatever witchcraft they were up to with this headline:

Knot to worry about Hamels’ back in Phillies’ win over Marlins

Okay, so… don’t worry, right?  As in, ‘he’s fine, don’t worry about it?’

Or… wait.  Does it mean the knot in his back is something to worry about.  Or the knot is worrying about his back because… the knot… is also a Phillies fan.  Or.  No.  That’s stupid.  Hang on.  Is it a worrisome knot or are we not supposed to be worrying?  Well I’m certainly not going to give this guy the satisfaction of reading the article.  I’d rather spend the day trapped in my own personal hell then give this guy the sense of satisfaction knowing his tangled wordplay got me to read… read the…

Damn it.  Okay, he’s fine.