Ruben Amaro Goes Back in Time Using Darren Daulton’s Time Machine

by Ryan (@petzrawr)

one

The GM twisted uncomfortably in the lawn chair in which he was sitting. He wasn’t happy to be here, and he was even less happy about the circumstances that brought him here but, as his predecessor taught him, desperate times called for desperate measures. The air hang heavy with the scent of Hawaiian Tropic Bronzer and stale High Life as the TV that was balanced precariously on top of a stack of milk carts blasted in the background. Somewhere from another room, the man The GM had come to see yelled “I found it! I found the fucker!” The GM grimaced; partly because he was hoping that this lunatic was full of shit and partly because he was pretty sure he sat in some mustard. This was an $800 Hawaiian shirt. Ruined. Fucking Daulton. (more…)

To read about the events leading up to this cataclysmic conclusion, here’s part 1 and part 2.

Let’s say I’m John Q. Metaphysicist.

I’m probably younger, probably feeling lost, probably vulnerable to anything that resembles an answer.  I have a vague knowledge and understanding of my studies; the multiple dimensions, that everything is connected and what we see and experience is based on vibrations and light.

If my interest in the topic is genuine, and not just a dabble in a passing fad, what I need is somebody to sit me down and explain in a somewhat detailed and informative way the concepts with which I have allied myself.  Then and only then will I be truly aware of what’s up and be able to make a decision based my own accord.

Darren Daulton is not the man to be explaining metaphysics to anybody.

It’s not weird that there is a book about this stuff, Dutch.  It’s weird that you’re the one who wrote it.

If I came home from work and my goldfish was doing the dishes, I’d have some questions.  He’s not the one that does that.  I’m the one who does that.  He’s the one that swims in the bowl and fantasizes about killing me and himself.

I’m not saying people should pigeon-hole themselves into a single interest or profession, but when you clearly don’t know how to express what you are trying to say in a coherent way, you are not the one who should be literally writing the book on the topic.

If written by a physicist that you’d never heard of, this book may be of interest to you; at the very least, maybe you would pick it up and read the back in the book store while waiting for your kid to find his way out of the bathroom.

But here’s the kicker… Dutch actually says this himself.

• “I can certainly help you when it comes to baseball, but quantam physics is something I consciously only learned about a couple of years ago.”
• “I know you’re thinking how is this possible?  Well, don’t ask me I am just the messenger.”
• “There are others that have much more knowledge and wisdom that can explain it better but I will give it a shot.”

… that didn’t stop you from writing an entire book about it, though.  Hmmm.

It worried me that this last confession was only 42 pages into the book; meaning every reader who picked it up knew that the next 130 pages were written by someone who may not even know what the hell they’re talking about.

Which is so totally ironic, because Dutch complains (and complains and complains) about his haters; about how he feels sorry for them because they’re close-minded; how nobody wants to listen because they’re afraid; that people shouldn’t criticize if they don’t understand (He seems to be under the impression that knowing about criticism is the same thing as nullifying it).

But he just said that he doesn’t even really know what he’s saying.

And with that in mind, Dutch takes us on a ride through what he has learned via first person experiences and vigorous research:  The world is changing, and to change with it, you need to open your mind to the possibility that anyone is capable of astral travel and ascending into new planes of existence if they just give it a chance.

Yet, Dutch decorates the length of his masterpiece with writing gaffs, sporadic info, and repetition.  He relays dreams he’s had.  He claims his first draft was 500 pages, but this new one he managed to cut down to 20 pages; and its still 169.

There is a chapter entitled “Jacob’s Wrestling Match” that is not only just a page and a half long, but also, outside of the first three lines, taken completely from someone else’ website, verbatim.

“I can tell you for fact when most people, especially Christians, hear or see words like [Kundalini] it spooks them.”

Dutch, you can’t just go throwing  around the phrase “I can tell you for a fact…” because that prefix means that no matter what you say next, you have hard, indisputable evidence to back up what you’re about to say.  “Most people” is not a phrase you can say anything “for a fact” about, because it means nothing.  What do you mean, “most people”?  Most of the people you know?  Most of the people on Earth?  Most of the ’93 Phillies squad?  What you just claimed is that there’s some abstract number of people out there on whose thoughts you have a constant and flawless grasp.

“Most people haven’t a clue about what DNA really is or what purpose it has in our bodies.”

Yeah, most people are ignorant idiots without instant access to Wikipedia.  Good call.  Also, scientists don’t exist.  Surprise, everybody!

“Check out all of the earthquakes, tornadoes and hurricanes, fires, floods, and more that are happening around the globe.  It’s not just happening here on earth, it’s on all of the planets.”

DARREN, OTHER PLANETS HAVE DIFFERENT ATMOSPHERES.  ELEMENTS.  DISTANCES.  TEMPERATURES.

“Have you ever seen the movie The Matrix?”

You can’t compare real life to fiction and expect a real idea to just fall out of your mouth.  The Matrix, Star Trek, The Exorcist, The Philadelphia Experiment, “Bewitched,” even Multiplicity with Michael Keaton gets a shout out within these pages.  This makes a book sound like its research was conducted on a lazy Sunday afternoon when somebody left the TV on TNT for 18 hours straight.  If you don’t want something to be treated as fiction, you probably shouldn’t compare it to fiction.

Look, you can badmouth Dutch all you want, but the fact is, he had the guts to go on TV and do something he knew would make thousands of people cringe and inquire as to the volume/frequency of his medications:  Say what he believed.  And that’s good.  No matter what he’s saying, there’s really no way around that being a good thing.  We’ve all got that right to do so.

What he does wrong is everything else. He’s not a talented writer, or philosopher, and if he wants to believe these things, great, but he’s hurting his cause by telling the world about it through a media outlet that is far from his strong suit.

He repeats himself, compares himself to Jesus, and openly admits to lacking knowledge of the very subject on which he was written a book.  This is not about Darren Daulton and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. This is about the same challenge any prophet, false or otherwise, is going to face:  Not everybody wants to change.  And they want to change even less when you can’t present your argument in a rational way.

Normally, I’d agree with you.  But I’m doing a thing here.  Darren Daulton, in honor of some recent appearances in the area, is getting the royal treatment here at TBOH.  This is Part 2 of my extended lead-in to reviewing his book, “If They Only Knew,” which deals primarily with his foray into metaphysics. It’s been… interesting.

Read Part 1 here.  Other than that, buckle up.

I was perusing shelves of sports books by former and current ESPN analysts who were desperate to cash in over-amped sports nostalgia for a paycheck when I realized:  Wait, I’m looking for Darren Daulton’s book…  I think I’m in the wrong section entirely.

It’s not like I expected to find it anywhere.  There was a pretty thin demographic for an aging ex-professional catcher’s thoughts on traveling between dimensions.  My theory had been that if Dutch’s masterpiece was to land somewhere, anywhere, in public, it would be in a book store in downtown Philly, where he’s culminated the majority of his heroism.

But no.  Just more Jayson Stark, leaning to his right, smiling with a baseball in his hand.  Way to go, Jayson.  You made it.

I didn’t feel like getting slapped around by shipping and handling and tracking numbers, so my theory had been to check out local retailers to see if anybody had the sack to carry the book.  No.  Tey didn’t.

Maybe a library?

Do people still use libraries?  Or are they like VCRs and 2010 Eagles playoff hopes?  Not that it mattered, because a quick internet search told me that the only library in America with a registered copy of “If They Only Knew” was in Wichita, Kansas.  For some reason.

It looked like Dutch was getting twenty of my dollars.  Round one to him.

The reviews online were not always pretty.  Somebody commented on his repeated usage of the phrase “I know you’re not gonna believe me, but…”

Darren, I believe that you believe it; I sat through your jaw-dropping interview on CSN in its entirety, remember?  When you go from professional athlete to self-proclaimed metaphysicist, that’s all you can really ask of me.

But I couldn’t really let other people’s mean spirited bias deflect my opinion in one way or another.  I will simply read the book, and not expose myself to any third party analysis beforehand.

Oh god.  There’s a website:  www.dutch2012.com

You aren’t going to make this easy, are you Dutch?  He leans on his theories about 2012 pretty heavily on the site, bringing it up in the welcome message, the “About” page, and twice in his email address alone (2012@dutch2012.com).  Visually, you feel like you’re looking at a planetarium shortly before a lecture attended by only three other people.  In this lonely corner of the internet, Dutch is the king; your counterbalancing of his radical new interests with his contributions to Philadelphia baseball noisily derailed the further on you read.

He also refers to computers as “cyber machines.”

Despite people on the internet, my better judgment, a general disinterest in 2012 theories, the hope-shattering message of “A new copy is not available from Barnes & Noble.com at this time,”and an accidental almost-purchase of “If They Only Knew” by ex-pro wrestler Chyna, I bought it.

My first idea in actually reading “If They Only Knew” was to devise some sort of “WTF?!-ometer,” in that I could refer to the device every time I thought something  was strange, out of place, inappropriate, or batshit insane.

It’s not contemptible, I thought.  It’s not just making the same joke with different words.  It’s not just relentlessly cutting a man down for the sake of a cheap laugh.

It is those things, though.  It totally and meaninglessly is.

So what’s going to happen here, before I’ve even read the book and can officially have an opinion on it, is a play-by-play.  I’m going to tell you what I’m looking at in all truthfulness, and let the final decision go to you.  Because the easy route to take would be to sit in this chair and come up with all the snarky little bitchings about this book that are already filling cyberspace.

In that spirit:

What I’m looking at on my desk, miraculously only a mere two days after I ordered it, is a book.  In the cover’s foreground sits our boy Dutch, either crouched in a stretching position or sitting on a very low bench intended for children.  His hair is front and center, soaked in sunshine, and he’s smiling; Curt Schilling’s probably just shoved a pie in Chris Wheeler’s face just out frame or something.  His sunglasses give off the sense that he’s snuck into the park and ridden a sweet motorcycle around the bases the night before.

“DARREN DAULTON,” the text yells, followed by a harsh whispering of the title:  “If They Only Knew.”

We flip it over; instantly bombarded by what the photographer has told Dutch is an award-winning smile.  A blurb in the bottom left describes the book as “electrifying.”  Further below is the price, reminding you how much of your paltry paycheck you did indeed spend on this literature.

There’s not a lot else I can tell you without opening this thing.  Let’s begin.

Wow this thing is… quite poorly made.  One of the pages just came out when I turned it.

Here we go.