This Crazy Goes to 11

Greg once asked why I wouldn't write a conference paper entitled: "Oprah Winfrey: Threat or Menace?"

Well, I may yet. In a move so goddamn silly it's hard to get a grip on it, Oprah apparently embarrassed the hell out of Jim Thome the other day on her show.

Here's the link, to another link.

And here's a story about Jim Thome:

He was supposed to be on a local radio show back when he played in Cleveland. This was in the 1990s sometime, after he had graduated from the Charlotte Knights, the Indians' farm club at the time, where he, Manny Ramirez, and old Red Sox washup Sam Horn had combined to hit somewhere in the vicinity of 400 trillion homers in a season and had brought Charlotte its first AAA championship. We're still talking about it, obviously.

Anyway, Thome had to cancel his radio appearance so he could do charity work. The radio hosts didn't know this, however, and they ripped on Thome for being a fat, overpaid, whiny, lazy athlete who didn't show up for his gigs.

Thome didn't call them out. In fact, he didn't even tell them why he missed the show. Instead, he called and asked if they would have him on the next day, which was Christmas Day. He was visiting sick children on Christmas Eve, which the radio people found out, and they felt really bad about busting his balls on the air, and so they said no, why don't you spend Christmas with your family instead of on the phone with us?

Thome did the radio show. And I'll bet those DJs will never assume again.

Jim Thome is almost enough of a stand-up guy to make me watch the White Sox. Not quite, but almost.

Oprah Winfrey has graduated from "quirky" to "scary crazy."