My Brother Just Murdered My Ego. It Was a Death Most Violent.

So, thanks to an enormous MySpace cult at KWQC, I decided I would jump on the bandwagon. As of this afternoon, I had three friends: Jules from work, the MySpace Guy, and Pam from The Office. So, the co-worker, the friend-whore on everybody's list, and a fictional character from a TV sitcom. That's just sad. I looked to alleviate my measely inner circle by leeching off a young man whose social adventures are that of legend: my brother. So, I punched in his e-mail address and hunted him down.

At first I was quite delighted to find that Andrew's profile picture was the now legendary "Pelican Picture" shot by yours truly. But then I scrolled down to his friend window.

You see... it's not just the number. I mean it is. The number's ridiculous. 134. Not counting my pending friendship (approve me ass). But it's also the... well... it should come as now surprise...

Beautiful

Women

Everywhere

Quantity AND quality.

Now, I knew my brother was friends with a lot of attractive girls. We had quite the harem about the homestead on Thanksgiving weekend before he left. Much as I can appreciate the charms of the "old-schoolers" who've been regulars at the Rockwell home since high school -- the Briannes and the Mels and the Lindsays -- never could I have imagined the magnitude of my brother's magnetism. It's truly a national phenomenon, reaching far beyond the tiny burg of the QC.

I don't want to give people the wrong impression. My brother is truly tired of the lothario label that was stamped on his forehead in his younger days, and he will probably try to kill me (with his bare hands (because he can)) for publicizing my reaction. So let me be clear; I'm not impressed by his friend list in some sort of frat brother, bedpost-notching, drunk high-five sort of way. I'm impressed because I've dated five people in my life and none of them speak to me anymore (ok one would like to, but she's crazy). My brother's dated... many more than that... and I wouldn't be surprised if every one of them is on that list! And all of them still have a genuine love for him.

Hmm. When I look at it that way, it's hard to be jealous. The more love sent his way, the better.

Let me see what I can do to boost that number.

Baseball With Nobody to Call

I cannot properly convey the tremendous uplift I get each spring with the return of the baseball season. Since I retired from sleds and snowball fights, the winter months have been particularly difficult to manage. I get by with new episodes of my favorite television shows and football on Sundays, but there are some days when there’s just nothing interesting going on. All of that changes on opening day, when I no longer have to scour my schedule with a microscope to find a reason to get up in the morning. If it’s spring or summer, there’s a good chance the Cubs are playing. If they happen to be on an off-day, I just turn my attention to the Cordova Confederacy Fantasy League and the odds are good I’ll have somebody to root for or against. But with each euphoria I relish during these next six months, an unfortunate anti-climax will follow close on its heels.

This Monday’s Cubs game against the Florida Marlins is a perfect example. Carlos Zambrano was his usual mercurial self on the hill, alternating between unpredictable flamethrower and off-speed magician. Though the performance was far from the majesty of a Greg Maddux, Big Z proved unhitable save two home runs. It was the type of performance my brother and I love to talk about. We easily could have spent a half hour on Zambrano’s first at-bat alone, a strike-out he punctuated by snapping his bat in half across his knee. This guy is batshit crazy and a watercooler GOD!

Sadly, for the majority of the 2006 season, the Rockwell watercooler diatribes will be tragically infrequent. The full weight of this missing link in my baseball zeitgeist struck me during the Cubs eighth inning rally against the Marlins. Down 3-0, the Marlins opened the door with a number of walks and base hits. Then, with the bases loaded, rising star Matt Murton stroked a liner into center that tied the game.

Any other year, I would have reached for my cell phone and hit speed-dial four: Andrew. We leave dozens, if not hundreds of messages for each other over the course of a baseball season. Brevity is the rule:

“Maddux, baby!”

“Big Z!”

“Murton’s a PIMP!”

Hours or days later, we’d break the voice message cycle and more fully digest the many tagline observations we’d accumulated since our last conversation.

Monday was a night filled with potential euphoric voice messages, but then the blunt reality hit me. I can’t even call my brother. That seems like a realization that would have hit me sooner, but it didn’t. My brother and I only spoke sporadically during the winter months even when he was home. But when baseball starts, we’re locked in a relentless back-and-forth. Only after Jacque Jones followed Matt Murton’s game-tying hit with a three-run blast did it finally strike me that our give-and-take, which is so essential to the baseball experience for me, will be sidelined longer than Prior or Wood.

On the morale roller coaster that has been my brother‘s deployment, I’ve reached a new nadir. Since I’ve started work I’ve shared maybe three or four conversations with my Andrew. I definitely got spoiled by unemployment and our near-daily Instant Message conversations. The big fantasy showdown I was so psyched for ended up on the anti-climactic note. Sure, it ended up being a route -- I beat Andrew 13-5 and threw him into a three-way tie in the cellar -- but my brother still would have had some angle from which to talk shit. He’d call it luck. He’d remind me he still knows more about baseball than I do. Something, anything to add some flavor to our contest. But alas, the week passed with not a word between us. Where’s the fun in that?

So, yes, baseball season is here, and I’m loving every minute of it. But like so many other things in The Longest Year, a very important piece will be missing.