Until yesterday, June 8th was known nationally as "The Monkey's Birthday," but after yesterday it will forever be known as "Strasmus"—and a happy Strasmus it was.For those of you unfamiliar with such things, Strasmus was the major league debut of much-ballyhooed Washington Nationals pitcher Stephen Strasburg. For those us who sat in near-empty stadiums watching back-to-back 100+ loss seasons while stumblebums I'm too polite to mention by name made you despair of ever
seeing professional baseball in the nation's capital again, Strasmus was the first day of Spring after five years of nuclear winter."Anything different would be good," said Phil Connor after reliving three thousand consecutive Groundhog Days. And different it was. Fourteen strikeouts in seven innings, including the last seven batters in a row, no walks, and a 5-2 win. Bang zoom go the fireworks, a curly W is in the books!
That Strasburg not only lived up to the hype but exceeded it is regarded in these parts as nothing short of the Second Coming.We'll soon be returning to the blessed business of writing about movie history, but we here at the Monkey wanted to take a moment to celebrate the truly important things in life. Amen.
