To close out a
previous topic, one drawback of the media proliferation is that I think I’ve already heard every possible Dick Cheney hunting accident joke there is, and it's only been a couple days.
The Trib’s Mike Downey yukked it up at the Veep’s expense with a string of gut-busting zingers
in his latest column, saying Ozzie Guillen didn’t want to go because he might’ve been shot, and making the same joke Scott McClellan made about wearing orange.
Getting past the one-liners, he reminds me of one of my greatest fears for a Sox player – a hunting accident. But not involving Jim Thome or Mark Buehrle, the two guys Downey mentions as avid hunters.
I’m particularly worried about Joe Crede.
One, because I’ve been exposed to plenty of Missouri hunting stories after living there for five years, and also because White Sox third basemen have a history of unfortunate accidents cutting their Chicago stays short.
Pete Ward was a terrific hitter for some of the great-but-forgotten Sox teams from the early ‘60s (
Cyril Morong takes a good look at them on the Chicago Sports Review’s site), hitting over .280 and 20 homers in each of his first two season on the South Side. Then he suffered whiplash from a car accident, back injuries followed, and his production declined dramatically.
Beltin’ Bill Melton led the league in homers in 1971 after turning 25, when he should’ve been entering his prime. Then he fell off a ladder trying to get his son off the roof, injured his back and stopped being the same player.
Robin Ventura had the most consistent success of any third baseman in the history of the franchise, but even he had that gruesome injury while sliding into home plate, when his leg went in two directions.
I’m sure Crede is an experienced hunter, but given the history of the hot corner, I’d classify the chances of somebody pulling a Cheney on him as “probable, bordering on likely.”
And while Downey got to the Cheney jokes too late, I don’t really have any new ones to add myself. Although I think it’d be a nice tip of the hat to a former White Sox to rename the pellet spray “
Dickshot.”