All Of Us Are Idiots: A Changing Baseball Digest

As a general rule of thumb, we as a human race kind of suck.  We're idiots.  Note that I'm including myself in the sentence previous to this.  Why, just the other day, I was working on some Algebraic Number Theory, trying to figure out if there are an infinite number of real quadratic number fields with unique factorization.  The only answer I could come up with is Yes.  When asked to back it up, I ran to the nearest Dunkin' Donuts and jumped into the boiling fat machine.

Let's assume we agree on our cultural and lunatic idiocy.  I'm happy we've found some common ground.  "Mr. Jimmy," you say with an accent I can't quite decipher, "what's you being an idiot have to do with Baseball Digest?"

I'll tell you.  I got my new issue of Baseball Digest two days ago.  It used to be a magazine that was 5 1/2 inches wide and 7 1/2 inches high.  It's not published to those dimensions anymore.  Now, it's 8 inches wide and 10 1/2 inches high.  Can you imagine my surprise?  Seriously.  Can you imagine it?  Good.  Because never in a million years did I imagine this bastion of the publishing world would grow so exponentially in just two months.

"Is it fatter?" you ask me, a scarf covering your mouth, making it difficult for me to understand the inflexion in your voice and leading me to quietly wonder out loud if you're making fun of me.  "Yes," you say and I realize I didn't wonder very quietly.

The magazine is phatter, as in "stupid phat," meaning "how wonderful!"  But it is thinner than it used to be.  Imagine taking Al Roker, pre-tummy tuck, and stretching his 5 foot 9 inch frame, turning him into an 8 foot 6 inch man.  Yeah, he's thinner now.  But still as phat as ever.

You axe me, how does this make us idiots?

Because you need to go HERE and see a couple of the comments by its readers in reaction to The Big Change.  One person said he'd discontinue the subscription because he couldn't take it everywhere anymore like in the old days.  Where did he used to take the old Baseball Digest that he couldn't take any other magazine?  Did he stuff it down his pants and slip past TSA agents at international airports?  Did he bring it on dates and as the woman rambled on about how hard it is to find "the right guy these days," he'd hide the tiny magazine under the paper napkin on his lap and leaf through the chart on Number of Times Zack Greinke Threw Up Before Games In 2009? 

No.  With all due respect, the guy's an idiot.  "It's not the size of the magazine," Thomas Edison wrote back in 1921, "it's the quality of the content inside."

"Did he really write that?" you ask, standing with your hands on your hips, cloth napkin loosely hanging out of the middle two buttons of your Ralph Lauren Polo shirt.

I put my hands on my hips and look you straight in the eye.  "Yes," I say.  And when you ask me to prove it, I run away to the closest Dunkin' Donuts.  There's a vat of boiling fat waiting for a idiot like me to jump right in.