The dramatis personae of the following essay will cause historians to rate it as a tour de force or as a complete omnibus essay.  The dramatis personae include Levi Johnston, the Wasilla, Alaska stud who impregnated Sarah Palin’s daughter, and Sarah Palin’s husband who claims Eskimo ancestry in his parentage.  Moving in a southward direction, the next people to appear belong to a major league baseball club in New York called The Metropolitans or, in short form, the Mets.
Moving further southward, there is a golf course in Florida where it is alleged that one of the Mets southpaw pitchers made love to a woman who originally claimed rape and then, after an exchange of money, said it was all consensual.  Finally we move southward to the great country of Venezuela, where there are two pitchers who play for the New York Metropolitans.  One is a southpaw named Johan Santana and a right-handed closer named Francisco Rodriguez, better known as K-Rod.
I forgot to mention that in the progression through New York, living with K-Rod, there is an unmarried woman who is the mother of their  children.  Also residing in that house in New York is her father.  In the newspapers, he is referred to as the children’s grandfather or the father of K-Rod’s common-law wife.  I assume that by this time you are as confused as I am.  But let us not let that confusion interfere with the magnificent tale that I am about to unwind for you.
The story starts in Wasilla, Alaska wherein resides Levi Johnston, the stud who is credited with impregnating the daughter of the former governor and her husband.  Governor Palin’s husband participates in the annual dogsled race in Alaska and he is the gentleman who says that his ancestors include Eskimos.  I do not know enough about Eskimos to make a judgment in that case so I am willing to concede the point.  Whether he is to be called the grandfather of his daughter’s lovechild has not really been settled by the press associations.
In any event, a week or so ago Levi Johnston, the great American stud, announced that he was going to run for mayor of the great city of Wasilla, Alaska.  Significantly, this is precisely where Governor Palin’s political career began.
I am told that Levi expects a heavy turnout in the election by high school dropouts, of which he is one.  Presumably they would all vote for Levi.  Secondly, there may be a large number of studs who have impregnated Wasilla females.  I assume that Levi can count on their votes too.  Then there are those who, as Levi has done, posed nude for Playgirl Magazine.  I assume that Levi can count on their votes as well.  The other females with whom Levi has had dalliances also constitute another voting bloc.  So you can see that there is a large body of support for Levi’s political ambitions.  He may be aiming, once he attains the age of 35, to become one of Alaska’s senators.
So we started with Levi and, more importantly, Todd Palin, the husband of the former governor and the man who claims Eskimo ancestry.  So much for the Alaskan contingent of the dramatis personae.
Now we move to K-Rod, the Met’s Venzewalen closer.  As I told you, he is the father of two infant daughters, presented to him by his common law wife.  What this means is that, much as in the case of Levi Johnston, he has neglected to marry the mother of his children.  And, as I said earlier, residing in the same household is the so-called common-law wife’s father, who plays a pivotal part in this sordid story.
Last week, we found that the common-law wife’s father was brutally beaten by none other than the closing pitcher for the Mets, K-Rod.
The New York Mets announced earlier this week that K-Rod was placed on their suspended list, which means that he will not enjoy the income from his $11.5 million annual salary.
Apparently K-Rod has a short fuse because in his tenure with the Mets, which started only this spring, he has punched the bullpen coach in the nose, for which he was mildly reprimanded.  K-Rod is the closer for the New York Mets, which means that he pitches in tight ballgames in the ninth inning.  So I suspect that he is a high-strung sort of man.
There is a waiting room that is provided by the Mets for the wives and relatives of the ballplayers.  Late last week, it appears that K-Rod, the magnificent closer who really isn’t all that magnificent, confronted the father of his common-law wife outside that room.  There was a dispute followed by which K-Rod, the 28-year-old pitcher, proceeded to mangle the head and torso of the father, a fifty-plus year-old man, in a fistfight.  In the process, K-Rod tore the ligaments of his pitching hand.
When news of the attack on the father of the so-called common-law wife became known, the New York Mets suspended K-Rod for two games and then they found that the police were involved.  After the fight, apparently K-Rod had spent the night in a holding cell and the following morning he was charged by the authorities with three misdemeanors.  At that point, the New York Mets felt that the two-day suspension was not enough and they suspended his contract.  If they had the courage to do it, the Mets would like to void his contract, but that would take a tussle with the players’ union.
So K-Rod, as a result of his fight with the father of his common-law wife, has submitted to an operation on his pitching hand for torn ligaments.  The surgeons hope that his hand will be healed in time for spring training, which will take place starting in February of 2011.  In the meantime, K-Rod has announced that he would be willing to undergo anger management training.  But that did not impress the New York Mets management.  They disqualified him for the rest of the season.
So what we have here is a 28-year-old athlete beating up on a mid-fifty year-old gentleman, the result being that his common-law wife got a restraining order to lock him out of the house, which prevents him from seeing his daughters.
K-Rod would have been so much better off had he changed his way to becoming a lover as Levi Johnston has done.  He has a role model in his fellow Venezuelan, Senor Santana, who had an encounter with a female on a golf course.  As far as I know, golf courses are not lighted so that the encounter with the right-hander and the sweet female took place in darkness.  It is true that the woman claimed a rape and that after the lawyers became involved and money was exchanged, she loudly pronounced to the world that the sexual encounter was consensual.
The New York Mets did nothing about Senor Santana’s encounter on the golf course and his salary of something on the order of $17 million a year is still intact.  I am quite certain that K-Rod, now that he has had time to think about it, will agree that he should have become a lover rather than a fighter.  K-Rod has lost his income and he has been locked out of the house.  This is just punishment for beating up on an older person.  And on top of all of that, when he appeared at the Mets ball game, he was roundly booed.
I did not intend for this omnibus essay to be a moralistic one.  Obviously, it is not.  More than anything else, it might be called a political one.  I have told Levi Johnston about the events involving K-Rod.  In his campaign for Mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, Levi has taken my advice and has had campaign literature now being printed.  One of the pieces of literature is a bumper sticker.  It will not say that you should vote for Levi Johnston. PERIOD.
With the K-Rod fiasco in mind, Levi has asked his printer for bumper stickers that say, “Vote for me because I didn’t beat up on the Eskimo father of my lover from whom I am getting no love at all.”
I realize that this is very long to be read from a bumper sticker and will probably cause traffic accidents.  And I acknowledge that it would take an automobile with tremendous bumpers or a bus to accommodate this sticker.  But I believe that the launching of a new political career for Levi Johnston, the stud of Wasilla, Alaska, makes it worth the effort.
Now that K-Rod has been locked out of the house, he can move to Wasilla, Alaska and join the throngs that will cast votes for the honorable Levi Johnston in the coming elections.  All the appearances are that K-Rod will not be pitching in a major league ball game for awhile.  So he might as well use his talents on behalf of a fellow stud.  K-Rod being a Venezuelan, Levi can also hope for the Venezuelan vote in Wasilla, Alaska to be cast in his favor.  Do you think K-Rod or Levi would know the lyrics to “Happy Days Are Here Again”?
 
E. E. CARR
August 20, 2010
Essay 487
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Kevin’s commentary:
Why isn’t he “F-Rod”? I feel like I’m missing something.
Also, this essay describes an incredible clusterfuck which I am sad to have missed the first time around. How did I miss this?!
I look forward to reading essays from longer and longer ago, as they will contain similar incredible events of which I have little to no memory.