Big Mouth Strikes Again

Among the many reasons baseball is my favorite sport is one of its unwritten rules: ‘ thou shalt not show up the opposition.’ Pause to admire your ball going over the fence, or take an excessively slow trot around the bases, and you just might wind up on your ass the next time you come to bat.

I can think of several good reasons for this rule. First, I’m of the old school that believes that showboating is simply low-rent, and idiotic too. Your skills should speak for themselves i.e. in case you’re confused your homerun is impressive – not your homerun trot. Second, baseball is an exacting game played over a long season., so don’t become too pleased with yourself. You may be the hero on a given day, but inevitably over the course of the season you will come and short and fail.

I like that kind of ethic. I think it’s a good way to approach life. You have a particular talent? Wonderful – exploit that talent to it’s fullest – but exhibit some class along with it. You want to tell me how great you are? Knock yourself out – we both know life is exacting, and has plenty of ways of humbling a person.

In case you haven’t gotten the point by now, I dislike show-boaters and big-mouths. If you have the talent to back up your mouth you’ll get my grudging recognition – along with my pity for your obvious weakness and insecurity. We both know you’re good – so what are you trying to compensate for by calling attention to it? And if you can’t back it up, well the, you get my contempt. It can be highly annoying dealing with these kinds of people. But it can also be very satisfying. A case in point is the gentleman I’ll simply refer to as Bigmouth.

Bigmouth plays poker with us. Bigmouth would like us to believe he is practically a pro himself, and tries to convince us of this by affecting various mannerisms probably learned from watching various real professionals playing Texas Hold ‘Em on ESPN. He enjoys talking smack, and showing up other plays when he has the winning hand. Bigmouth combines the above characteristics with a simple lack of manners – splashing the pot, betting out of turn and the like. He is not, to the say least, well liked.

Most importantly of all, Bigmouth is not as good a player as he believes himself to be. Of the three times I’ve sat across the table from him, I’ve knocked him out of the game twice. I can honestly say I didn’t go looking to do that – a poker game is ‘business not personal’ and I’ll take a friend out just as quickly as someone who irks me.

But I can also honestly say I enjoyed every single moment of it. Smack talk, meet full house.