Baseball!! by Kayode D. '27
a blog about baseball and internet games and embroidered hats and New Zealand Indie Rock.
Hello world! My name is Kayode Dada, and I am one of the seven new MIT Admissions Bloggers! I started writing a very sentimental, highly anticipated introduction blog, but that’s taking longer than expected. Every time I try to write it I get sad and miss home and put it off ‘til later. I will get around to introducing myself and Kentucky soon, so just imagine this blog came out after my next one or something. The elevator-pitch run-down of the intro blog is “Cambridge has no fields or horses or Walmarts and I wish that it did. Kentucky is small and I like it that way. I’m afraid of the Wolf of Wall Street.”
…
When freshmen first get to campus, they are technically not freshmen yet and are called “Prefrosh.” After the first day of classes, you become a freshman, but until then you are just a silly little baby that doesn’t know what to do.01 When I showed up on the first day of Blogger training, Mr Admissions messaged us and said, and I quote, If you’re a baby blogger just wander into the front door and mill around babylike and we will find you. We all went through orientation and REX week, where we alternated between lessons about the police on campus and resources available, and random events like playing underground capture the flag in the main campus building. We even built a giant wooden trojan duck and challenged east campus to a water fight.02 Which was utter chaos. People brought power tools to disassemble the duck, but overall it was very fun…until we had to push the carnage of our duck back across campus in the dark.
It was a fun time, and they even added a competition aspect to it. They split the class into 10 teams of approximately 100 kids, and for every mandatory event that we attended, our team could earn points. The team with the most points at the end of the week would win a big prize like an aquarium trip or something. In this year’s case, the prize was Red Sox tickets.
Well, ladies, and gentleman, I am proud to announce that our very own Red Team took home the dubski and won the Red Sox Tickets.03 LESSSS GOOO RED TEAM!!!!!!!!!1!11! Today, on September 23,04 I know, I know, it’s not even close to September 23. I got held up with midterms and only finished this post today. was the game, and I am currently writing it after the events.
Me when Baseball
Here is my honest review:
It was pretty aight. It rained, and it was cold, and my butt was wet. I think that they should invest in developing stadium seats that don’t perfectly pool water on them. I’m not talking about a perfect system, but someone could probably come up with a better way to make seats that don’t pool water and drench your butt.
The game was slow. No one scored until the top of the ninth, when the opposing White Sox hit a home run. I have no allegiance to the Red Sox, but winning is fun and I wanted to have fun. For the first time in the game, I paid full attention to what was happening, and the whole stadium cheered for the red sox as Enmanuel Valdez hit a single with only one out– we could still win! Then Bobby Dalbec struck out swinging (because the red sox can’t be too good), and Reese Mcguire stepped up to bat. When I say that we had no faith in this guy, we had 0 faith. But then he proceeded to hit the ball 4 times (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) and three of them were fouls, but the fourth time was a single!!!! WE”RE BACK BABY!
Then Rafeala struck out swinging. Mediocre gameplay, I was disappointed. McGuire was the mvp of the game, clutched up.
Perhaps I am being too unfair. I set my expectations too high. While I am not an avid baseball fan, I am05 or rather, I was an active fan of Blaseball, the ninth best game on the internet in 2020. Without going too deep into the lore, Blaseball is an internet horror06 I’m not entirely sure why the game is classified as this, there isn’t <i>really</i> any horror components in the game, if you ignore the incinerations and wild crow attacks game where computer generated baseball teams play simulated baseball games, but with a number of twists. There’s raining peanuts and gunbats and umpires who go rogue and kill people. The game is full of interesting characters and events, like Chorby Short, who got softlocked into hitting 2345 foul balls in a single season, or Kelvin Drumsolo, who spent four days as the only batter for the Core Mechanics. 07 Known as the Great Drumsolo, Kelvin was the only player for the team, and was forced to occupy bases and swing at the same time (don’t ask how). He broke many records during these games, hitting a cycle 3 times, 4 home runs in a single game, fifteen hits in a game, and batted in 22 runs in a single game. But what makes it truly special is the fans: fans who write TONS of lore, create amazing music and art, and feed the community to make blaseball seem like something more than just a game. Blaseball genuinely had a massive impact on me in high school, and I fully encourage anyone to look into it more, there’s a whole wiki page dedicated to it: https://www.blaseball.wiki/w/Main_Page. I kinda want to write a blog just talking about blaseball, but it would genuinely take a full book to begin to appreciate the complex lore and meaning that baseball has had to its fans and communities.
Now compare the beautiful chaos of blaseball to 8 innings of no hits in the rain at my first baseball game in 10 years. I thought that the red sox were like the best in the league, so I was a little disappointed. I bet I will eventually go to a more entertaining game in the future.
The food, on the other hand, was most excellent. My friends and I were especially excited for the “Fenway Franks,” which I initially mistook for Boston’s minor league team name. Turns out they were just regular hot dogs but they cost six dollars. Yet again, MIT came in clutch, paying for not only our tickets, but also giving each person 15 dollars for food. For a free hotdog, it was very good.
We could have also spent the money on the gift shops, but 15 dollars would have been a drop in the bucket compared to the Red Sox prices. TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS for a jersey. They did have an embroidered hat that I wanted to get that said “Green Monster Fenway Park,” but it was 40 dollars and I didn’t want to spend that much money. I do want to collect hats, though. I’ve had the same haircut since I was born, so hats are my way of self expression on my head. The Green Monster hat expresses that “I like the Boston Red Sox, but not enough to be proud of it. I just like the idea.”
But by far, the best part of the game was the goofy lil baseball songs that they played in between innings and at the end of the game. I tried my hardest to find them, but shazam and google humming have let me down yet again. Born too late to see the Red Sox be good, born too early to find the silly Red Sox Baseball song with a google search [sad emoji]…
BORN JUST IN TIME TO GO TO NEWBURY COMICS
NEWBURY COMICS!!
Newbury Comics is a phenomenal store. A few weeks ago I bought some new vans08 Green Comfycush Slip-ons that run small, apparently, but i’ve been wearing them in. for the school year and the store gave me a coupon for 25 dollars off a 75 dollar purchase. That’s like a third of a pair of shoes! (or 5 pairs of socks, whatever floats your boat). After the baseball game, me and my friends agreed to go to the Vans store on the walk back to campus to spend the coupon. However, we got sidetracked into a glorious place called Newbury Comics.
It was incredible. They literally had something for everyone there. There were comics (duh), t-shirts, posters, a wall of funko pops, and an entire floor of music. More records, cd’s and cassettes than I’ve ever seen in one room. What I was even more shocked by, however, was the selection of music that they had. It seemed like everywhere I turned, they had another record or CD for a band I loved but had never actually seen physical music for in a store. I found an Origami Angel record09 Didn't even know these existed! I love this album! , a MASSIVE selection of King Gizzard records, and even heard a girl exclaim “ Charlie Brown Great Pumpkin record10 One day soon you will understand why this was so exciting. !” and held it up in the air. I searched everywhere for it but couldn’t find it after her. Maybe it never existed to begin with.
I wasn’t planning on buying anything in particular, but then I found something I couldn’t pass up:
THE BETHS EXPERT IN A DYING FIELD DELUXE EDITION.
I Love The Beths. They’re an Indie Rock band from Auckland, New Zealand, and my current favorite band. I found their song, “Future Me Hates Me,” last fall and I’ve loved the band ever since. Every song is so well written and there’s so much raw emotion in it. I would compare the band to Hanif Abdurraqib’s description of Carly Rae Jepsen in his essay, Carly Rae Jepsen Loves You Back11 This is just an incredible essay. We read it for 21W.022, which is about writing autobiographies. I really connected to it, with my perception of The Beths at concerts and radio shows. The lead singer, Elizabeth Stokes, sings with such conviction and emotion and it almost seems like a different person from when she talks in interviews or between songs. It’s clear they just love to make music, and I would 100% recommend this band to anyone. Go listen to Expert In A Dying Field Deluxe Edition!
Anyways, I bought the record. I don’t even have a record player, but I knew I loved the band and I may never get a chance to buy this record again! The sticker on the record said that they only made 2000 records, and one of them was in my hands, so I had to buy it. I’m not sure what I’ll do with it yet, but my roommates and I may try to use Simmons money to buy a record player “for the lounge” so we can listen to the stuff we bought.
It also came with this sick poster that I’m gonna put on my dorm wall.
That’s all, I just wanted to post soon.
I.L.T.B.A.E.I.A.D.F.D.E.
- When I showed up on the first day of Blogger training, Mr Admissions messaged us and said, and I quote, If you’re a baby blogger just wander into the front door and mill around babylike and we will find you. back to text ↑
- Which was utter chaos. People brought power tools to disassemble the duck, but overall it was very fun…until we had to push the carnage of our duck back across campus in the dark. back to text ↑
- LESSSS GOOO RED TEAM!!!!!!!!!1!11! back to text ↑
- I know, I know, it’s not even close to September 23. I got held up with midterms and only finished this post today. back to text ↑
- or rather, I was back to text ↑
- I’m not entirely sure why the game is classified as this, there isn’t really any horror components in the game, if you ignore the incinerations and wild crow attacks back to text ↑
- Known as the Great Drumsolo, Kelvin was the only player for the team, and was forced to occupy bases and swing at the same time (don’t ask how). He broke many records during these games, hitting a cycle 3 times, 4 home runs in a single game, fifteen hits in a game, and batted in 22 runs in a single game. back to text ↑
- Green Comfycush Slip-ons that run small, apparently, but i’ve been wearing them in. back to text ↑
- Didn't even know these existed! I love this album! back to text ↑
- One day soon you will understand why this was so exciting. back to text ↑
- This is just an incredible essay. We read it for 21W.022, which is about writing autobiographies. I really connected to it, with my perception of The Beths at concerts and radio shows. back to text ↑