MLBeat

Suppose you attended a festive party over the weekend where people dressed up in their Halloween costumes. Suppose at the party you saw a Flava Flav, an Ali G, a Che Guevara, and a Raggedy Ann, in addition to the usual Halloween gaggle of pirates, French maids, and so on.

Now suppose you saw a Cory Lidle.

Would you laugh at that? That's the question I'd been putting to myself, dear readers, and every time I asked myself the answer came back unwaveringly: I would laugh pretty hard.

Although I've always thought of myself as a relatively wholesome and well-rounded citizen, I must admit that I would laugh at a well-executed Cory Lidle Halloween costume without any noticeable pangs of remorse. Blame my friends, blame my parents, blame the TV that helped my parents raise me, but that's just the way I seem to have turned out. Combine my apparent "moral flexibility" with what I've come to recognize as an annual inability to come up with thoughtful and clever Halloween costumes, and I decided, yessir, Cory Lidle would be my costume for Halloween '06.

Now. Is this the greatest joke ever told? Probably not. But I've seen a lot of moralizing over the past week, including from sources whose tastes I've come to know and love, regarding what makes a good Halloween costume and what crosses the line. Eventually it struck me that the consensus on dressing as Cory Lidle has been something approaching a hundred percent negative.

At which point said to myself, fuck that. A hundred percent? That rang awfully hollow for some reason. I decided I was sick of being told which subjects are taboo and which aren't. I want to live in a country where someone will make the Cory Lidle joke. Not everyone is going to laugh, but that's not the point. Ten percent might laugh. And that's a ten percent I wanted on my side.

One other factor bears mentioning. I have a tendency, as you may know, to develop an affinity for pitchers I identify with. I can't claim to have personally been a diehard fan of Cory Lidle before he died, but let's run down the list of what we do know about him:
1) Pitcher who relied on control, smarts and a big breaking curve to compensate for a lack of velocity? Check.
2) Pitcher who mixed stretches of brilliance with stretches of futility that arose from lapses in pitch location? Check.
3) The butt of many jokes for his love of ice cream and junk food, not to mention the accompanying pudgy-ish build? Check.
4) Occasionally shat upon by former teammates because he wasn't perceived as having the pack mentality of a McEwing-esque "team player?" Check.

That's right, if you traveled back a few years in time and talked to the former high school pitcher incarnation of myself, he could tell you in all truthfulness: I am Cory Lidle. So this costume would be at least partly a tribute. And really, the "costume as joke" and "costume as tribute" angles are not mutually exclusive; many of the best things in life were not intended to provide any one specific reaction. It was when I realized these things that the deal was truly sealed.

So I hoofed it to eBay and bought myself a readily available Yankees-edition Cory Lidle jersey t-shirt. Other standard baseball attire lingered in my closet from glory days of yore: pants, socks, pitching sleeves, belt. A trip to a handful of San Francisco storefronts yielded an old-school leather aviator's helmet and a large picture frame that could double as a window pane to hang around my neck. Some posterboard and cardboard, mixed with duct tape and elbow grease produced a makeshift airplane wing to hang like a sash to one side, complete with turbine engine and Yankees logo on the wing's end. (To incorporate an Icarus theme with tunic, sandals, and bow and arrow would have been a guaranteed winner, but it occurred to me too late to do the idea proper justice.) Total cost: about fifty bucks, not much more than the ready-made Peter Pan costume sold at the Halloween store on Haight Street.

For the sake of disclosure, the original idea actually came from a coworker whose lack of seriousness in the suggestion, combined with her general tendencies towards all things black humor, should have tipped me off as to the viability of the idea. Despite my own enthusiasm, every single friend I told of my plans either visibly or audibly winced. Nevertheless, I had won myself over, and I remained undeterred in a way that had many of my friends mystified.

Due to the constraints of the workweek schedule, my Halloween fell on Saturday 10/28, the night of the Galactic concert at the Fillmore. The same band had played the same venue at the same time last year, and when I had attended sans costume I'd felt a bit left out. I had vowed then and there not to make the same mistake this year. (My eventual costume last year was Klaus from The Life Aquatic: also part joke, part tribute.) My compatriots were impeccable renditions of a Viking, Che Guevara (wearing a t-shirt of himself), and Zinedine Zidane. The plan for going out post-show remained hazy, due at least in part to what I later learned to be uncertainty as to how my attire would be received.

But it wasn't until the cab ride en route to the Fillmore, when Zidane made yet another reference to protecting me via headbutt if someone tried to fight me, that my faith finally began to shake. He was starting to sound serious. Zidane had been probably my only unwavering supporter from the beginning, the only one who had laughed freely and instantly upon hearing the original idea.

"Do you really think anyone's going to cause trouble over my costume?"

His reply sounded reassuringly doubtful, except with the qualifier that I could run into someone particularly drunk or crazy. Pretty much an implied qualifier in San Francisco, no matter how you're dressed. I felt better.

He paused. "Or you could run into a family member, or someone who knew him."

My stomach sank. Those people would be completely justified in beating my ass on sight. I probably would even go so far as to help them do it, because meeting them would have made me feel terrible too. I wasn't setting out to hurt anyone's feelings, at least those who would justifiably have been hurt. I spent the rest of the cab ride trying to figure out how many friends Cory Lidle would have made during his two-year stint in Oakland, and how many of those would be at the Galactic show on this night. Probably none, I guessed with no conviction whatsoever.

Approaching the venue I decided, with a the help of a now-queasy stomach and some prodding from my fellow travelers, to jettison the makeshift airplane wing. It wasn't a hard decision, as the cord/sash was digging into my neck pretty relentlessly. My friends were more worried about its extra potential to offend. Plus I think with one wing you are only technically supposed to move about in wild and unpredictable arcs, depending on how true you want to remain to the spirit of the costume. So it worked out.

I also decided I would be keeping a tally of any positive versus negative feedback from any strangers who mentioned the Lidle costume to me unsolicited. The rules were particular for a reason: friends or acquaintances were more likely to take it easier on me, and mere overheard remarks weren't enough to divine a person's true reaction. Also, I can't read minds.

Almost immediately upon concocting this scoring system I had my first encounter, with an old Chinese man pushing a grocery cart down the sidewalk. He stopped and called out slowly: "Hey...did you win the...World Series?"

Ah, he's joking with me. I relaxed. "Ohh, no I didn't, and I'm very sad about it."

"Wait...is it Saint..Saint Louis in the World Series?"

"Yeah, Saint Louis won."

"Saint Louis is tied, two--"

"No, Saint Louis won. They won the Series yesterday."

"Oh." Pause. "So it's...3-3 then?"

"Huh?"

"It's 3-3 then?"

Huh? Oh, um, right. This is San Francisco after all. "Yep, 3-3."

He smiled, repeated "3...3" one more time, and resumed pushing his cart down the street. I concluded that, nervous as I may have been, this constituted neither a positive nor a negative review of the Cory Lidle costume, so the score remained 0-0.

At the gate, Fillmore security personnel quickly deprived me of my remaining extraneous prop, the empty window pane hung around my torso. The disbelieving look on the frisker's face was sufficiently embarassing, but it was more out of disbelief at my ridiculous appearance than it was due to any knowledge of the Lidle saga, and anyway he promised to hold it for me until I left so it was an even trade. Having arrived early, we sat down smack in the middle of the parquet floor up front, noticing quickly that only a quarter, maybe a third of all concertgoers had even bothered to dress up. Bad sign.

It was maybe five minutes before I felt the presence of a guy leaning over me from behind. "Hey man, I just want you to know I love your costume." I turned around and here was a guy dressed as the Dude, complete with bathrobe, fake goatee, sandals, sunglasses, and White Russian in hand. Thank god for the Dude. I couldn't contain my relief to hear this, and I let him know it: "I like yer style, Dude." Positives get on the board with an early 1-0 lead.

Later, as the opener got underway (Stanton Moore Trio, a nifty showcase for Galactic's ace drummer), I took a trip to the bar, where another guy paid me another mighty high compliment. Apparently he'd gone one year dressed as John Denver...also with a broken plane wing as an accessory. Say no more my friend, it's 2-0. Going by my original stated goal of ten percent, I would now have to suffer 18 consecutive setbacks to drop back down to par, so at this moment the curve had been broken and anything looked possible.

In the thirty-minute gap between the opener and the main act we stepped outside onto the streetcurb, where I encountered no resistance until going through security on the way back in, when an inebriated outgoing fan started loudly asking me a question I couldn't understand. I had to ask him three times to repeat the question before I realized my error, flipped up the left earflap of my aviator's hat, leaned over, and asked him one more time, to which I heard: "HAVE YOU GOTTEN ANY SHIT FOR THAT?" I shook my head no, which technically by the rules of my game was the correct answer. However, the way he asked the question suggested that he might have wanted to do some shit-giving of his own. I was in a charitable mood so I counted this as a negative, bringing the count to 2-1.

Zidane's girlfriend, arriving late from a play, joined us at about this point in the proceedings. A quick aside: Zidane, his girlfriend and I all hail from the same Southern hometown, where her dad holds the position of Scary Authority Figure. He's a great guy, don't get me wrong, I'm just saying he could probably have me killed with total impunity if he so desired. I've known this to be true since about high school or so. Anyway, she made no secret of her own doubts about the costume, but she happily informed me that she'd told her dad about it...and he thought it was hilarious. This was excellent news! I promptly declared a new rule: her dad's vote counts, and it counts double. I may not have properly explained the rationale for bending the rules here, but if you've read this far down then you might as well just trust me on this one. What have you got to lose? A comfortable 4-1.

Another setbreak, another trip outside for some much-needed fresh air. On the way back in, I was spotted by a cute girl with a drink in one hand and the other wrapped around some guy. She was what San Francisco folks might call a typical Marina girl: former sorority sister, just a touch too primped and made up, a touch too rich-looking for her surroundings. (Either that or she was dressed as one for Halloween.) She flung her arm at me to point in loud accusation: "Oh, THAT is not a funny costume!"

Fortunately, defeating a Marina girl in argument is as easy as convincing her that she may not be a member of the comfortable majority she imagines for herself. Without breaking my stride I turned around and held up six fingers: "That only makes the score 4-2!" Her face instantly scrunched up in frustration, and I knew my work here was done.

Skipping ahead to the exit from the show -- a break from confrontations was just the tonic needed to enjoy a spectacular second set and encore from Galactic -- I ran into my friend Hans, who was leaving with another friend (yes, you may call him Franz), a friendly sort who did not hesitate to heap praise upon me for the costume idea, combined with the flawless execution. That made it 5-2, though I must note that Hans himself conspicuously did not venture an opinion. I'll have to get clarification from him on that later.

Unrelated logistical concerns quickly limited our aftershow plans to a relaxed evening spent in our backyard, free at last from the relentless eye of society. But undaunted, I kept the costume on for one last late-night venture around the block, spent in a vain attempt to find an open corner store at three in the morning.

I only made it half a block before being greeted with a "Hey, I like your costume!" I'll be honest, I don't think there was much else to this interaction, and I don't really remember anything about the guy. But I'll be damned if it didn't happen, and now I was just running up the score Spurrier-style, 6-2.

Lastly, but not leastly, two drunk girls walking down Valencia Street about five minutes later, the last people I met that night. A prototypical pair of girls retreating from a night out on the town: one blonde a little bit more hammered, the other a slightly overprotective friend. We were still about ten feet apart when Blonde Hammered Girl stopped and pointed accusingly: "BOOO! YANKEES SUCK!" At this I could do nothing but laugh, then patiently explain that I too hated the Yankees, but that this costume was supposed to be a specific Yankee who had died in a tragic plane crash that had been all over the news. At which point -- to my surprise -- she cheered and gave me a full-body embrace. "For David Little," she proclaimed. Good enough for me. Final score, 7-2, vindication attained.

[Thanks again to Deadspin for the link.]

// posted by taylor @ 2:35 PM