i’m the guy who shut off the baseball game last night.

before i begin i would like to thank the good people at tonypierce.com for allowing me this opportunity to explain myself, tell you how sorry i am, and beg forgiveness from you.

i have never been a bright individual. my parents were dullards, my schooling was subpar, and i ate a lot of paint chippings from my grandfather’s barn.

still do.

i dont what the hell im doing, and i never did.

but i love baseball, the history, the tradition, the pagentry, the rivalries.

you might forget, but i was the one who thought up Interleague Play and implemented it, despite public opinoin, and history, and tradi… but you love it. you know you do.

im the one that got all these immigrants to play here. guys like ichiro whose voice youve never heard. and those cuban brothers. and john rocker.

michael jordan quit basketball because he wanted to play baseball.

michael fucking jordan, people.

so go ahead and boo me, ingrates.

i didnt even know you cared about the all star game. i dont remember too many of you voting.

but suddenly you care about it, infact, you even care very much about who wins. and why is that? because of me, thats who.

in 1994 i canceled the world series. i wasnt even technically the commisioner at that point, but i made you care passionately about it.

absence makes the heart grow fonder, and by taking the world series away from you because we owners disagreed with the players union, poof, you loved and subsequently missed the october classic. genius, if i do say so myself.

sure the judge ruled in favor of the union when we went to court, and said i was totally wrong, but im not wrong when i say you will never forget that lost world series.

you’re welcome.

but i have one question for you, the year before i yanked the world series away, the average attendence was 31,612 a game. if you missed baseball so much during the strike why arent you proving it by coming back to the game?

ive juiced up the ball, ive let people use steriods, ive let steinbrenner cheat so that you can hate him. just for you, america.

all these home runs people are hitting nowadays, you didnt see anything like that before i showed up.

guys have hit 50 or more home runs in a season 34 times in the history of baseball, 18 times players hit over 50 in the 8 years that ive been around. so blow me.

since ive been around you’ve seen a ton of new baseball stadiums.

i was the one who said that fans would like new ball parks and they would really like new ball parks that look like old ones. a lot like the acid washed jeans i see all the kids wearing today.

i can’t believe that the cubs havent torn down wrigley or the red sox havent demolished fenway so they could build a brand new replica impoved with sky boxes, swimming pools, and ELECTRIC scoreboards, hello, we have electricity now. but whatever. what do they know?

i know theres no real Monday Night Baseball on ABC in primetime any more, and theres no saturday afternoon doubleheaders on NBC, but theres bobbleheads now. bobbleheads! when you think of bobbleheads you really should be thinking of me, because i made you fall back in love with them.

and God have i made you love that gambling fool Pete Rose. you people used to boo him as a player, but every year when we put people in the Hall of Fame, there you people go on and on about how he got more hits than anyone whoever picked up a bat.

you know who has a lot of hits?

me.

and last year was my best year. the mariners got more wins than any other team in baseball, it was a great world series with a very new team playing the bronx bombers, seven games, bottom of the ninth drama. what, are you going to give all the credit to byung-hung kim? come on, now.

yes, one of the baseball parks last year was called Enron Field, and the owner of the twins loans me money from his bank, and we owners lost our collusion case a few years back, and we probably lied to the senate committe when they asked us how much money we make.

but if it werent for me, america, you’d never really realise how much you love this game.

theres no lightness without the dark, no pleasure without pain, no love without hate.

boo me, baseball fans, it wont be the last time i ignore you.

anyway, sorry about last night, i should have had ichiro tell you to get the hell out of my daughter’s stadium instead of the faceless public address announcer.

i promise the next time i prematurely end a night’s festivities i’ll pick a more familiar face for you to throw things at.

listening: the super mellow new beck watching: weezer with the muppets

oh, hi crazy italian bull.

hi. yeah, im not italian, im spanish. basque, actually.

oh, hola, senior.

yeah hi. hows it going?

me? ive seen better days.

yeah, me too, im about to die.

all our days are numbered, bro.

oh i know that tony, but my number you could count on one hoof.

ouch, keemosabe. i dont know what to say.

yeah. uh huh. yeah.

so did you have a good time here on earth?

can’t complain.

meet some nice cows?

oh yeah, there were some good ones, some bad ones, you know.

actually, i dont know, whats a bad cow like?

stuck up. thinks shes all that. swats you away with her tail when you’re trying to get close.

you know what they say, if youre not getting said no to, youre not out there going for it.

yeah but some times, im just saying hi, and theyre all, moo. and im like fuck you, whore.

ok, well, maybe thats your problem. part of being a girl is the dance of them saying no. you cant be calling them names off of that first no.

well these are the stuck up ones, the heffers. dont they know who i am?

maybe they do, dude. maybe they know that you are a bullfighting bull and you wont be around for all that long and they dont wanna commit to that and just get their heart broken.

i know, trust me, i know. but they might be liking the regular bull and he might get sold before i get shipped out, or he might just keel over. there are no guarantees in life. you gotta live for the day.

true, true.

you know what i like though. and it’s the reason im talking to you right now.

yeah, whats that?

well, i do like your site, of course.

thanks.

but i dont think you know it, but we like this running of the bulls stuff. we like stomping on all these fucking hooligans. these pussy ass bitches that call themselves men. want some adrenaline? here’s 12 curved inches of it right up your ass. we know we’re going out in a few days, and it’s nice to get a few shots at these fuckers before we go. take a few down with us.

never thought of that.

yeah so quit sticking up for us so much. we dont need your help, helper.

got it.

and keep chasing that anna chick. enrique aint got shit on you, partner.

play on, player.

digging: tomorrow’s baseball strike

and this magazine interviewed me yesterday around midnight when i was in the middle of doing a photo essay on the all star game. the interview went on for so long that i couldn’t really concentrate on the work at hand and the proof is in the pudding. please accept my apologies.

here’s excerpts of the interview which will be published in OCTOBER! in the beautifully romantic Dutch language.

What’s your middle name?

That’s a weird first question.

Are you ashamed of it?

No, it’s Hugh. I think it’s a cool middle name. It’s no Maximillion, but I like it.

Tony Hugh Pierce?

No, if you’re going to use the middle name, i think you have to use the formal first name and the suffix, Anthony Hugh Pierce III.

How do you like being an Internet pioneer?

Well, the money sure is good.

Do you make a lot of money from your site?

No. It was a joke.

What are the top ten web sites do you read?

Welch, Layne, Collins, Beam, Smith, Brown, Bukakke, Vaine, Sullivan, Sullivan, and Rabbit. I know that’s more than ten, but Rabbit doesn’t update much, neither does Amy. not enough, at least.

What do you like most about those sites?

‘Cuz sometimes they write about me. just kidding, actually because they write great and i like their topics.

Who do you wish had blogs or journals?

People you wouldnt know. friends of mine like Jeff Whalen, Stacy Sullivan, Genevieve Field, Charlie and Bonnie, Jeanine, Karisa, Morgan, Coulter. all these people have great stories to tell and i think it would be cool to read them every freaking day.

You are a bachelor, what web girl would you like to have on your date?

I wouldn’t call her a web girl, but i think Moxie lives up to her name.

Have you approached her?

No, I don’t think i’m jewish enough and i dont think i drive the right car.

You’re Jewish?

Hi, Holland, my name is Tony, i’m a young Christian minister.

What type of car do you drive?

Depends on what i rent that weekend. Last weekend it was a Saturn.

You seem to have a crush on Anna Kournikova, why?

Even though I write about her, i really have very little interest in her. It’s all a joke. I do it because the readers seem to like her.

How much of your blog is fiction?

all of it.

Really?

no.

How much is true?

none of it. only very handsome rich white men could live the life that i portray on my blog. i’m none of those.

Why isn’t Ashley your girlfriend?

She’s too young. But I will tell you this. Of all the girls who ive dated in the last year, she understands me the most, she is into me the most, she understands our relationship the best, and she wants to be with me the most. i was with her on the 4th and when i dropped her off and she walked to her apartment i looked at her, her long blonde hair, her belly shirt, her new butterfly tattoo peaking out from her hip hugger jeans, i thought, what the hell are you doing man? dont let that girl walk away. but i did.

Why did you?

cuz im not selfish. she should be with boys her own age.

Do you smoke pot?

only when im in Amsterdam.

Have you ever been to Holland?

several times, i love it there.

Really?

Sure, what’s not to love? It’s more American than America.

Why do you write about sex so much on your web site?

I don’t think i write about it enough. i censor myself all the time. most of the biggest blogs around mostly talk about sad, terrible, horrible miserable news regarding liars, murderers, and less than appealing people. i would like to see more blogs that write about happy things and the pursuit of fun. then i would like to see them actually talk about the good times they had.

Why don’t people write about those “happy” things?

well it’s not easy, first of all. it’s so much easier to say, “oh, that george bush, what an ass, can you believe…” than, “this girl came over the other night and we banged so hard it was like two Mack trucks playing chicken.”

But you write those things and you’re quite popular.

Ah ha, i don’t write about those things. I hint a lot but i dont really write about it. And it’s sad because people shouldn’t feel ashamed to talk about the good times they have.

I’m sure you get a lot of hits when you write risque material?

No, i get mean letters, and people call me terrible names. These are the same women who watch Sex & the City, and put hundreds of pictures of themselves in sexy poses, but when a guy talks about dating in a frank manner and actually gets lucky now and then, suddenly he’s a manwhore who degrades women. it’s pathetic.

But i know people who have written you pleasant emails.

yes, i get them, but not because of one particular topic or entry. i totally love the nice emails, when people write them it’s to say that they are regular readers and they’re appreciative. they’re the reason i do this every day.

Don’t you do it for the attention?

not at all. i wish i hadn’t done all of this on tonypierce.com, i wish i would have had the foresight to call it sonnyilavista.com. i prefer anonymity. the main theme about my blog is that i am a normal person who doesn’t have a lot of physical or material things, im not terribly handsome or bright and all this good shit happens to me because im nice and i was blessed with great friendships.

What do you want to be when you grow up?

I doubt that i’ll ever grow up, but i would like to have a cable access talk show called “Bloggers.”

checking out: kitty bukakke’s unmentionables