Is it harder to read James Joyce or Jim Joyce?

It's the day before Bloomsday and I'm getting ready by reading Ulysses where I last left off...last year.

You see, I've been reading the book for eleven years now. Slow and steady. Pausing to smell the roses. Reading it aloud and hearing the lilt of an Irish brogue. Mimicking it myself. And stopping when it got silly.


I'm getting the feeling more and more that the more I actually feel like reading Ulysses, the more I actually enjoy it.

No longer feeling obligated to trudge through this monumental masterpiece out of some self-imposed idea of earning my Irishness, I now freely enjoy it whenever I please.

Magically, that just so happens to be once a year. This time of year. Around June 16th. Or sometimes March 17th, I guess.

But what the hell does James Joyce's Ulysses have to do with baseball!!!???

I'm coming to that.

So, today I opened to page 383 of my Vintage International edition of Ulysses and started reading the first page of this new episode, The Oxen of the Sun. Then I started over. But then I stopped and started thinking of something else, so I started from the beginning again. I read the nearly full-page paragraph out loud, and silently in my head, to myself. Five or six times. Maybe more. A paragraph wrestling with itsef in an elevated vocabulary without relying on any punctuation.

Hard to read.

Which got me thinking about the man who wrote it and about the baseball umpire who shares the same name.


James Joyce....Jim Joyce



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Reife des Mannes: das heisst der Ernst wiedergefunden haben den man als Kind hatte, beim Spiel

Maturity of Manhood: that is, to have rediscovered the seriousness one had as a child, at play

Nietzsche 4:94
Beyond Good and Evil




* * *





After watching last night's Perfect Game, by Matt Cain, I hope all baseball fans are also immediatley reminded of not only this season's other perfect game, but one of the three that were thrown two years ago; especially the one that never was allowed to be.


Armando Galarraga, DETROIT: June 2, 2010

I think about that umpire, Jim Joyce, and what compelled him to call "safe" at that very moment -- the final moment -- fully aware of the magnitude of such an outcome. But obviously failing to fully appreciate the spirit of the game, in the most profound sense.

Maybe it's more complex than that. A petty, vain man opportunistically exploiting a chance to be in the spotlight (to transcend the invisible authoritarian role they trained you to play) and cynically, instantaneously, reactively reacting, according to an impulse? A deep-seeded impulse for self-promotion, or schadenfreude, or just the reactionary mechanism of another knee-jerk umpire trying to show somebody up?

Well, the majority of mlb players are of the opinion that Joyce is the best ump of them all. An anonymous poll of 100 players found 53 voting Joyce as the best umpire in baseball; far more than the runner-up, Tim McClelland, with 32 votes. Not that I ever attribute much significance to any kind of poll, it just makes the story even more interesting.

His tearful apologies to Galarraga afterwards had to be expected, though, especially given the absolute incorrectnes of the call. But still, it at least makes us question if umpires might actually also be humans after all.

Strong men also cry.


All I know is this: Jim Joyce continues to umpire as a crew chief in the major leagues, while Armando Galarraga is apparently no longer good enough to pitch for any major league team.

The Big L: "What does it mean to be a man, Mr. Lebowski?"
Dude: "Dude"
The Big L: "Huh?"
Dude: "Uggh. I don't know, sir"
The Big L: "Is it being prepared to do the right thing, whatever the cost. Isn't that what makes a man?"
Dude: "Hmmm...Sure, that and a pair of testicles."


I'm imagining the ways in which Galarraga's career would've changed if he'd been awarded his perfect game. He might still be pitching for the Tigers. A Detroit hero, the first Tiger to ever throw a perfect game.

Then I remember how Galarraga handled the whole thing. He brushed it off, saying "nobody's perfect."

Gotta admire that. Mainly because most of us would've been unable to contain our indignation in that situation; at least I know I would, even though I'm a reasonable dude. On the other hand, sure seemed like Galarraga displayed a disproportionate lack of cojones in his non-confrontational acceptance of the obviously terrible call.

Some will tell you he rolled over like a puppy, content with a belly scratch from the Commissioner's office. Others will talk about how Galarraga exemplified what it means "to be a man."

My response to the whole thing was like the sinking stomach effect you get from abrupt changes in gravity or whatever. It didn't feel natural. Neither the bad call nor Galarraga's reaction.


It's kind of frustrating as a fan, because Galarraga's also hard to read. I mean, he's out of a job now. And to be honest, it's not like he ever had the starting job locked down. He must've known this was as close as he'd ever get to greatness (no matter how temporary) or permanence (no matter how consistent). And yet he shrugged his shoulders like a Zen Buddhist at authority, or an older kid faced with the sudden but obvious ridiculousness of children playing his game. He wandered off into obscurity.


And so in speaking of obscurity, we arrive back at the book and this passage in Ulysses which is so obscure to me right now that I feel it best not to rush through it.

I'd rather just go play in the park.