Cardinals 1, Pirates 0: In which I generously help a reader with his dissertation

Fun fact! One of the Cardinals' broadcasters called this "a very entertaining game." A non-exhaustive list of things that are more entertaining than this game was:

-Competitive croquet
-Speed 2: Cruise Control
-Hospital waiting rooms
-CNN
-Telemarketers
-Sidney Crosby press conferences

Etc. etc. etc.

Gerrit Cole went seven innings and allowed one run despite being visibly angry about the strike zone a lot of the time. And Travis Snider threw a strike to nail a runner at third. Other than that ... Well, let's just make a list of what happened.

-P- Second inning: Pirates put two runners on, but Snider grounds into a double play to end it.

-P- Third inning: Pirates load bases, but Andrew McCutchen somehow grounds into a double play to end it.

-P- Fifth inning: Clint Barmes walks. Gerrit Cole (who felt like one of the Pirates' better hitters today, but whatever, I know that's not a very rational thing to say) sacrifices him over for the second out, Jose Tabata strikes out to end it.

-P- Sixth inning: McCutchen doubles with one out. Pedro Alvarez flies out and Russell Martin, visibly having trouble running, grounds out to end it.

-P- Sixth inning: The Pirates remove Martin from the game, citing hamstring trouble.

-P- Seventh inning: The Pirates leave Ike Davis in the game to face Kevin Ziegrist. Davis flies out. Gaby Sanchez is probably in the john or something.

-P- Eighth inning: Carlos Martinez hits Starling Marte, then gives up a single to Jose Tabata. With runners on first and third and no outs, Marte TOOTBLANs himself in the face on a grounder. (UPDATE: Readers point out that Marte may have prevented a double play by getting into a rundown. That's still frustrating, but obviously, runners at first and second and one out is better than a runner on third with two outs, so that's not on Marte.)

-P- Eighth inning: Martinez throws a wild pitch and then intentionally walks McCutchen, loading the bases yet again. Alvarez looks at strike three and then up comes Chris Stewart, who also, predictably, strikes out.

-P- Ninth inning: Trevor Rosenthal destroys the first two batters he faces, and then Gaby Sanchez emerges from the john, the hinges of the stall door moaning lustily, the toilet paper trailing from his shoe, just in time to save the day against a righty throwing 98 MPH. Somehow, it doesn't work -- he strikes out, and the Pirates lose.

If this was "very entertaining" to you, then you're probably a fan of student-loan debt and the DMV and Colin Quinn and Hostel 2, and I don't like you.

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During the game, some guy on Twitter challenged me to finish his dissertation for him. It's about merchants during and immediately following the American Revolution. So you know what, I'm going to do it -- I'm going to crib the entire thing from Wikipedia. It's not like anyone here has anything better to do. This dude is so going to get a sweet adjunct gig somewhere.

So before the Revolutionary War, American merchants were British subjects, and they therefore were protected by the British navy. After the war, though, that was no longer the case, so the US Congress decided to just pay off pirates who might attack US ships. But it turned out to be money poorly spent, because these pirates were incredibly boring and couldn't find any enemy ships to steal from even when those ships sailed around them in circles, waving their red flags and leaning over the side to shout, "WE ARE CARRYING GOODS AND CURRENCY!"

And then Thomas Jefferson was all like, "A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring each other, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned, must not waste its evenings worrying about men not capable of taking that which is presented to them on a silver f***ing platter." And so then George Washington was all like, "You're so right. I'm going to, like, issue an executive order to get my face put on the quarter." And then there was the Monroe Doctrine or something, and then Jeff Bezos founded Amazon. And so the Pirates drifted out to sea, napping instead of plundering enemy ships, until they realized they could totally get better wifi connections if they came back home and lived with their parents. And so they did, and they discovered Archer and Law & Order reruns on Netflix, at which point everybody lived happily ever after, except for the pirates' parents, who were all like, "When are you going to get a job and get out of the house?" But Benjamin Bratt was just super dreamy, and making solid contact with fastballs just wasn't that glamorous anyway, so everybody was all like, "Whatever."