It's For You. God Calling.

Today's topic, as it often is, is God's ironic sense of humor. Readers of crankyjewishguy (CJG) will recall that a few days ago he wrote about Josh Hamilton of the Texas Rangers who told reporters after Game 6 of the World Series that God told him he would hit a home run in the top of the tenth inning to give Texas the lead. CJG noted that what God neglected to tell Hamilton is that in the bottom of the eleventh he was going to have the Cardinals David Freese hit a walk off home run for the win, rendering Hamilton's homer an exercise in futility.

A young Josh Hamilton with
 his hitting instructor.

Today's "God is ironic" news comes from Marshalltown, Iowa where, last night, Michelle Bachmann told an enraptured audience passing around poisonous snakes that God, presumably the same one that fixes baseball games, was "calling" her to run for President. Now, CJG admits that's a hard call not to answer. When the phone rings and it's God, you take the call. But, again, God's ironic side is very much in evidence here because what he apparently neglected to tell Ms. Bachmann is that he also created 300 million Americans more qualified than she is for the job, including many of her GOP opponents and the fourteen-year old Metal Head in your family room who has been playing Wizards and Warlocks on the flat screen TV twenty hours a day for last six years.

Whenever CJG hears people say "God told me..." or "God called me..." he wonders, in the first instance, how anyone could be so presumptuous to think God would take time from his busy schedule to call them directly when Twitter and Facebook are readily available, and, in the second instance, that this person needs to call Verizon and get a cell phone plan with more free minutes. Look, if God were really speaking or calling people directly, surely he would have called CJG by now and revealed the meaning of life or given him some winning lottery ticket numbers.

Anyway, God is telling CJG it's time to go pick up his son at school so he has to sign off now. Oh, never mind, that was Mrs. CJG, not the voice of God. They sure do sound alike though.

P.S. Breaking news on another subject CJG cares deeply about, Linday Lohan. It seems Lindsay is going back to jail, not even stopping at "GO," for violating the terms of her probation. Honestly, what is this woman's problem?

Two Jews and God Can't Save Texas's Bacon in World Series

Thirteen Jews appeared in Major League baseball games this past season according to Jewish Baseball News ("News and Stats on Jews with Bats"). Some are household names such as Ryan Braun of the Brewers (who barely missed winning the National League batting championship this season with a .322 average) and Kevin Youkilis of the Red Sox, and some just had the proverbial cup of coffee, or as we Jews like to say, bowl of borscht, in the majors. Oddly, none of of the thirteen plays for the Tribe (for non-baseball fans, that's the Cleveland Indians). But two, Ian Kinsler and Scott Feldman, both star players, are on The Texas Rangers who, twice last night, in the bottom of the 9th and 10th innings, were one strike away from their first-ever World Series championship only to let it slip away when David Freese homered in the bottom of the 11th.

Scott Feldman

Ian Kinsler

Freese, it should be noted, is not Jewish. Now, normally crankyjewishguy (CJG) wouldn't point this out, but when he was interviewed on the field immediately after his series-tying home run (and it should be noted that it was Freese, a local St. Louis boy, who also had the triple that drove in two runs trying the game in the bottom of the 9th), he didn't thank God, thank God, he just seemed like an excited kid on whom fortune had smiled. Now, for the purposes of this blog post let's keep in mind that Freese's team actually won the game.

By contrast, Josh Hamilton's team, the Rangers, lost the game, despite a two-run home run Hamilton launched into the seats in the top of the 10th inning. In his post-game interview Hamilton had this to say: "The Lord told me it was going to happen before it happened. You hadn't hit a home run in a while. You're about to right now." The Lord must have a great but ironic sense of humor, though, because he (or she) apparently didn't see fit to also tell Hamilton that it wasn't going to matter.

So, where does this leave Kinsler and Feldman? CJG isn't really sure but he does know it leaves the Rangers eight men short of a minyan.