Bryce Jordan, a catcher for the Lake Charles Barbe High School (La.) baseball team, set a fairly remarkable record this weekend. He was hit by a pitch for the 30th time this season, to set the all time record for a high school baseball player.
"Getting hit doesn't bother him," Jordan's Head Coach, Glenn Cecchini, said in an interview with USA Today that your intrepid On Fire correspondent found on Yahoo! Sports. "He's built like a Neanderthal, and he knows enough to turn away from the pitch."
The high school hit-by-pitch record has stood for 49 years, ever since Kenny Redding of Choctaw High (Okla.) was plunked 29 times in 1965. All of us here at On Fire are impressed and amazed by Jordan's accomplishment, and we want to give him our sincerest congratulations.
Cecchini has also impressed us with his mastery of the English language. "Built like a Neanderthal" is a wonderful way to describe someone.
The images that word conjures, the feelings it evokes, the pictures it paints – Neanderthal is a much more effective word than brick wall, refrigerator or rhinoceros, the three words that immediately come to your synonym-loving correspondent's mind when thinking of things one who is not hurt by hit pitches could be built like.
Also, right now your TV-loving On Fire correspondent cannot stop thinking about the Geico caveman commercials.
But we are glad that Jordan is smarter than a Neanderthal, judging from the fact that he knows enough to turn away from the pitch (no disrespect intended, if cavemen count among our loyal readers – from those Geico commercials I know how sensitive you guys are).
Ultimately, we at On Fire are jealous of you, Bryce Jordan.
Not only do you hold an awesome record, but also you get to be built like a Neanderthal. The only way that anyone would ever compare any of us here at On Fire with a Neanderthal is if one were referencing Zak Hudak's hair.
But going back to that whole awesome record thing, that is pretty cool. For one, it is a great fact about yourself to use while playing two truths and a lie.
Just imagine being able to say, "I am from Louisiana, I have a third nipple, and I hold the high school record for the most times being hit by a pitch in a single season."
Everyone would assume that you do not hold a record as awesome as that and would then be a little disturbed by the fact that you have a third nipple. But the joke is on them!
Let us take a quick timeout so that your often-misunderstood On Fire correspondent can be completely clear with his (or her) writers (and editors).
There is nothing wrong with having a third nipple. You were just born that way. It is a thing you cannot help about yourself, just like your blessed On Fire correspondent cannot help being devastatingly handsome and side-splittingly funny.
In fact, all of us here at On Fire think it would be pretty cool to have a third nipple. The fact of the matter is that lots of famous people have third nipples, which makes it ok for us regular people to have them too.
Mark Wahlberg has three nipples. Marky Mark, of Funky Bunch fame! Yes he has not been in a good movie in a while, but that is almost definitely because he is short and getting old (two things which we at On Fire do not approve of at all) and not because of the third nipple – we are almost positive of this.
Carrie Underwood had three nipples. We say had because she got it removed because she was embarrassed about it. If only she had read this column first, this tragedy might have been prevented.
We at On Fire always say that if our words can inspire just a single person, we have done something worthwhile with this dumb space-filling column.
To all you boys and girls out there with third nipples, keep them. They will come in handy when you play two truths and a lie.
And to be clear, the reason that we do not like Harry Styles is because we genuinely dislike him as a person, not because of his third nipple (or because we are macho and like to trash boy bands to prove it).
So anyway, mad respect to Bryce Jordan from all of us here at On Fire for his record setting season. And, for all our curious readers, our intern is still working on confirming whether or not she has a third nipple.
On Fire - 4/18/2014
If you had to have a third nipple, where would you want it? Email answers to bostdie@emory.edu.
