Hot on the heels of one too-strange-to-be-fake story, it at first appeared that UmpBump had stumbled onto another:

From: Coley

To: UmpBump Staff

Re: Teixeira likes Sci Fi

So, I’m currently writing a blurb about the Phoenix Comicon for the Arizona Daily Star, and I noticed the following graph on the Comicon’s website:

“This year the support from guests and the reaction from fans has blown us away. We’ve got Jeph Loeb and Ed McGuinness coming out. David Finch, Arthur Suydam, and Matt Wagner. Plus Michael Golden, Mark Texeira, and so many more.”

Mark Teixeira is going to Comicon. And now I need to go. I wonder if he’s into furries?

It was a legit question. After all, if he wasn’t there to yiff, what would the star first baseman be doing at a Phoenix-area gathering of comic book collectors, Trekkies, and Star Wars aficionados?

I felt like a putz for not recognizing the names of the other luminaries in attendance. Not a LeVar Burton or a DeForest Kelley in the bunch! But just as I was starting to doubt my fanhood—and just as we were starting to get some really interesting confessions from Paul—it all came crashing down to earth.

From: Coley

To: UmpBump Staff

Re: RE: Teixeira likes Sci Fi

Sadly, I jumped the gun again. Mark Texeira, the comic book creator, will be at the Phoenix Comicon. Mark Teixeira the baseball player will not.

D’oh.

So remember, baseball fans, no matter what you read on other, less eagle-eyed baseball blogs: Mark Teixeira will NOT be at the Phoenix Comicon.

Of course, that doesn’t mean he’s not a furvert.

Today is “Patriots Friday” here at my workplace, a typical, cubicle-filled affair in an office park not too far from Boston. “Wear your Patriots gear to work this Friday!” commanded the HR folks in their ever-sunny way, “Show your support! Go Pats!”

I complied, of course, and am sitting here in my Tedy Bruschi jersey. Outwardly, I am in every way the loyal Patriots fan.

Secretly, though, it is all an act.

Yes, 17-0 is, in local parlance, wicked awesome. Yes, I’m very happy to be in the AFC Championship game for the fifth time in seven years. Yes, all those flashy offensive records are pretty cool.

But inside, I am as an empty husk. Inside, I yearn only for one game, and it is not the Super Bowl. No.

It is Opening Day.

Under this football jersey, I wear the tee-shirt of my Red Sox of Boston. Invisible beneath the 54 is another number: 58. Hidden behind the block letters B-R-U-S-C-H-I, I wear the name of another man: P-A-P-E-L-B-O-N.

For the baseball fan, late January is always a time of quiet desperation. The hot stove season is largely over, yet even Truck Day seems hopelessly far away. One begins to wonder, in the long, dark nights, whether pitchers and catchers will ever report. Just as people with seasonal affective disorder require an expensive sun-lamp to get them through the short, dreary days, baseball fans need some sort of sound machine to pipe the crack of the bat and the pop of the mitt into the silent, midwinter air.

Baseball fans, I do not have such a machine. But I do have the baseball photos of the Library of Congress, conveniently archived on Flickr.

Peace be with you.