There was a teaser on the very top of the front page of today's Seattle Post-Intelligencer that said Putz had given up a key home run yesterday for the Mariners. Seattle being an irony-deficient, guiltily white-bread town, tragically short of Italians, Irish, Jews, and Yiddish afficionados, nobody probably blinked an eye. Even my Gentile wife didn't get it, at first. Despite the first-level vulgar meaning of "putz" in Yiddish (see last link below) it basically, in common usage, means about the same thing as "shmendrick" (scroll down alphabetically, here, for the definition). OK? Good. Glad we've cleared that up.

Now, on to the story.

Seattle Mariners "closer," relief pitcher J.J. Putz, gave up a game-winning homer yesterday in Baltimore, the fourth round-tripper he's surrendered in his last six appearances.

Is J.J. Putz earning his $360,000 per year? I'd say not, at least lately.

And when your last name means what his does, you'd better make sure not to be living up to it. Not even close.

Posted by Matt Rosenberg at May 25, 2005 07:30 PM