I’m an engineer for the DoD. There’s a retired civilian in my office who’s now a contractor (call him OL, for Office Loudmouth). He’s not a bad guy, but he suffers from the very annoying trait of claiming to be sure about everything, whether he is or not. In the literature, this is known as Cliff Claven Syndrome (CCS), in which the patient lacks the enzyme that permits admission that one doesn’t know everything in the effing world!!!
This morning, OL and two other guys were talking about baseball. They were uncertain of the year Don Larsen pitched the only perfect game in World Series history. Except OL.
He explained why he knew it was either 1954 or 1955 – he recounted various rambling contemporaneous events, which, while colorful, did not change the fact that it happened in 1956.
I shouted the correct date over my cubicle, only to have him dispute it.
I reiterated, “No, it was 1956 – that was the year Mantle won the triple crown – he made that great catch of Gil Hodges’ drive, via Andy Carey, that likely saved the game for Larsen. Fifty Six!”
(Old baseball is one of the few subjects I claim extensive knowledge of. A kindly ex-1920s Yankee lived down the street when I was a kid, and sparked a lifelong interest in the early days of baseball in a lot of kids in the neighborhood with his porch chats).
The other two guys seemed convinced. But OL would have none of it.
“No, no – it couldn’t have been 1956 – that was the year of the big storm, and my grandmother had already had her bunion removed – you know they had wheat stalks on the backs of pennies then, don’t you? …”, and other such homilies.
Slightly hung over from a late night out, I walked over to him and asked with my hand extended, “Am I finally going to get some money out of you? It was 1956 – ten bucks – yes or no?”
After getting the other two guys to agree they were witnesses, and chalking “Shakespeare says 1956” in big black letters on my impossible-to-erase, government-issue dry-erase board, ten seconds typing “larsen AND ‘perfect game’” on google produced appropriate documentation.
OL was decent about it, and counted out a five and five ones.
As I gave them to Mandy, our puzzled secretary, for addition to the miscellaneous fund (for going-away luncheons, condolence flowers and the like), I explained that it was like punitive damages in court – I don’t want or need the money, "I just want him to shut up!"