Johnny Inkslinger

Johnny Inkslinger - the so-called mythical accountant for equally mythical logsplitter Paul Bunyan - was one of my favorite heros as a child. Maybe it was because my Dad played the numbers too, but, I think it was much more than that.

Johnny was a Timekeeper. His name, Inkslinger, came from the logger word for camp clerk.

It is said Johnny invented figures and bookkeeping to replace the crude method by Bunyan for keeping accounts by notching trees. Supposedly Inkslinger invented Accounting also by connecting his newly invented pen to a barrel of ink with a rubber hose.

It was claimed that one year he saved 9 barrels of ink by simply not crossing the (t-s) nor dotting the ( i-s). But, the loggers were suspicious of him as they accused him of using a split pen to record the tobacco and socks they bought.

I share their suspicions even today- and believe the recently approved expanded use of instant replay into baseball is only one example of how pencil pushers - number crunchers - and inkslingers are spoiling what was indeed my favorite national pasttime - baseball.

I am here to assure you that few umpires have ever gone to Hell by blowing a ball and strike call while attempting to judge where the agate ended up in the vicinity of home plate.

 Similarly, there are no reports of umpire hanging - even in beloved Mudville - because an umpire closed one eye as he judged which side of the foul pole the baseball passed.

Folks, it is okay to make a mistake - maybe even three or four of them. Nobody has died as a result of failing to note that the foot of the second baseman was nowhere near the bag when he was allegedly turning a double-play.

Here is one guy who is convinced we have evolved into a nation where we fail to understand the Law of Diminishing Returns. We are hellbent on achieving zero tolerance for the word MAYBE.

It would be nice to think that the reasoning for doing so is spiritual. Perhaps that  is because in the cursory reading of my Bible over the years I cannot recall in the Gospels where Jesus is quoted as saying - ON THE OTHER HAND!

No, I do but jest. It is definitely not about religion - at least the type we grew up with.

It IS about this incessant quest to make everything numerically and mathmatically perfect, particularly if by doing so we can convert the result into the making of money - another religion altogether.

To the best of my (again) limited knowledge there is only one individual who can honestly lay claim to the character trait - Perfect - and his people killed him for it.

Does anybody truly believe that in this engorging emergence of cyberspace and miniscule manifestations that the calling of balls and strikes will not be eventually performed by machines despite all protestations to the contrary?

Come on folks!

Do not tell this old fart, who loves to reminisce about - and sometimes savor - the imperfect times in which he grew up, that you experienced baseball fans out there really did not enjoy watching Leo Durocher kicking dirt on the shoes of the men in blue!

I did not think so.

So let us not even venture to wonder if  Johnny Inkslinger actually existed or Paul Bunyan really scooped out the Great Lakes to supply Babe his Blue Ox with drinking water.

Instead, please join me in my Don Quixote quest for traditionalism.

If you choose not to do it for me - do it for Cervantes!