Yes Virginia, There is Still Baseball: Mets at Phillies Gamethread, September 21, 2013

The premise of the film Johnny Got His Gun is probably known to most people about my age (say, 26-32) from the music video for Metallica's "One," which basically just uses the movie as a cheap and easy way to make a video, but does it in a way that also kind of rules.

Anyway, the movie (and the novel of the same title) was written by the brilliant, prolific, and black-listed Dalton Trumbo, centers on a young soldier in World War I who is hit by an artillery shell. He becomes a quadruple amputee, and loses his ears, eyes, mouth, and nose, forcing him into what is essentially an actively aware vegetative state. As he ponders his life, he realizes he does not want to be trapped in his body for the rest of his life, and attempts to tell his doctors and superiors that he would prefer to either be euthanized or put on display as an example of the ravages of war. Both requests are denied him, and in the film (after a botched euthanasia attempt), he bangs his head on the pillow in Morse Code -- "SOS. SOS. SOS."

The film obviously trucks in some pretty profound questions about war, consciousness, disability, and the choice to die. It's a fascinating piece. Less importantly, too, it gives us a weird (and probably offensive!) metaphor for the remainder of the Phillies season. You know it wants to die. But we won't let it, and nor will MLB schedulers. It will be allowed to live on as a negative example, though, especially if we get and then lose an unprotected first round pick due to just-enough competency, leading us down a rabbit hole of mounting failure.

So, uh, that's good news. /bangs head on pillow in dot-dot-dot dash-dash-dash intervals

Dillon Gee

#35 / Pitcher / New York Mets

Height: 6-1

Weight: 205

Bats: R

Throws: R

Born: Apr 28, 1986

Tyler Cloyd

#50 / Pitcher / Philadelphia Phillies

Height: 6-3

Weight: 210

Bats: R

Throws: R

Born: May 16, 1987