I love e-mail. Every message could be anything. A job offer. Your girlfriend sending you naked pictures of herself. Your ex-girlfriend sending you naked photos of yourself. But mostly I get two things. A) Spam and lots of it, and B) funny messages from intrepid readers.

Occasionally, I get a doozy and today was one of those days. So, I thought I’d share it with you.

From: Jim Tocco
To: andy@desipio.com
Re: Your decidedly rude post
Date: Thursday, August 07, 2003 3:08 AM

I posted the following on the Clark & Addison Chronicle massageboard. You are way, way out of your league when talking about Cubs prospects, pal.

The “fat moron”
Jim Tocco
Lansing Lugnuts

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“Well, you must be an expert, since you’ve seen him play a whole four times this year! Perhaps if you’ve had a chance, like me, to see him play more than 100 games, take BP every day, talk with him in the clubhouse, speak with his manager and hitting coach and discuss him with members of the Cubs’ brass and other pro scouts, then you might know what you are talking about. Maybe that qualifies me for knowing what I am talking about. You’d better re-think your “fat moron” comment.”

—

This is almost as good as the time I got an e-mail from former Rockford TV broadcaster Jock Florentine’s mom, who did a Google search of her son’s name and was horrified to find that I had called his name “the most perfect porn name of all time.” She went on to talk about how Jock meant “precious gift” or something and that he was adopted and it was all too ridiculous.

So today, I got Jim Tocco’d.

What prompted him to write about his credentials ad nauseum?

Way back in June, the Clark and Addison Chronicle had a post about the Lansing Lugnuts’ radio announcer and his talent evaluation of Felix Pie. I read it and mocked it, as I’m apt to do.

This was Tocco’s evaluation of Felix:
“Felix Pie looks great. I’m convinced he’s the real thing. Only three things: 1.) He needs better judgment of the strike zone. He’s good at fouling off pitches, but he’s going to need to take more walks as a leadoff man to bring his on-base percentage up. 2.) He needs to improve his bunting. He’s only bunted for two base hits this year, and with speed like that, he should get one per series. 3.) He needs to add muscle so that he can be a realistic five-tool player.”

This was my reply to that evaluation:
‘Felix won’t be a leadoff hitter. At 19 he was the second youngest player in the Midwest League at the start of the season. By the time he’s 22 or 23 he’ll be a middle of the order guy. I’ve seen him play four times this year, he’s an absolute stud. He’s already a plus outfielder, and the Lansing radio broadcaster is a fat moron–Felix has a good idea at the plate of what’s a strike and what’s not. You don’t have to draw 100 walks to “control the strike zone”.’

OK, what do we really think drew Tocco’s ire? My evaluation of Pie’s skills or the “the Lansing radio broadcaster is a fat moron,” bit?

I’ve met Jim, I’ve heard him broadcast. I feel pretty confident about my assessment.

Besides, I love that he referred to it as a “massageboard.” If you lay on it, do you get a massage?

But his post was a thing of beauty. Let’s break it down and allow it to wash over us.

“Well, you must be an expert, since you’ve seen him play a whole four times this year!”

That’s it folks. Nobody ever gets to make an evaluation of anyone until you’ve seen them play 100 games.

“Perhaps if you’ve had a chance, like me, to see him play more than 100 games, take BP every day, talk with him in the clubhouse, speak with his manager and hitting coach and discuss him with members of the Cubs’ brass and other pro scouts, then you might know what you are talking about.”

This is my favorite. In order to formulate an option of a player’s skills you have to see those 100 games, plus sit through batting practice every day, sneak into the clubhouse and have a chat with him, yack about him to the manager and hitting coach and get the opinions of Oneri Fleita, Jim Hendry and Ronnie Woo Woo. Then, and only then, will you be able to give an opinion.

“Maybe that qualifies me for knowing what I am talking about. You’d better re-think your “fat moron” comment.”

Maybe it doesn’t.

So here’s the e-mail Jim got back from Desipio World Headquarters today.

“I just want to apologize for my post. I was way out of line. I had no idea that you’d seen more than 100 of Felix’s games and talked with him in the clubhouse and had conversations with his manager, his hitting coach, Cubs brass and other pro scouts. I can’t believe I dared to voice my own opinion. How could I have been so careless and thoughtless? What must have come over me?

You’re entitled to your opinion and I’m entitled to mine. But a word of advice, you might not want to trot out the thin skinned, holier than thou crap at three o’clock in the morning while surfing the Internet for articles that include your name in them. Or have you been monitoring a post I made on June 25 for six weeks just waiting for the perfect moment to spring that witty retort at me?

Go Nuts!
Andy”

For moron Jim Tocco, check out the LansingLugnuts.com page, and his very own Web site at callofthegame.com.

We were in the press box one night when Jim was describing the stadium to his listener(s) and the inning ended and the next half inning started and then another half inning ended and my friend sitting next to me looked at me and said, “Is he still describing the stadium?” Much to our horror, he was. I think she was scarred for life by it.

Anyway, keep those e-mails coming. But it’s going to be tough to top this one for a while.