You can call it a fluke. You can say Dontrelle Willis can't handle pressure. Make something up about the weather. Kirby Puckett died quite suddenly on Monday and maybe many American players, who as boys idolized the Hall of Famer, were still in shock. It's possible that it was a case of arrogance biting them in the ass. Whatever excuse you assign, the fact remains: last Wednesday night, the Canadian baseball team shamed Team USA, scoring eight unanswered runs before the Americans rallied to put up an inadequate six. Both teams finished Round 1 of the World Baseball Classic with two wins and one loss, but because of scoring technicalities, America has advanced to the second round and Canada must wait until 2009 for another chance to strut.

The surprise defeat of the Americans is a sign of the Classic's potential. It was a hint of the excitement this tournament can deliver; if America can be upset by Canada any team can be upset by any other team, and isn't that fantastic? It was shocking and newsworthy -- it was something to talk about at the water cooler. But that the Canadians aren't moving on is good for everyone. It's obvious that America's the better team and having them around for the rest of the WBC either makes for better baseball or provides the possibility for more stunning results.

I remember reading about an African-American transient, named Andrew McGrew, who had the misfortune of falling out of a train and dying near a Texas town with a rather opportunistic undertaker. When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. When life gives you a hobo corpse without the money to bury it, embalm it and sell it to traveling sideshow. The undertaker did. McGrew was displayed as "The Amazing Petrified Man... The Eighth Wonder of the World" for fifty-five years. And so goes the story of a Texas tramp who became more famous after death than he ever was in life... Which leads me to Terri Schiavo...

Terri Schiavo, a Florida woman, lapsed into a coma when she was twenty-six, setting into motion a chain of events which would make the woman more famous after she became brain-dead than before. The only other people to achieve this have been Ronald Reagan and Anna Nicole Smith. Famous for what? Famous for being at the center of one of the biggest hoaxes of 2005.

There was no debate before the hoax. Every relevant court in Florida was in agreement that Ms. Schiavo was in a persistent vegetative state. The CAT scans confirmed it. Her husband confirmed it. There was even a note from Terri Schiavo stating that she was, in fact, brain-dead. Then, the videotape hit the media. It clearly showed Terri reacting to noise, commands, and thumb wrestling with Pope John Paul II. Then, the American public was given a choice: Whom are you going to believe: the tape or those crooked CAT scans and doctors?

The video was very compelling. So convincing was it that Senator Bill Frist used it to make a diagnosis on Ms. Schiavo's condition. Bill Frist has a medical degree; however, his job as a senator excludes him from the Hippocratic Oath. The senator declared that the diagnosis of the doctors who had merely examined Terri, first hand, was completely wrong. Then, the hoax was dissolved by the revelation that the videotape was edited... heavily edited... a Terri Schiavo highlights film.

Let us not knock editing. A highlights tape is the only thing that makes baseball seem interesting to the sober and Pauly Shore movies entertaining to those with taste. These heavily edited pieces do their jobs well. In fact, when it is time to pull the plug on me, I'd like an ad agency to handle my defense the same way. Something along the lines of, "Imagine a world without Charles Badley. Without Charles Badley, you wouldn't have that yo-yo, Bobby... or your dolly, Susie... Or safe, clean nuclear power. Charles Badley: Don't pull the plug."

You are asking yourself, though, if the videotape was so compelling, why wasn't the American public taken in, because, let's face it, the American public is astoundingly easy to fool; in fact, they make the residents of Hooterville look like the Brookings Institute. But, a hoax has its rules and its perpetrators broke those rules. This is why the Terri Schiavo hoax failed.

Order: For all successful hoaxes the order is hoax first, science afterwards. Science always dispels a hoax, so a hoax has a life span equal to the amount of time that it takes for someone to scrutinize it. With Ms. Schiavo's case, the science was already in and then the hoax was perpetrated. Bad timing, guys!

Intent: Here's a tip for anyone planning a hoax... let's say... crop circles. The primary rule is DO NOT RELEASE A MEMO TO A LARGE GROUP OF PEOPLE STATING HOW COOL IT WOULD BE TO GET EVERYONE ALL WORKED UP OVER CROP CIRCLES. Brian Darling, aide to senator Mel Martinez, wrote such a memo about Terri Schiavo's case. Then, in a fit of idiocy, it was included in a stack of documents given to Senator Tom Harkin, who had to make the memo his Christmas and birthday present.

Aesthetics: Face it, while in a coma Terri Schiavo really let her looks go. The average American will not respond well to being battered hourly by the non-attractive visage of a woman who has been inert for over a decade. Americans only respond favorably to the comatose if they remain attractive while in a coma, like Kate Moss.

So, what finally happened to Andrew McGrew? The sideshow went bankrupt and he was put into storage until found by a Dallas widow named Pace. Mrs. Pace kept the body in her basement and named him "Sam." In 1973, an undertaker volunteered to give the hobo a funeral. After Don McLean wrote a song about the man, someone was even inspired to purchase a headstone for McGrew. [Author's note: Don McLean wrote "American Pie" about the "day the music died". This did not inspire anyone to purchase a headstone for "the music."]

Which goes to show that, for some people, the death process happens all at once. For others, it happens slowly... in phases. It might even happen that after a person goes, they will lie for quite a while, oblivious to a cacophonous circus happening all around them.

Which brings me back to Terri Schiavo.

RIP

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