A conversation with Emmanuel Clase’s Cutter

Covering the Corner: Thank you for taking the time to meet with us, Mr. Emmanuel Clase’s Cutter. We know you’re new to Cleveland, and we just wanted to let everyone get a chance to know you. You wreaked some havoc in Texas, and we just want to be sure that you plan to abide by the laws of physics during your time in the great state of Ohio.

Emmanuel Clase’s Cutter:

CTC: Haha, yes, so true. It’s been a rough year for us all.

ECC:

Baseball Savant

CTC: That’s very nice of you, thank you. But with all due respect, are you aware that you shouldn’t exist? In the Statcast era, do you know how many cutters have traveled over 100 mph? I’ll tell you — it’s 87. Do you know how many of them were not you? 14.

ECC:

Baseball Savant

CTC: Mr. Cutter, that man has a family. Look at what you just did to him. He had no idea where that ball was and tried to check his swing. He still made contact and the ball went foul. How do you explain that to his kids?

ECC:

CTC: Ok, you’re right, I didn’t bother looking up if he actually has kids, but that time he didn’t even swing. Any relatives he does have are disowning him as we speak.

ECC:

CTC: You think this is funny? Just because you let him hit a weak dribbler to the first baseman, you think this is OK now? Sir, you are—

ECC:

CTC: —out of control. I DON’T EVEN THINK HE KNEW YOU WERE COMING THAT TIME, COME ON. LOOK AT HIM. HE’S HELPLESS OUT THERE.

ECC:

CTC: Yes, I mean, it is beautiful in motion. With it’s ... 15” drop and almost 2” horizontal break. Absolutely beautiful.

But you’re still a menace.

We can’t keep going on like this.

You can’t exist.

You’re a logical impossibility.

You’re bad pizza. You’re a turkey that says all turkeys lie and you’re asking me if you’re telling the truth. There’s no way to know the answer and there is no way to know if you’re real. We’re all drifting in this world together until the end and the sooner we face it the better, and you’re doing nothing to help us drift off into the eternal void of nothingness with the confidence of a world we have built up over centuries of human existence.

You are ruining everything and tearing this world apart and no matter how many times you throw it in my face that you do exist — that impossible things can happen — I will never accept it. Never. Things need to make sense, because if they don’t this has all been for nothing. The wheel, fire, electricity, the M&M McFlurry, it’s all nothing without order, without a semblance of reason. We are a collective experience that only exists as a million stories told by the fleshy brains of a soul trapped inside a skull. You are the the omega without an alpha.

It has to end now.

ECC:

CTC: Oh, hey, nice break on that one. Got his ass.