A list of Little League teams I played for:

Montana Recycling (lame green uniform, quadriplegic coach)

RC Cola (Awesome royal blue, light blue and white uni; never saw a can of RC Cola all season)

Al's Drive In (Honolulu, massive outdoor feast after every game, first encounter with octopus as a food)

Burger King (lame orange and black halloween uniform, defeated league bad guys Bob Ward & Son's while I was pitching, celebrated victory at Wendy's)

Favorite Seattle cafe: Fishermen's Terminal Appassionato. No wifi, though.

Favorite little league memory: Forming my own team, called the Sluggers. We drew our logo on white T-shirts and challenged everyone we knew to a game. Finally found a team to play and played a total of 2/3 of an inning. Being in second grade, I hadn't realized how important a catcher's mask is in fast-pitch. Since then, I've had what the Japanese call a "high nose."

Wanted to play little league but was 2 months too young and had to play t-ball. What a load of shit. It was so bad and boring and just plain dissapointing I never went back for little league the next year. What I should have done is taken my mom up on her cave-in to Karate lessons when I was shattered from the Little League denial. At least then I would know how to do a flying kick by now and could be a world champion underground kickboxer.

I have this odd feeling like I need to go buy some AllHeart School Uniforms.

I'm going to come out and say what we're all thinking but are afraid to acknowledge: Ryan called us "bitches."

Jesus, that was a bold move. I've employed the "bitch" maneuver in more than a few submissions to literary journals and it has always ended uglily (remember the L'Underbar Review incident?! I still get menacing emails from the editor.). In the hands of a lesser wordsmith, "bitch" can come off as just plain offensive. But a true craftsman like Ryan transmogrifies it into a bon mot, or quote unquote "good word," as they say in France. This makes perfect sense, of course, because, as anyone who has seen his last name knows, Ryan is a Frenchman.

In closing, while I'm jealous of Ryan's ability to use the word "bitch" as a devastatingly effective term of endearment, I also stand in rictus-faced amazement at his deft phraseology.

Does this mean that there is in fact canned coffee in America?

...besides Starbuck's of course...

Nope, sorry Ryan. Seattle Roast is made in Japan.