Dickeypedia Word of The Week: Acclimatize

Greetings, salutations and any other polysyllablic words that can serve as a synonym for hello.  Some time has passed since our last Dickeypedia entry, but we thought that now was a perfect time for our virtual tome to receive an update.

As many of you are aware, (and if you're not, where have you been?) R.A. Dickey is in the process of climbing to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro.  At 19,341 feet, it is the tallest mountain on the African continent and the tallest freestanding mountain in the world.  Dickey is not doing this for fun or because there's a secret Stormtrooper reunion waiting for him at the summit.  Rather, he is climbing the mountain to raise awareness for the Bombay Teen Challenge, which is an organization that rescues and treats sexually abused and exploited girls in Mumbai, India.

(Editor's note: If you would like to make a donation to support R.A. Dickey and the Bombay Teen Challenge, please click here to be taken to the donation page.)

Our fav'rit knuckleballer and wordsmith has been writing reports of his climb for the "Bats" blog in the New York Times.  Earlier today, amongst the plethora of Bilbo Baggins references, Dickey used a word that would even confound J.R.R. Tolkien.

In discussing his ascent to the next camp on the mountain, Dickey cooked up this delicious piece of verbal fondue:

"Tomorrow we will have only a short hike to Shira 2 camp to continue to acclimatize.  After that, the real test begins."

For many readers, including a particular former Met (more on him later), the real test would involve defining the word "acclimatize".  It's not a word that's used in everyday language and it's certainly not a word that's sprinkled liberally in a baseball clubhouse.  Looks like it's high time to dust off our Dickeypedia to find the definition:

acclimatize:

• 1. to become acclimated or adapted.
• 2. to adapt (oneself), especially to environmental or climactic changes.

Clearly, Dickey was referring to the second definition of the word, as he and his climbing team are going to have to adjust to the obvious changes in air pressure and temperature as they continue to scale the mountain.  But not everyone believes that's the proper definition of the word.

We asked former Met killer (and former Met) Mike Scott to use the word in a sentence.  As you may recall, Scott did not do very well for the Mets during his four years in New York, making 60 starts and finishing his Mets career with a 14-27 record.  (By comparison, it only took R.A. Dickey 39 starts to win his 14th game as a Met.)  However, once he left New York for Houston, Scott scuffed his way to a no-hitter, a Cy Young Award and 110 more victories.

Considering Scott's uncanny ability to deceive all those who came into contact with him, we thought he would be the perfect choice to use acclimatize in a sentence.  After doing a few pre-definition stretches and sharpening his fingernails for a few moments, Scott tackled the challenge head on, saying:

"In 1986, Gary Carter was adamant that I was scuffing the baseball.  But I think when Carter was behind the plate, he was asking Sid Fernandez to do the same thing.  Carter claimed my pitches would sink unnaturally to the left and right when I threw them.  Sid Fernandez?  His pitches would leave his hand and acclimatize through the strike zone.  It takes one to know one, Gary!"

Mike Scott and his Rainbow Brite uniform have been out of baseball since 1989, but he still has a way to make people scratch their heads when he takes center stage.  He failed miserably as a Met, had to cheat to become a success, and is now stretching the boundaries of the English language as wide as Mount Kilimanjaro is high.

If Mike Scott wanted his balls to flutter legally, perhaps he should have learned how to throw the knuckleball like R.A. Dickey has.  Instead, he had to scuff his way to the top.  I guess he couldn't acclimatize to failure.


You can follow R.A. Dickey on Twitter by clicking here.  You can also follow Dickey's blog posts for the New York Times by clicking here.  For more vocabulary assistance, please read the following Dickeypedia entries:

February 22, 2011: Dickeypedia Word of The Week: Narrative
February 25, 2011: A Double Dose of Dickeypedia (Rudiments, Vernacular)
March 10, 2011: Dickeypedia Word of The Week: Syntax
April 2, 2011: Dickeypedia Word of The Week: Asphyxiation
May 15, 2011: Dickeypedia Word of The Week: Fortitude
August 14, 2011: Dickeypedia Word of The Week: Fodder
September 3, 2011: Dickeypedia Word of The Week: Hyperbole

Dickeypedia Word of The Week: Asphyxiation

After not being heard from in a few weeks, R.A. Dickey has provided us with another nugget that required the use of Dickeypedia to decipher.

According to a recent New York Times article by David Waldstein, Dickey revealed that he plans to scale Mount Kilimanjaro during the off-season. The knuckler (who is donating money to charity with this endeavor) claimed that his inspiration for the climb was the Ernest Hemingway book, "The Snows of Kilimanjaro", which he read as a junior in high school.

Dickey is aware that the Mets might not want their recently re-signed starter to perform such a dangerous activity, but also noted that there is no specific clause in his contract that prevents him from climbing a nearly 20,000 foot mountain.

“There is some risk involved that we won’t summit. There is oxygen asphyxiation, there can be rock avalanches, boulders falling. Someone could fall and break a wrist. All of those are attributable factors for why people don’t summit. But I don’t anticipate those will be problems for us.”

There is no language in Dickey's contract that would disallow him from attempting his climb. There is also no language to define Dickey's language in the above quote. But with one quick check of Dickeypedia, we came up with the definition to "asphyxiation":

asphyxiation:

• 1. the condition of being deprived of oxygen (as by having breathing stopped).
• 2. killing by depriving of oxygen.

Well, that's something different. In the past, Mets pitchers have sometimes caused their fans to stop breathing. Now R.A. Dickey is willing to do something that could cause him to do the same.

Speaking of not being able to breathe, the recently released Oliver Perez (We haven't heard from him on Studious Metsimus in at least an hour. What's wrong with us?) was asked if he could use the word "asphyxiation" in a sentence. Surprisingly enough, Ollie said yes to this request, but only when we assured him that it was not a fancy term for "minor league re-assignment", which he most certainly would have declined. Take it away, Ollie!

"When I was a child, I had a pet donkey. But my family was concerned because they thought she would give birth to many donkey babies. We tried taking her to our family doctor, but he said he couldn't fix animals. Therefore, to get her fixed, we had to take her to a donkey doctor, where he performed the asphyxiation."

There you have it, Mets fans. Oliver Perez couldn't fix his career by throwing strikes, but apparently, he thinks "asphyxiation" will fix his ass.

Hey, at least when R.A. Dickey attempts to climb to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro after the season ends, if he needs a donkey to carry his provisions, Oliver Perez has one that won't get pregnant along the way. It looks like Oliver Perez might finally be of use to the Mets' starting staff after all!

David Wright Would Like A PB & J With Extra Power, Hold The Ks

When David Wright signed his six-year, $55 million contract during the 2006 season, he could afford to have the finest filet mignon for every meal and still have millions coming out of his hoo-hah.

So what does he choose to eat whenever hunger strikes? How about a nice peanut butter, honey and jelly sandwich?

According to an article by David Waldstein in the New York Times, that's exactly what the Mets' third baseman eats...constantly.

It appears that when David Wright watched Sesame Street as a child (particularly the episodes sponsored by the number "5" and the letter "K"), he took special interest to the segments featuring the magic of The Amazing Mumford. As a young Mets fan watching Sesame Street during the heyday of the Amazin' 80s teams, he enjoyed that there was a Sesame Street character with "Amazing" in his name and automatically gravitated towards Mumford. Whenever Mumford performed a magic trick, he'd say the magic words "A La Peanut Butter Sandwich". Unfortunately, something would usually go wrong with the trick, making Mumford as amazing as the '93 Mets.



In watching Mumford's tricks go haywire, his catch phrase seeped into David Wright's mind and he began to crave peanut butter sandwiches. As he got older, jelly was added to the mix (perhaps to use in a trade with classmates for other sandwiches) and then honey was added as the final ingredient.

His friend and teammate, Jeff Francoeur, has noticed that David tends to eat his sandwich of choice quite often (by Wright's own admission, he consumes at least one of these sandwiches approximately 75 to 80% of all days. For non-math geeks, that's between five and six days a week) and offered this tidbit about his observation:

"He eats them non-stop, sometimes even for dinner."

David Wright has said that he spent the off-season lifting weights and developing better eating habits. These eating habits seem to include items from the peanut butter, jelly, honey and bread food groups.

In light of this observation about David Wright's fav'rit sandwich, perhaps this will create an opportunity for a deli or another fine eatery to create the David Wright sandwich, which would be filled with the ingredients originally inspired by The Amazing Mumford.

It did wonders for Mo Vaughn's Met career when the Carnegie Deli named the Mo-Licious sandwich after the rotund former first baseman. Vaughn went on to collect 29 HR and 87 RBI after being honored with his own sandwich at the world-famous deli. Of course, those numbers were collected over his two-year Met career, but who's counting?

I can see the ad campaign right now. A smiling David Wright taking a big bite out of his PB, H & J sandwich, uttering the catch phrase that will go down in history:

"Peanut butter sandwiches filled with other goodies. It's not just for Elvis anymore."

Studious Metsimus is hoping that David Wright can increase his power numbers from his abysmal 2009 levels to the levels we once expected of him. Peanut butter sandwiches or not, he's too good of a talent to continue hitting only ten home runs per season.

Slap on a little extra power and hold the Ks and David Wright can help the Mets go from a pretender to a contender. Then again, any sandwich artist could tell you that.