The Iron Cage: A One-Act Play Starring Rex Ryan and David Klingler

Breakfast time. Shoney’s. Dover, Ohio. March 12, 2014.

Rex Ryan: I wish they had a Shoney’s near MetLife Stadium. I would go there for breakfast every day. I think we would be undefeated if we had a Shoney’s near the Meadowlands.

David Klingler: I never been to Shoney’s. GNC is my grocery store.

Rex Ryan: With the good Lord as my witness, I am going to open a Shoney’s in your hometown of Houston, Texas.

David Klingler: That is awfully kind of you. Thanks for the invite here, this morning. It was only 800 miles out of my way. I’m getting the bill.

Rex Ryan: I’m getting two breakfasts then.

David Klingler: Get three. You need it.

Rex Ryan: You’re right. I’m not made out of money like Gordon Lightfoot.

David Klingler: What do you think of baseball analytics?

Rex Ryan: I don’t like them. They’ve made offense more efficient. They’ve made pitching more efficient. But they’ve made the game boring. All homeruns, strikeouts, and walks. Let’s have some hit and run. Let’s bunt. Let’s steal some bases. Baseball is a form of entertainment, for Pete’s sake.

David Klingler: I hear that, Rex.

Rex Ryan: Baseball analytics are thoroughly Weberian.

David Klingler: In what sense?

Rex Ryan: In that old Iron Cage of Modernity way, if you know what I mean.

David Klingler: Educate me, friend.

Rex Ryan: In modern societies, men get trapped in systems based on efficiency and rational calculation. Because modern people fetishize technology and bureaucratic order, the rational systems that get put in place seem like the only legitimate way to do something. By privileging efficiency and goal-oriented rationality, all other human desires get discarded. In the case of baseball, what gets lost with all this WAR and WHIP and whooseybobbits is that baseball is a form of entertainment. And if games are 5 hours long and the ball is never in play then nobody but the bean counters are going to watch.

David Klingler: I think you’re right. Let’s eat.

Rex Ryan: If I were concerned about efficiency, I wouldn’t eat Shoney’s. I would stand tall on the mountain and say ‘I’m not going to eat any of Shoney’s $4.99 breakfast platters which include two eggs your way; toast or English muffin; ham, bacon, sausage patties or links; and your choice of homefries or hashbrowns smothered in their signature ham gravy. I am going to eat a MetRx bar and drink up all their Sanka. I am going to do an interpretive dance based on the Battle of Vicksburg right in the dining room.’

This is a work of parody about the Cincinnati Bengals, Dallas Cowboys, New York Jets, and the McKee Bakery Corporation. It is not intended to be taken seriously, except for the anti-analytics stuff. For more of the same, follow me on Twitter: @ClaytonTrutor

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