New Yorker Anti-Caption Contest #440

WINNERS

FIRST PLACE

"Oh Fuck! ... I just spit some Red Man on my 'Jimmy Choo Zinc Metallic Cracked Leather Platform Sandal'!"--Dr Sumguy (JUDGE'S COMMENT: A Google search confirms that Doc has used the correct name of shoes that offer no protection from the rain, yet are priced at $1,095. Red Man is indeed a popular brand of chewing tobacco. Together they create a stupid pun. And maybe I'm projecting but it seems the gratuitous use of a four-letter word was Doc's way of saying “Fuck Choo.” Nicely done.)

SECOND PLACE

Man I hate "Run Like Kirk Gibson Day".--boneguy (JUDGE'S COMMENT: The Dodger slugger, hobbled by bad knees, belted two home runs against the Mets in the 1988 NLCS. He then hit a decisive HR against the A's in the World Series. Sure it was all very memorable and heroic, but as a Mets fan, I choose to recall that when he ran the bases wincing in a pain, he looked like a girl in high heels. I was going to pick this as the winner, but I didn't want to seem like a score loser holding a grudge more than 25 years later. So I picked it to come in second.)

THIRD PLACE

"My favorite player? Pumpsie Green."--Anonymouse (JUDGE'S COMMENT: As a die-hard hater of the [last place] Boston Red Sox, I knew off hand that they were the last major league team to add a black player to their roster. It was 12 years after Jackie Robinson's debut in 1947 that Pumpsie Green joined a team that could have been called the "All-White Sox” up until then. Another fun fact: The first black player to wear a Yankees uniform was catcher Elston Howard. A NY sports writer famously observed, “The Yankees finally added a negro player, and wouldn't you know it, they got the one who can't run.” Pumpsie, by the way, only played in the majors for five years and, predictably, ended his lackluster career playing for the NY Mets. He is also believed to be the only man in the history of the world to go by the name “Pumpsie.”)

HONORABLE MENTIONS

"C'mon! C'mon! My stockings have more runs than you assholes."--Anonymous (JUDGE'S COMMENT: Calls to mind the creative taunts I have learned as a Mets fan: “You couldn't beat out a rug!”...“You couldn't catch a cold”...“You couldn't hit water if you fell out of a boat!”...“Put a tent on that circus!” … and, of course, “Hey ump! You suck!”)

"I'd give my left nut to have this contest judged, if I still had one."--Anonymous (JUDGE'S COMMENT: Kind of a foul ball, I suppose, but I don't judge lifestyles, just captons—when I get around to it.”)