Retardo

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Retardo Montalban is the online handle of a farmer in Tennessee who supports the St. Louis Cardinals and posts on BTF, primarily in acrimonious threads involving politics and sabermetrics. Once these threads reach a certain length, they often devolve into the personal feud between Retardo, a social democrat who takes traditionalist positions on baseball, and David Nieporent, a pro-Bush and hawkish self-proclaimed libertarian who favors the sabermetric view.

Recently, Retardo posted a non-encyclopedic autobiography to this site. It contained the following items, some of which were non-factual and most likely intended to offend.

  • RETARDO hates the Mets.

http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/files/newsstand/discussion/27172/

  • RETARDO may not be BTF's Slavoj Zizek, but he's close.
  • RETARDO wrote approximately half of the fatty-player entries on the infamous Ring Dings thread. He also authored many of the better posts on the original Star Wars thread. Before the changeover, he wrote some of Mike Piazza's most baroque -- and historically accurate -- entries, even if, in total, they amounted to only three or four. RETARDO was nominated for a Primey for his Joe Morgan's Superfriends post, and should have been given the lifetime achievement Primey for his contribution to the various Barry Bonds threads.
  • RETARDO lost more posts on the switchover than perhaps any other member.
  • RETARDO often joins a "minority report" bloc including kevin, JCinDC, Backlasher, RossCW, and Andy in combatting BTF's counter-revolutionary groupthink on such issues as steroids, DIPS, sabremetric/"Moneyball" hubris, psychological/emotional effects on players' perfomance, etc.
  • RETARDO is Green Lantern to David Nieporent's Sinestro.
  • RETARDO's favorite members "lost" in the changeover include dp, Sam Hutcheson, RossCW, CrispixAttacks, Voxter (if you love something, set it free, you blonde bombshell), and FuelontheFire.
  • On a greater scale, RETARDO's shit list includes Republicans, fake Libertarians who are actually Republicans, Barry Bonds and other cheaters, nerds who believe that anything can be precisely quantified even down to creating spreadsheets and pie graphs demonstrating the exact percentage of how much their mothers love them, Baseball Prospectus, the State of Texas, the chronically humorless, The New York Yankees, the Chicago Cubs, and the San Francisco 49ers.
  • RETARDO is absolutely capable of "disagreement with civility" as evidenced by his frequent but tame arguments with people like Mark Field (a.k.a. "Mefisto"), Dan Werr, Dayn Perry, and David Jones who, unlike certain others, have not based their BTF careers on jackassery and casually libelling their betters.
  • RETARDO often wishes that "Bill James saves baseball from his followers".
  • RETARDO does not recall inventing the nickname "Dayn Rand" to apply to Dayn Perry; at any rate RETARDO loathes the followers of Ayn Rand, and has shown up BTF's most famous Randian (hint: not Dayn Perry) as not even much of an expert on Rand's writings, much less an expert on anything else.
  • RETARDO introduced the term "crypto-fascist" into the wider BTF lexicon; the term itself refers to a quasi or semi-closeted fascist and is perfectly applicable to RETARDO's bete noire, David Nieporent.
  • RETARDO played Babe Ruth League baseball, is ambidextrous, and grew up loving the base-stealing, gold glove-ing, non-"stuff" starting pitcher having, no home run-hitting St. Louis Cardinals of the 1980s, who were the antithesis of the lumbering lummox Jack Cust/Jeremy Giambi type/infested teams so favored on BTF when RETARDO first started posting but the outlandish love of which, now, has been largely shoved down the memory hole while new definitions are minted for "Moneyball" strategery.
  • RETARDO is not against sabremetrics per se; he wishes only for a sane version. He also wishes for a more humble version, but realises that this is probably far too much to ask.
  • RETARDO likes the old version of BTF better, with its single-page threads, ability to absorb long posts, and the ease with which he could post as a Star Wars character or Al Dunlap, to take two examples.
  • RETARDO is one handsome devil.
  • RETARDO does not wish to be known as a farmer, as the "Green Acres" connotations of the word are disagreeable to him. However, RETARDO concedes that he has worn overalls many times, and can steer a John Deere 4960 like it was a guided fuckin missile.
  • RETARDO's style isn't quite effortless superiority but his enemies, at best, only manage to be effortless suppositories.
  • RETARDO's blog could be excellent, but is not. Yet.
  • RETARDO is pleased that this wiki entry has gotten under the skins of at least two people.

Others have used this entry to post comments about Retardo, mainly insults, including:

  • RETARDO writes long-winded monuments to himself, including this Wiki entry.
  • He himself got under many persons' skin a long time ago.
  • RETARDO blows harder than the north wind.
  • RETARDO once ate the Bible while waterskiing.
  • RETARDO shot Kennedy. The veejay, not the President. (Why is this an insult?)
  • RETARDO shot President Kennedy, too. But he didn't really mean it.
  • RETARDO fought the law. The winner is still undetermined, though the law insists that it has won whenever asked
  • RETARDO is worshipped as God by Howler Monkeys
  • RETARDO is reviled as Satan by Lemurs
  • RETARDO is worshipped as Satan by Howler Lemurs
  • RETARDO is reviled as God by Satan Monkeys
  • RETARDO is a man whom I often disagree with (sometimes vehemently) however even when he causes my hackles to go up I still enjoy reading his thoughts. I've discovered that the best way for anyone to increase learning and broaden the mind is to listen/read erudite viewpoints that conflict with their own. One's learning is handicapped by simply associating with people of similar ideals and ideas. Oddly enough one point of agreement between us involves our view of Christian Fundamentalism (although we agree for different reasons). He is never dull and that counts for a lot and his writing style is captivating (IMHO). I, for one, am glad he posts at BTF. Despite any disagreements I've learned quite a bit from the ol' crypto-fascist buster. Just my two cents.

As a personal note: I feel agreeing to disagree is a perfectly acceptable conclusion to a discussion or debate. These exercises should be regarded as a sharing of ideas and a learning experience, not a contest that has to be dragged out until there is a 'winner' or a 'loser.' If nothing is learned about the other participant then time has been wasted.

Best Regards

John

  • RETARDO wishes to thank Mr. John Brattain and tell him the feeling is mutual.
  • RETARDO has his enemies, but in the opinion of John (Don't Call Me Grandma!) Murphy, RETARDO is one of the most fun posters when it comes to past history. RETARDO appears to be a voracious reader and is quite knowledgeable regarding American and World History. When discussing Jefferson or the French Revolution (i.e.), he becomes less politically-minded and more contemplative in nature. Mr. Murphy stays away from his (and everyone else's) contemporary political posts, though. :-) Though he has had his problems with other posters, Mr. Murphy has only high regard for him as a poster and as a person. As for the RETARDO-David Neiporent feud, he likes both of them and wishes that they would all get along. :-)

[edit] RETARDO's Collection Of Notable Threads

[edit] References

link title

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