(though the late Paul Snider has no direct bearing on the stories below, it isn’t as though there will be many more excuses to run his photograph in the near future).

Attention women of the Flushing area bearing signs reading “Marry Me, David Wright,” just to be on the safe side, you might want to consider investing in one of these.

A few weeks ago, Dave Schied went to a Cincinnati Reds game and observered a young lady trying to catch the attention of Bronson Arroyo with such signage. At the time, Dave wrote,

She pretty much held the sign up the whole time he was pitching and batting or on base. the problem i have with this is that she had a boyfriend or a husband sitting right next to her. you can’t really respect a guy for being with a woman that obviously has a huge crush on another dude. so much so that she makes a giant sign and holds it up for an entire game trying to get his attention. sure we all have crushes on other people but if it gets that far you are probably a cuckold.

I would hate to think that this provocative editorial — from one of my favorite commentators on the human experience — might have in any way inspired a genuine act of deadly violence.

Shocked as we all are by what sounds like a senseless killing, imagine how a tragedy might’ve been avoided had the creator of Grady’s Ladys merely told her homicidal boyfriend that said site was a tribute to this man, or perhaps this outstanding specimen.