Today, birthday money burning a hole in my pocket, I bought my own copies of Freakonomics and The Tipping Point. I’ve read borrowed copies of both, but wanted to own them: Freakonomics so I could spend some time chasing down the footnotes and thinking through the implications, and The Tipping Point because – well – because when I grow up I want to be Malcolm Gladwell.

It was Todd at work who loaned me his copy of Freakonomics, after a conversation that started when he dumped The Tipping Point on another colleagues desk with the explanation that he really must read it. So I was amused when Gladwell sent this email to Dubner:

thought you would enjoy this. a man in the security line at toronto airport today recognized me, pulled out a copy of freakonomics, and made me sign it. we are totally co-branded! cheers, m.

It’s especially noteworthy because Levitt’s work totally undercuts one of Gladwell’s primary “tipping point” examples: the reasons for New York’s precipitous drop in crime. According to Levitt, it was abortion, not the city’s decision to go after turnstyle-jumpers. It’s a credit to Gladwell that he’s willing to admit he was wrong and happily flack Freakonomics. So today I bought both. They’re so totally co-branded.

Craig Counsell, the second baseman for the Arizona Diamondbacks, had been alive less than a month when Jimi Hendrix died. Hence the cognitive dissonance when, every time Counsell steps to the plate at the Bank One Ballpark in Phoenix – the BOB – they play Hendrix’s opening lines from “All Along the Watchtower.” It’s a good song, regardless of the time warp.

The D-Backs seem to have an uncomfortable relationship with their desert namesake. The fluffy mascot hopping around at the stadium is bobcat (“BOBcat,” get it), not a snake. It’s hard to make a cute snake, and hard to imagine how you deck out a stuffed one to dance atop the dugout. But in the late innings, when rally energy is needed, a rattler appears on the animated sign board above center field. It’s all rattle and no fangs, though. Snakes are scary, I guess.

There was good theater tonight, in the way of an early summer evening at the ballpark, a langorous nine innings that don’t quite matter as much as nine innings in September. Luis Gonzalez, the D-Backs’ left fielder, got thrown out for arguing a called third strike. It was the second time he’d struck out with a runner on third and only one out – the sort of scoring opportunity he’s paid a substantial sum to convert. Counsell, to the tune of Hendrix, whacked two of the most lovely doubles into the right field corner. And my scorecard looks like chaos in pen, thanks to the complex lineup gymnastics a manager must perform in a league where the pitcher hits. That led to the final bit of theater, when Tony Clark came up to pinch hit. It was the number seven spot in the order, filled at games’ start by the shortstop. But by the ninth inning, we’d seen a double switch, the seven spot in the order had become the pitcher’s spot, and we saw Clark as a pinch hitter, two down in the ninth with the winning run on first.

He lofted a long fly ball to deep right-center, but a bit too high and not quite deep enough. Final score: Washington 4, Arizona 3.

I can add another major league ballpark to my life list.