Word: tars
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...thick-aired Thursday morning in Manhattan, Charlie Garcia picked up ten dead paupers from the morgue at Bellevue Hospital. All the dead were adults, so they were in adult pine coffins, which cost the city $32.90 each. The price includes a tar-paper lining and a handful of zinc nails with which to seal the top. The cheap wooden boxes were placed in the back of Charlie's vehicle, which is still called the body wagon, although these days the wagon is an 18-ft. Ford truck, blue and gray, license number 20898-E, with 106,892 miles...
...feel of callused skin against unpolished timber, so the T-85s he orders by the cord from the Hillerich & Bradsby Co. in Kentucky are unstained, pure white bolts of mountain ash, legendary Louisville Sluggers. In order to keep his grip without gloves, the Kansas City third baseman takes tar and slathers every bat like a small town honoring a scoundrel. About the middle of the club, maybe a little higher up than the label, Brett cultivates a sticky reserve for when his palms get especially clammy, like when Goose Gossage is pitching...
Cork, resin, paraffin and tenpenny nails are abominations designed to make the ball fly a greater distance, but the pine-tar section of Rule 1.10 ("not more than 18 in. from the end") was included merely to keep the ball clean, actually in consideration to the hitter. From the second Brett homered to right, and Nettles ran to Zimmer, and Zimmer ran to Manager Billy Martin, and Martin ran to the umpires, and the New York Times ran it on Page One, no one argued that Brett had taken or received any unfair advantage. And that was the crux...
...strong conviction of the league that games should be won and lost on the playing field." The umpires' call was "technically defensible"; MacPhail did not blame them. With a flourish, he even commended "Manager Martin and his staff for their alertness." But all future complaints about pine tar will have to be lodged before the fact. Brett's cherished bat, "a seven-grainer," one ring for every year of a tree's troubled life, was returned to him with the heralded news that he had 20 home runs, not 19, and there are still two outs...
...cleaners for the home are light colored, indicating subtly to women that the machines are light in weight and easily maneuverable; a similar model may appear in a bold, primary color when its intended buyer is a man who wants the machine for heavy garage duty. Brands of low-tar and -nicotine cigarettes sport labels with large white areas and light-colored letters to convey a feeling of purity. White on cans of light beer and diet soda connotes low calories...