An open letter to Wandy Rodriguez

Wandy, light of our life, fire of our rotation. Our son, our soul. He was Wand, plain Wand, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one cleat. He was Juan on the dotted line. But on our Strohs, he was always Wandy.

We're sorry. We never should have said that your best use was middle-relief for the Tamil Tigers. That was not nice.

Genocide is not funny.

We certainly should not have called you an Oompa-Loompa with slightly longer arms. That was the jealousy talking. And we definitely never should have said that your only hope for a product endorsement is Valtrex. That was just mean. But how were we supposed to know? They may list you at 5'11", but it's as plain as the cold sore on your face that you're not an inch taller than our sister. (Stay away from our sister.) And we're pretty sure we never saw you pitch in a 7th inning of any game before the Bear Stearns collapse. It was almost like you thought baseball games were six innings long.

But we have to admit, in the past two seasons, you've turned a corner. You throw strikes. You throw quality starts. You have an ERA that is less than the price of a value meal at Jack-in-the-Box. And here is a warning for you, National League: something wicked this way comes, and it's the Magic Wand's curveball. We haven't seen so much drop to the knees since Carlos was in college. So we apologize. We like you. We no longer switch the channel to Antique Roadshow when we see you take the hill. We are proud to have you on the team. But seriously, stay the fuck away from our sister.