A college friend, a casual sports fan whose best language might be the Greek of Plato and Aristotle, informs me via text message that "Eddie Rosario is highly skilled in the techniques of baseball."
Somehow this reminds me of the story concerning those party animals Mike Tyson, Naomi Campbell, and A.J. Ayer. Ayer (1910-1989) probably needs an introductory gloss. He's a British philosopher, widely
regarded as the principal English-language proponent of Logical Positivism on account of his book, Language, Truth, and Logic, published in 1936, when he was still in his mid-20s. His biography is not that of most philosophers--lots of parties, many girlfriends, several wives, fashionable friends who might have been the subjects of write-ups in grocery-checkout magazines.
Once, when he was well into his 70s, Ayer was attending a house party thrown by the underwear designer Fernando Sanchez. He was minding his own business, chatting happily with a group of models and designers, when a woman rushed up to them and said that her friend, Naomi Campbell, was being accosted by Mike Tyson in a bedroom. Ayer left to investigate and found Tyson alone with a plainly nervous Campbell.
Ayer told Tyson he should leave her alone. Tyson replied, "Do you know who the fuck I am? I'm the heavyweight champion of the world."
Ayer replied, "Well, at my retirement I was the Wykeham Professor of Logic at New College, Oxford. Perhaps we should discuss this matter in a way befitting the leading men of our respective fields."
A short conversation ensued, during which Campbell slipped away.
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