Dickeypedia Word of The Week: Asphyxiation

After not being heard from in a few weeks, R.A. Dickey has provided us with another nugget that required the use of Dickeypedia to decipher.

According to a recent New York Times article by David Waldstein, Dickey revealed that he plans to scale Mount Kilimanjaro during the off-season. The knuckler (who is donating money to charity with this endeavor) claimed that his inspiration for the climb was the Ernest Hemingway book, "The Snows of Kilimanjaro", which he read as a junior in high school.

Dickey is aware that the Mets might not want their recently re-signed starter to perform such a dangerous activity, but also noted that there is no specific clause in his contract that prevents him from climbing a nearly 20,000 foot mountain.

“There is some risk involved that we won’t summit. There is oxygen asphyxiation, there can be rock avalanches, boulders falling. Someone could fall and break a wrist. All of those are attributable factors for why people don’t summit. But I don’t anticipate those will be problems for us.”

There is no language in Dickey's contract that would disallow him from attempting his climb. There is also no language to define Dickey's language in the above quote. But with one quick check of Dickeypedia, we came up with the definition to "asphyxiation":

asphyxiation:

• 1. the condition of being deprived of oxygen (as by having breathing stopped).
• 2. killing by depriving of oxygen.

Well, that's something different. In the past, Mets pitchers have sometimes caused their fans to stop breathing. Now R.A. Dickey is willing to do something that could cause him to do the same.

Speaking of not being able to breathe, the recently released Oliver Perez (We haven't heard from him on Studious Metsimus in at least an hour. What's wrong with us?) was asked if he could use the word "asphyxiation" in a sentence. Surprisingly enough, Ollie said yes to this request, but only when we assured him that it was not a fancy term for "minor league re-assignment", which he most certainly would have declined. Take it away, Ollie!

"When I was a child, I had a pet donkey. But my family was concerned because they thought she would give birth to many donkey babies. We tried taking her to our family doctor, but he said he couldn't fix animals. Therefore, to get her fixed, we had to take her to a donkey doctor, where he performed the asphyxiation."

There you have it, Mets fans. Oliver Perez couldn't fix his career by throwing strikes, but apparently, he thinks "asphyxiation" will fix his ass.

Hey, at least when R.A. Dickey attempts to climb to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro after the season ends, if he needs a donkey to carry his provisions, Oliver Perez has one that won't get pregnant along the way. It looks like Oliver Perez might finally be of use to the Mets' starting staff after all!