Phil Mushnick Turning Back the Clock With Pop Culture References in His Latest Columns

Phil Mushnick's latest column in the New York Post is titled, "MLB’s marriage with analytics ruining baseball for the extreme worse." There is zero chance that you can guess how it begins. Let's just dive right in. Via the NYP:

Remember a 1966 hit by the Statler Brothers, “Flowers on the Wall”? It was a clever, sarcastic song about tedium: 

“Countin’ flowers on the wall, that don’t bother me at all. Playin’ solitaire ’til dawn with a deck of 51. Smokin’ cigarettes and watching Captain Kangaroo. Now don’t tell me I’ve nuthin’ to do.” 

Those who recall it might now sing it. All day. And I apologize for that. But that song has replaced “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.” 

A fifty-six year old song reference, that itself references Captain Kangaroo, a show that ran from 1955 to 1984. And it has somehow replaced Take Me Out to the Ball Game. Why? Because following analytics is like counting flowers on the wall.

Just last week Mushnick made an equally archane pop culture reference in a column which he ended with the following one-liner following the Will Smith incident at the Oscars:

Breaking news: In Will Smith’s next film, he’ll portray the late comedian Slappy White. 

Slappy White passed away in 1995 at the age of 74, though one of his last appearances was on Blossom so the geriatric millennials who read Mushnick regularly might know the reference.

Now, back to the Statler Brothers. The one thing working for Mushnick here is Bruce Willis. He sang the Captain Kangaroo line during Pulp Fiction and then again referenced it a year later in Die Hard With A Vengeance.

Maybe Musnick is hipper than we thought.