Red Sox's Mookie Betts Steals Base And Gifts America With Taco Bell: "I Just Wanted Some Tacos"
Oct. 24 update: The Boston Red Sox took game one of the World Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers Monday night. But if you didn't care about baseball, why does this matter to you? Because Red Sox MVP candidate Mookie Betts stole a base off Dodgers starter Clayton Kershaw in the first inning, which resulted in Taco Bell—as promised—gifting America with a free Doritos Locos taco. You can get this next Thursday, Nov. 1 between 2-6 p.m. at a Taco Bell.
Betts explained in a post-game interview that he made the attempt against the notorious-to-steal Kershaw (who only allowed three stolen bases during the regular season) in order to be aggressive early.
"On top of that," said Betts according to the Boston Globe, "I just wanted some free tacos."
Oct. 15 original post:
What seems a sea of randomness is actually just a whirlpool of sameness, a spiral in which the moments that feel to us like sparks of the new are actually just the same events repeated ad nauseam as we circle forever closer toward our inevitable end. And so, amidst all that monotony, that unceasing predictability and flatness, Taco Bell is acknowledging the inevitable: Yes, the World Series will be played, and yes, the "Steal A Base, Steal A Taco" will return, and yes, someone will steal a base, and yes, America will get a free taco. A Doritos Locos taco, to be precise.
In a press release, Taco Bell acknowledged that "History shows it's not a matter of "if" but "when" a base will be stolen;" according to the Chicago Tribune, only one World Series in history has seen no bases stolen. That would be 1944, when the St. Louis Cardinals beat the St. Louis Browns.
A collection of "Steal A Base, Steal A Taco" baseball caps will also be available through the Taco Bell Taco Shop in time for game one of the series, which will be played—if we can call the same men running the same loop around the same bases to no real end but that of furthering our own insipid numbness 'play'—on October 23.
Taco Bell has also partnered with Topps to create a series of baseball cards, each commemorating a Taco Hero (the people who stole the inevitable stolen bases in years past). This year's Taco Hero will get his own card 24 hours after the base is stolen. The cards will be available in Taco Bell locations near the ballparks hosting the World Series—so, Los Angeles or Milwaukee, and Boston or Houston—and will also be included with hat purchases.
The free tacos we can all inevitably receive will be given out on Thursday, November 1, from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. local time, "while supplies last." Anyone registered through Taco Bell's website or app can cash in their free taco order online. And then we will trudge slowly onward, awaiting the next fleeting glimpse of something like brightness in our universe until that flash, too, will be revealed to be nothing new, yet we will clutch at such moments until we fall over, life extinguished, returned to dust, empty, meaningless.