Jeremiah was a bullfrog, but Nostradamus was a catcher

The world will end in six years. The Baseball Prophet has spoken.



Darren "Dutch" Daulton, the long-time catcher for the Philadelphia Phillies throughout the 1980s and 1990s, says that on December 21, 2012, at 11:11 a.m. Greenwich Mean Time, The Universe As We Know It will cease to be. The "chosen," claims the former All-Star backstop, will vanish from this plane of existence.

Why December 21, 2012? Because, Daulton says, that's the last day recorded on the Mayan calendar. Of course, the Mayans are long gone, so maybe they shuffled off this mortal coil while the getting was good.

Daulton has collected his prognosticative wisdom in a 32,000-word manuscript called If They Only Knew. Here's what we do know: the reason why catchers' gear is referred to in baseball parlance as "the tools of ignorance."

Because I don't know about you, but when I seek wisdom beyond human ken, I turn to the guy behind the plate. He knows things. At least, he did in Bull Durham. And in Major League.

Back in the summer of 1988, we arrived at our church building one Sunday morning to find a large cardboard box filled with dozens of copies of a booklet cryptically entitled 88 Reasons Why the Rapture Will Be in 1988.



In a filing cabinet drawer in my office, I still have a couple of those booklets. Maybe I should send one to Darren Daulton.