Royals Bibliomancy, World Series Edition: "John Milton, Englishman" by James Holly Hanford

What is this? Click here for an explanation of bibliomancy

I use bibliomancy primarily to gain insights from the spiritual realm regarding our Royals. However, it would be a grievous error to think that other truths cannot be gleaned by listening to the voices of heaven as they whisper in our ear. Today, I turn to a trusted tome, James Hanford's 1949 John Milton, Englishman, to learn who will win the 2011 World Series.

We turn to page 151:

"With the accession to power, however, of a new Protector and the summoning of a new Parliament, the impulse to exert his influence at the moment of opportunity comes again, and he launches in February, 1659, the brief tract, A Treatise of Civil Power in Ecclesiastical Causes, in support of his old conviction that it is unlawful for the magistrate to use force in matters of religion."

Wow, Hanford doesn't mess around. That's quite a single sentence, and one that opens a paragraph no less. Quite a burden on that pronoun, "he" as well. This is Milton, we're talking about here. John Milton, Englishman. But returning to the World Series. Plainly, the "new Protector" must be Nolan Ryan. He's like totally in charge of everything the Rangers do, right? Owner, General Manager, Manager, Trainer, he does it all. Well, him and President Bush. Ryan cleaned things up after Jon Daniels ran the organization into the ground. And protecting, well of course. Nolan protects us from weak willy-willed softy baseball. That's our first key, Nolan Ryan is the new Protector. But then, who is Milton and what might that mean? Is this already evidence to look towards the Rangers?

"The argument, which is largely scriptural, is addressed, like the treatises written before his official employment, to Parliament itself. By its plain intimation that the very existence of an established church is objectionable, it implies a renewed condemnation of that part of Cromwell's policy against which, as we have seen, he had always, in his inner thought, protested."

Is it relevant that by this time Milton was completely blind? Was he the blind man who could truly see? Or was he the genius who could not see the end of his own nose? I've always felt that Tony LaRussa could be considered Miltonic, but I haven't fully known what that might mean since my second or third year of graduate school. Determined? Principled? Epic? Polemic? Neoclassical? Prone to using relievers? We see here reference to a rift between Cromwell and the great republican poet on the matter of an established church.

Soon, we would come to the Restoration years, when Milton was essentially in hiding and fearful of arrest or worse. An enemy of the state in his own land. Almost like Colby Rasmus before his exile. Could Rasmus be Milton? Making LaRussa... Charles the Second? Or Rasmus is Paradise Lost, Rasmus's dad is Milton, John Mozeliak (sp?) is Cromwell...

We leave this web where we began, before an endless barrage of Nolan Ryan reaction shots. Let's go with one more quote to settle the matter. We turn to page 188:

"By the time Milton wrote Paradise Lost he had found reason to think more genially of the marriage bed, but his philosophy remained unchanged, and it is his total experience which embodies itself in the poem, the Biblical symbol answering all his needs. Adam and Eve in innocence represent true marriage."

This passage at the top of the page goes on to describe Adam and Eve's post-lapsarian relationship as one dominated by impurities and sin. Might this be a reference to Lance Berkman's return to Texas (the state at least) as the enemy? Plus, he was even a Yankee last season, though not voluntarily. Before, as an Astro, innocence. Now, as a Cardinal, a "haunt of lust and malice mixed together." And who would have hated any cardinal more than Milton, that dedicated Puritan.

When you put it all together -- the image of Nolan as the Protector, the messy symbolism connecting LaRussa or possibly his greatest enemies to Milton (probably a net negative but possibly not) -- we move from uncertainty to clarity. The last quote's obvious reference to Lance Berkman, along with the sure import of the Cardinals as papist prelates of some ill design, can leave no doubt. The Rangers will win the World Series.