But as Rodriguez's saga — he and his legal team have been squaring off against the organization while he continues to play third base every day — has sunk the Yankees' day-to-day existence into near absurdity, the Mets and their daily, baseball-related concerns have seemed almost quaint.
So much so that those around Mr Duncan Smith have tried to manage expectations downward to a point of near-absurdity.
In a high-risk strategy the elder son (glaring, insolent Trevor White) outs the near-absurdity of a tragic moment: as his mother comes on – deranged and trailing her wedding gown – he caustically, sadly, compares her to Ophelia.
Purchasing tickets on a flight listed on Shuttle isn't the same as buying a plane ticket on Kayak, primarily because the price points are higher to the point of near-absurdity if you're not a member of the super rich.
The parts he steals from other authors make the most sense, and his own thoughts usually spin into near-sublime absurdity, to the point that in reading I couldn't shake the feeling that the joke was on me.
An impregnable theory, or one nearing the limit of impregnability, is in fact as great an absurdity as an impregnable armour-plate.
At its origin, more than one of these concepts must have appeared obscure, not easily reconcilable with the concepts already admitted into science, and indeed very near the borderline of absurdity.
We've suffered the absurdity of his near-eliminations for almost a month now, and I can't believe that America could continue to turn a deaf ear on Marcus' nasal tone and L.A.'s seizure-inducing production values.
The notion that Newcastle's near Manchester is absurd, although it's an absurdity held by quite a lot of people.
A glinting, compassionate humour and a nicely insubordinate sense of absurdity complicates its grim near-future vision of an England now largely waterlogged, its government reduced to a band of fascist strong men.
The only one who came out of that mess looking good in a Bears uniform was the third-string near-hero Caleb Hanie, who noted the absurdity of being heartily congratulated despite throwing two rally-killing interceptions.
