CHAPTER 68
The Lon and Ron Show
Lon: Yes Ronnie boy it looks like our man Mickey O'Really has signed up with that beast of the boroughs, the Brooklyn Cyclones of Coney Island.
Ron: Hard to believe Lon. Seems like only yesterday he was trying to fit his pubes into his first cup.
Lon: Raised his voice an octave and put hair on his chest at the same time.
Ron: That's no easy feat.
Lon: Looking over the schedule I can't help but take notice of their promotional nights.
Ron: Nothing says minor league baseball like the promotional nights.
Lon: Here's one for kids twelve and under, it's the ‘chase an old man with a stick competition.’
Ron: Always a favorite of mine. You should see the kids' faces light up when they chase that old man.
Lon: On July 7 it's the Official Geek for a day contest. Dress like a geek and win prizes. The person voted biggest geek is crowned the official 'Geek for a day'.
Ron: I can't think of a better way to watch a baseball game than dressed as complete geek.
Lon: And of course in August it is senior citizen Greco-Roman nude wrestling night.
Ron: Did we mention the door prizes?
Lon: Yes, it's true - door prizes. On the final day of the season the first one thousand people will win free passes to go Newark, New Jersey and see the Tomb of the Unknown Gangster.
Ron: It is a very impressive monument. There is ten foot tall statue of gangster and plaque with an inscription that reads, "What are you looking at?".
Lon: Our boy Mickey has a lot to look forward to.
Ron: And that doesn't even include the game of baseball.
CHAPTER 69
"It is like the old war movies where the buddies stay close together and no one lets the new guy bum any cigarettes," I tell J.P.
"The old black and white movies where there is always a guy from Brooklyn or the Bronx."
"They sent this guy out today, he hasn't been here two weeks and he got the pink slip."
"And then a sniper shot him."
"You're taking the metaphor too far."
"Metaphor. That's a big word for a jocko."
"Yeah, you asked me if I met another girl. No, I met ah four."
"Now we're going from a war movie to the Marx Brothers. Next you'll be doing the gal a day joke."
"Are we not going to be together much longer?"
"I'm supposed to be asking these questions. Just do you're job and don't think"
"Now you're my coach. I don't need another coach."
"Drop and give me twenty."
She is laughing.
"Just drop then."
"Is that another famous quote?"
"Straight from the immoral bardster."
"You should write all your stuff down."
"Why?"
"Because I can't remember it all and sometimes I want to use what you say to sound witty, but when I say it everything sounds different and not so smart."
"You say the nicest things to me. They sound smart when you say them."
"You're a liar."
"I' m telling the truth. This just goes to prove my theory about the truth."
"You have a theory about the truth."
"I have a theory about everything."
"I know. What is your theory about the truth?"
"If you tell the truth people will laugh, get mad or call you a liar."
"So it is better just to lie."
"No, you have to always tell me the truth."
"And you'll never lie to me?"
"I'm an independent woman. I have to lie when necessary and sometimes just for practice."
"So you have learned something in college."
"I'd be lying if I said I didn’t”.
CHAPTER 70
A ‘walk on’ shows up and says he can pitch. He also says he crossed the Mexican border after pole vaulting over the wall into California and riding freight trains to New York because he had heard that a friend of his was playing ball here. Even though no one has heard of his friend and one believes him the Latino players rally and harass the coaches into letting him throw to a couple of hitters.
Manny "Eyebrows" Sombrero smuggled in a ninety-nine mile an hour fastball that he could use to knock a taco out of the hand of a Tijuana tourist at a hundred paces.
Immigration won't be confiscating that heater. The coaches started working on his papers after three pitches. He works fast, pitching like he is late for a date with Angelina Jolie, but he talks slow like Brad Pitt just showed up and left with his girlfriend.
After practice he draws a crowd of players who want to hear his story and soon enough someone asks why he is called "Eyebrows". His own eyebrows are pencil thin.
"I learned to pitch from the wise old man in my little village we used to call The Ghost because when talked to him you felt that you were talking to the spirit of the dead he spoke with that much wisdom. I asked him how to make my fastball invisible and he stood up and showed me without saying a word. After that day no one could hit me.
The first batter I pitch against after that push against the plate so I get pissed off and I want to see him dance. I throw to push him back and the ball brushes his face. When the catcher throws the ball back I feel something funny and I look in my glove and it looks like caterpillars, but no, I pick up the ball and look at it, what is it I see? Two eyebrows look at me like they are pasted on the ball. So now every time I pitch close, the batter checks his face to see if he still has his eyebrows.”
Even "The Legend" checks his eyebrows after hearing the story. Coach Chessi name for Eyebrows is Sal because the story reminds him of a pitcher called Sal "The Barber" Maglie who was famous for his close shave and a trim.
‘Eyebrows’ is in and a player never to be mentioned later is given his pink slip and a long bus ride home to give him time to think about what the hell just happened.
CHAPTER 71
"I was talking back home" says Jasmine."
Jasmine talks to everyone and keeps in contact with everyone. Her parents are working just to pay her phone bills.
“Mr. Shane finally lost it. He jumped out of his classroom window screaming, ‘I can't take it, I can't the kids’. The police had to chase him down and they took him away as a threat to himself and others."
"Time for the sanity hearing."
"He flunked that a long time ago. He said he was going to tear out his eyes so they put him in a straight jacket. He showed up at school a couple of weeks later to pick up his things after school one day, but a couple of kids saw him trying not be seen."
"It finally happened."
"The LA Times picked up the story, I should have kept the paper - "TEACHING EVIL" and a picture of him under the screaming headline. They're using him as a symbol for everything that is wrong with schools and teaching today."
"Mr. S represents evil."
"Teaching isn't for everyone. I don't know anyone that wants to be a teacher."
"Not the way we treat them."
"And if someone wants to be a teacher they should be waterboarded to see if they can take the punishment."
"Like we're not punishment enough."
"They're going to suffer any way you look at it."
"If I was a teacher I'd use a taser."
"Or a cattle prod."
"Some people shouldn't be teachers and I'm one of them."
CHAPTER 72
Our second homestand and the team asks Elmer Presley to sing the national anthem before the first game. Before the second game they ask him to leave. Everyone circles around him as he takes the pink slip off of his locker and reads the inevitable. I thought they would have given him more time. You never know when a guy is going to turn his game around and you never know when his game won't turn around, but the coaches grow bored quickly of someone who isn't turning their game around with an apparent great lack of effort.
May
be he is in the wrong talent contest. Maybe the coaches got tired of him singing and dancing in the showers, one thing we won't miss about good old Elmer.
Failure is inevitable on some days. Just try not to do it two days in a row. Three days in a row is worse and so on and some such.
We lose two in a row and Rami walks around the locker room singing, "we suck, we suck, we have no luck cause we suck".
Everyone tells Rami to shut up, but he doesn't since he doesn't spend a lot of time listening to anybody because he is always talking. I don't want that cheer getting in my head and getting stuck there to hear over and over in a form of torture until my thought process disintegrates and my confidence on the field is worn to nothing. Rami comes by again, singing and I get mad and yell, "Rami shut the hell up". Rami looks at me like I'm a mad man and one of the coaches pops his head out of the office to see if there is a throwdown.
The next day Raj hits two home runs and as soon as he is in the locker room he is singing, "they suck, they suck, they have no luck cause they suck".
Everyone laughs because it is Raj and everyone laughs when Raj talks. Raj continues to walk around the locker room, talking, not concerned whether anyone is listening or laughing.
“Some hitters can do and some hitters can't do. If a hitter can't do they'll never be due,because they have the can't do, never due voodoo.”
CHAPTER 73
"Okay sit down and listen big shots and little shots. We're here to make Coney Island proud. If we can't do that at least we can have the satisfaction of making the Mets organization glad they signed you."
Chessi was giving the wind up and the pitch. None of us want to coach minor league baseball in our retirement days, but then none of us can imagine being retirement old. We can't imagine being thirty years old. They’ll have to have an umpire to throw Chessi out of the old ballgame.
Needles walks in and sits down and stares off across the room, maybe hearing voices in his head. Chessi keeps talking without looking at Needles.
"You don't want to be walking around out there looking like a squirrel without a nut. Don't go leaving your nuts in places you don't remember.
We've played some games and we're six and three. Winning two games for every one we lose. In some sports that is not good, but if you do that in baseball you might be having a championship season.
If you want to get attention play for winning team. Play for a winning team and everyone pays atttention . Nova, see me in my office if you can find it.”
It looks like the big strikeout for Needles.
The game starts and Nova is on the field still tweaking, twitching and scratching where he's itching. I'm pitching tomorrow so I'm sitting and watching and trying to figure out what the coach is thinking and how he is moving the subtleties and deciphering the opponents strategic components. Both teams are trying to do the same thing while trying to get the other team guessing that they're doing something different. Nova strikes out on three pitches in the first inning and the coaches don't look at each other because they don't want to talk about what they're looking at or they'll have to get dramatic. To stop it they're going to have to substitute and make up a story about a pulled muscle.
Chessi can't help himself. "Nova, you're up Uranus on the Goodship Lollygag."
Nova's lights are dimming. Not sure he even knows it is Cressi yelling or just a drunken fan. Cressi shakes his head.
"Wrong planet, wrong fucking planet."
Needles falls. A soft fall to the outfield grass to end what I'm guessing is a hard crash from three or four nights without sleep. I don't think they'll bother with a drug test or a pink slip. Needles didn't spend much time on hellos or goodbyes back in the day when he was a player.
Chessi points at me so I find my fielders glove and run for center field while the coaches and the trainer help Nova off the field. The hitters will try to hit the ball to center to the new guy who they think doesn't know what he is doing since he can't find a starting position on a minor league team. We snag a couple of easy flies after a strike out and it is one, two, three I need to find a bat.
I'm up third.
Ichabod singles, first up. Rami looks for the sign from the third base coach and he takes so long and he raises eyebrows to question whether he is reading the right sign that the other team guesses that he is going to bunt. He bunts. The ball is bunted hard over the third baseman's head down the third base line. He made the right mistake. Ichabod ran on the pitch and scores from first and Rami ends up with a bunt double. The pitcher is thrown off his game enough that he sends me a fastball down the middle of the plate and I send it back for a home run.
The next time I bat they start me out with a changeup like I guessed and I second guessed it back into the bleachers.
Chessi sees me after the game.
"What the hell am I going to with a player like you? Play you or pitch you?"
I didn't want to confuse him. I'm pitching tomorrow. He doesn't want to say too much to keep me from thinking too much. I'm pitching, I'm hitting, I'm doing my job. I'm thinking I can play this game.
Needles is gone. I'm pitching and as long as I don't let any hitters send a pitch on a bleacher ride I should be okay. I'm hungry, but I eat light on the day I'm on the pitching mound. I can't have full stomach weighing me down when I'm working and reading the hitters mind if they have a thought or just working when I know they're going on instinct. I don't have a reverse the rotation of the planet pitch so I just try to use the stuff that cuts sharply just before it crosses the plate. It looks like they can hammer the ball, but they can't. Two round surfaces cannot hit squarely, so the pitcher should have the advantage. When I'm swinging the bat I'm trying to hit a spot the size of pin on the basball.
When I'm pitching I'm throwing to a pin head.
Sometimes it works like that.
I had a good week and I had bad week. I'll hear about the bad week for as long as I'm here. J.P. remembers the good week. I'm not sure the coaches remember anything that isn't a mistake.
"The loss column is filled with mistakes and so is this team" says Chessi.
Some guys get the 'I'm a mistake?' mug on their face then peek around to see if anyone caught the give away look.
"Start playing in the win column. No one remembers losers. If you don't get remembered you won't get a phone call."
I've got to play like I'm not just glad to be here, but like I mean business which means something new to me - work habits.
"O'Really, you're doing some good things out there. Sometimes you look you know what you're doing. I hope you know what you're doing, because when other teams figure out what you're doing their going to find a way to make sure you don't do it anymore. So figure out what the hell you're doing and learn to do it better."
Doing what? I'm playing baseball, that's what I'm doing.
We're a traveling road show on an upper New York State bus tour. We're a sporting circus with a real purpose. Win. Play baseball and win. Simple.
One day we suck. Simple. One day we win. Simple.
It isn't like high school where you have your friends there and you see them all the time. There are always people to like and to not like and the stress is on being all for the team, but you've got to know that going in or soon you'll be going back out.
We'll stop in a town and play three games in three consecutive days. Some of the locals know their players, some come just out of curiosity.
CHAPTER 74
"What are you studying now?" I ask J.P.
I pay J.P. a pre-trip visit.
"Magic sarcasticism."
"What the hell is that?"
"South American writers are a part of a literarary movement called magic realism. Americans are the magic sarcastics. They want to believe in Santa Claus, but mock the idea at the same time."
"Like you make fun of me, but you're serious during sex."
"Magic sarcasticism. You don't want to take things too seriously."
/>
"How did you come up with that?"
"It's for my future of literature class. We ask questions like, will there be books on
Twitter?"
"Why not. We're not going to read them anyway."
"So that is the future."
"How did they like you're fantastic sarcastic idea?"
"They couldn't tell if I was joking or serious."
"Isn't that the whole point?"
"Most of it. They thought I had to work on it a little more."
"They just wish they had thought of it first."
"Right, they'll knock it down then they'll write term papers about it next semester."
J.P. wants to take the road trip. We're going to Vermont too and she's never been there. I don't know what she's expecting to see, a bunch of Quakers, Amish and maple syrup makers?
The Vermont Lake Monsters play it cute with the logo, a Disney smurk, an unwicked smiling behemoth that wouldn't scare a two year old. Too bad we don't play a doofus of a dinosaur, but a team with a hot pitching staff that has shut down hitters. J.P. and a batch of her sophisto ciao-ciaos are doing the maple syrup drive and want to enjoy a ladies night at the ball yard by the lake.
I'm a hot batter now, so I'm not a pitcher I'm an everyday outfielder without a drug habit.
Saint Sligo shows up unannounced and uses his agent privileges to sit right behind the dugout and pays the beer vendor a twenty up front to make sure the bubba-cola is extra icy and frequent. Always the pro. Global warming is no match for Saint Sligo O'Shaunessy's quest for ultra frosty beer at the ballpark.
I'm in the on deck circle in the first inning and I hear Sligo, “pssssst.”
"You can't hear me I'm just another fan. I heard you're girlfriend is here tonight. Don't let it be a distraction."
I've got a distraction telling me not to be distracted. I look at Sligo and all the people around him are watching him and not the game. A line drive foul will give any of them an old school brain scan. I'm watching them and not the game. Sligo strikes again. I can handle it. All I have to do is go to bat and show them my big league swing. I show them the swing three times quickly and sit down before anyone dies of shock and awe at the incredibleness of my technique. If I do that again Saint will tell me to keep my eye in the ballgame. It is the time in the story where something happens like a dramatic reversal of fortune for the main character and what better place for that to happen than here in Vermont in a strange ballpark while my girlfriend and uncle watch. Okay J.P. spent most of her time talking to her friends and just a little time watching me play. I knew I was in trouble when J.P.'s roommate bolted out of the stands across the infield and slid into second base. As security took her into the stands she managed to give J.P. a big wet kiss full on the lips. The Ledge walks by me in the dugout and reacts to my reaction.