If we’re all born as five tool prospects, then what the hell happens? wondered Rooftop Larry as he put his beer down and walked to the river, under the Powell Street Overpass. He knew the crowd there – Hillbilly, Cat Eyes, Jupiter Tom, and the rest of the BooBah gang….BooBah because it reminder them of their childhood monsters and nightmares and that it could always be worse.
Rooftop Larry had earned his nickname the hard way, for wanting to jump off buildings and end his life, but there was always some ember that kept him alive. He played independent baseball league and brought anecdotes and credentials to the river, a pitcher, played for 17 years on the west coast, lanky with a side arm delivery, all kinds of junk including a knuckleball, but didn’t have much control and didn’t throw very fast, but he could work out of jams so he was ready for a lost welfare check or a soggy slice of pizza.
….and so down by the river, Rooftop Larry inevitably reminisced about baseball, about the time they let loose two mice in the manager’s office or the night he walked the bases loaded and then struck out of the side and after the game three of his teammates took him to a bar and Rooftop Larry had no idea it was a strip club because there were no poles and no naked ladies, just a lot of talk at the rail which is exactly what happened to Rooftop Larry, a buxom swirly brownish blond slipped into the chair beside him and announced that she was Carmel and she asked a lot of questions and eventually slammed her fist on the table and slipped into another chair. Rooftop Larry thought she was being nice, that he might have a new friend, not knowing she was soliciting him for a lap dance in the back.
Anyway, it was like they say about no two baseball games ever being the exact same because one day when Rooftop Larry started in with baseball talk, one of the more indecisive and quieter members of the BooBah bunch, a middle-aged man named Wild Man Mark started insisting….
“Some kids are naturals. I don’t care what you say. You can’t teach a Ken Griffey swing.”
Rooftop Larry reconsidered his conclusions about life, about us all being born as five tool prospects, if maybe just a few of us are? He thought about Jim Abbott and Pete Rose and effort and without saying a word, it was as if Hillbilly could read his mind.
“When I had a car and was missing a rearview mirror,” said Hillbilly. “I was a better driver, more in tune with the road and the other cars and what not.”
“What’s your point?” asked Cat Eyes.
“It’s like them piano tuners being better when they’re blind,” replied Hillbilly. “When you’re missing one thing, you develop another.”
“Then why the hell didn’t Babe Ruth bunt!” screamed Wild Man Mark.
“Maybe I’ll close my eyes the next time I eat,” said Rooftop Larry, “and develop my sense of taste.”
Rooftop Larry feared boredom, feared it more than anything else in life, more than cancer, nuclear war or lost loves. This helps explain why he took a shine to Cat Eyes because she knew nothing about baseball and this made her all the more attractive, a challenge, a mission to turn her onto baseball. She had bronze colored eyes and vertical pupils like a cat and just like a cat she always knew what time it was, that there was no time, just now.
Rooftop Larry waited until a rainy day, when there were far fewer distractions, no sun shining off the water, no twigs and leaves and fire and bratwurst cook ups beside the river. It was a time to hunker down under the overpass and it was there, that rainy day, he delved a bit into a baseball, explaining to Cat Eyes what a single, double, triple, home run were and then how to compute batting average and before he could go any further…..
“But a single is not as valuable as a triple, but with batting average all hits count the same,” perked up Cat Eyes and it was the beginning of something big……Rooftop Larry knew it in his gut and this made him feel like a farmer planting seeds, like he had opened a new world to her and he suddenly wanted to live forever and thought about shedding the Rooftop from his name.
brewers baseball and things 