“Illuminating the Joe”

The artwork for Dreaming .400 was initially going to be a baseball field with fans flocking to it in every imaginable way, by boat and canoe, stage coach, train, and good old fashioned one foot in front of the other.

But like anything else, plans and designs are meant to be changed. I remember hearing about a subway system in Seville, Spain that was partially built. The jackhammers had ripped up cement squares; a few building had been knocked down when uh-oh, the underground area was said “to not be conducive to excessive drilling” so they patched it up like nothing had ever happened, jewel thieves in the night.

But what the hell, it lowered unemployment for a while, a sort of New Deal in an ooops sort of way,  Maybe not a bad idea in today’s world. Maybe in northern Canada, just below Nunavut, they could build a massive amusement park and put to work all of these refugees pouring into Europe from Syria and Lebanon before realizing that the cold harsh northern climate was “not conducive to an amusement park construction.”

Canada would then be stuck with thousands of refugees and maybe that’s not a bad thing, immigrants tilling the frozen soil-making something out of nothing? Or maybe I should keep my day job since I’m an immigrant too. I work at a hospital, delivering things and it’s warm in there, but back to to the cover the art. The publisher and I both noticed it on line without either of us knowing what the other one was doing. I think that’s a biblical occurrence or a proverb or something? Ya know, like not letting your right hand know what your left hand is doing or maybe I’m mixing up apples?

Anyway, Judy McSween is the artist and the painting  is called “Illuminating the Joe.” I love that name. Love the painting too. Looks like a dream which goes well with the title of the book-Dreaming .400. She’s a teacher and mother of three or four kids.

The painting is a sunset falling behind Joseph P. Riley Jr. Stadium in Charleston, South Carolina. Joe Riley – the person – was a big player in the stadium’s construction back in 1997. The stadium is currently home to the Charleston River Dogs of the Class Single A-South Atlantic League (New York Yankees affiliate). I sort of cringed when I found out the Yankees were involved, but I don’t really care. I love the Yankees just like I love Darth Vadar and all the forces in the universe that inspire me to stand taller and fight.  

Anyway, the Charleston River Dogs were previoulsy an affiliate of the Tampa Bay Rays. And before that-the Rangers, Padres, and Royals. Different masks, but same beautiful baseball going on.

The stadium is also home to the Citadel Bulldogs.

our names have already been called

I was feeling way too self-conscious and missed the symbolism of a bullfighter sitting in the dugout equivalent as his entourage of five, maybe six picadores or banderilleros mauled the bull with an assortment of giant toothpicks.

I catch a glimpse of the matador fixing his hair and looking pretty and the crowd becoming so silent it’s painfully loud when he swaggers to the center of the ring. I have no control over Matt Stairs popping into my mind. Or maybe it’s Manny Mota or some generic pinch hitter summoned to carry out the death knell for the opposing team’s bullpen or at least wear em all down with 12-pitch badger at bats.

aliexpress.com

The bull fighter looks proud and determined and very still; each movement very calculated. I try to be here and now, but feel drunk with metaphor; seeing that pinch hitter apply donuts and pine tar in the on deck circle; simulating swings against that pitcher who stands not on a mound of glory, but a burial mound of imminent death. What choice does a batter, a bullfighter have. Sway the cape. Taunt the bleeding octopus.

I don’t think the bullfighter eyes the bull during the duel; not even once. It’s never clear if he’s taming his own beastly nature or the actual beast, so it’s probably both. One slip up; one jump in his heart rate or conversely, one elongated cold pause of doubt and zoom comes the 98 mph heater; dead in his cleats.

The bull isn’t perfect, hasn’t been for quite some time. It’s wounded and pissed off and understandably so.Those giant toothpicks stick out from its flesh oozing with blood. There’s no sweet runway to death; no profound words; no drifting out to big ocean like a lily on its back; not for a beast, not for a bull fighter, not for a pinch hitter.

Death is on the line here and everyone involved walks the trapeze, but only the human has the added matrix of knowing what’s at stake. Bye bye immortality. And so the beast within must be teased and sedated and then guided to the barrel of the sword.

The bullfighter walks with a straight back; proud and self-assured or pretending to be anyway. Kids can’t control themselves; impersonating swings and stabs in their seats. Those colorful stirrups leapfrog continents and time. The scene is choice, flair, charisma, and creativity all rolled into one.

The bullfighter turns his back on the bull and remembers the very first days long before all the expert training. “I can poke this joke”……

strutting like a Milan fashion model; brandishing bat and sword in the most ridiculous of manners; from the Joe Morgan twitch to Eric Davis calm. How they do it with such grace I will never know, but what choice do they have? What choice do any of us have?

my fanatacism slipped into autobiography

The last time Red Sox fans celebrated a World Series triumph at Fenway Park was something like 95 years ago. I don’t want to say anything else because there’s still a game to be played and maybe two.

But what I will say is that the best job I ever had began the same year the greatest baseball celebration erupted my life. It was 1982. I  was a newspaper delivery boy with a yellow saddle bag, two feet, a walkman radio and an expanding universe.

Baines leg lift wikipedia

I was tuned to 620 WTMJ Milwaukee Brewers radio or 670 WMAQ Chicago White Sox. I learned about  right fielder Harold Baines. He was born in St. Michael’s, Maryland. I looked up Maryland in the World Book Encyclopedia and saw pictures of the Amish.

Each World Book had a letter for a title. I could start with B and read about balsamic vinegar and end up on T and Fort Ticonderoga and that’s exactly what I did. It was a primitive search engine and it was good. I was convinced more was happening in the world than me.

But the thing that really blew the beer stein lid off my head was the nighttime scoreboard during baseball radio broadcasts. The sound of announcers saying “Detroit 7-Boston 4 and Seattle 5- Toronto 1” was a strange exotic sound of cities in different time zones. I could sort of see outer space.

Then there were bull fights in southern Spain, route 666 into Navajo country, Candlestick Park, the Brooklyn Bridge, Quebec French fur trader routes and then in a blink of an eye, all that expansion contracted and I was right back where I started, celebrating the Milwaukee Brewers.

Even if chance, god or a functional life support system allows me a couple of contemplations when my number is called, I doubt the bed will feel like a magic carpet heading elsewhere. I doubt I’ll whisper anything clever or profound.

I’ll most likely be moaning in pain or if the medicine works, I’ll be thinking about whatever I happen to be thinking about that day and hopefully it will be Ben Oglivie’s sliding catch in Baltimore or Brewer fans rushing onto the County Stadium field after clinching the 1982 American League Championship.

Yeh, I hope I’m thinking what a great ride it’s been and not caring at all if this is the last chapter with no afterword.

But why am I thinking about death? Probably because the World Series could end tonight and I hope Red Sox fans get to celebrate at Fenway Park. I hear that one night of dancing shakes body rhythms all winter and then some.