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.
The beer had gotten to me. A tear appeared in my eye, then another. They both roll down my cheek. I hadn’t cried since being above that bus motor, the hum of it so steady, unlocking a part of me I typically had no access to.
“This is no time for tears,” said pitching coach Andy Wetchman (Wetchy). “We got a game tonight. In less than an hour, this clubhouse will be filled with players and they got no time for feeling sorry for themselves, no time for distractions like that. Ambrosia is pitching tonight and he’s got control, elite control, not much junk, not much of a fastball either, but he throws strikes and so players got to be on their toes, focused come first pitch, ready for the ball coming their way. They’ll be playing jacks and hackey sack in preparation, playing right up until batting practice. Ya gotta be sharp when Ambrosia is pitching. No humming Esquivel in the outfield, no picking up stones and trying to flick them in the same spot, no rituals, no good luck charms. This is about skill and if there are bad hops, you block them with your chest, pick up the ball and throw the runner out.”
I stopped crying and looked at fungo man.
“My name is Trevor, but people back home called my Butch.”
“What…you play third base?” asked Wetchy. “They don’t pay much to play on this team, just enough for rent and some grub at Sal’s Diner, but we sure could use a third baseman. So do you play?”
Fungo man walked over to the fridge and removed three more beers.
“Hey, we gotta game in four hours,” yelled Wetchy. “No time for beer.”
Fungo man tossed me a beer.
“Like we need to be sober during a game,” laughed fungo man. “You’re so god damn stiff Wetchy. When you walk out to the mound, you’re supposed to loosen up the pitcher, not stress him out and cause him to groove pitches in the batter’s wheelhouse or get him aiming too much and throwing wild pitches. You could use a beer or three before the game, a little mental calisthenic.”
“What are you talking about,” snapped back the pitching coach Wetchy. “You don’t do anything all game, except chew gum and blow bubbles, pretending to be Kurt Bevacqua! You’ll never get your face on a baseball card. The day they make one for a fungo man is the day I hand in my uniform, cash in my last check, and go and see Linda over in Hanker County.”
“How you manage to keep her under your skin,” snapped fungo man, “is more of a miracle than Oil Can Boyd, all six feet, one inch, 155 pounds of him. He’s lucky a nor’easter didn’t blow him right out of Boston and you’re lucky that Linda over in Hanker County hasn’t done the same with you.”
Fungo man put his arm on Wetchy’s shoulder, squinted his eyes in my direction and asked what I wanted to know about the stadium. I repeated what I had told them before, about houses and castles and churches and bridges and all the things man had built, from teepees to skyscrapers to baseball stadiums, dugouts too. I took a big hit from the beer can, nearly half the can, and revealed that I liked to sleep inside stadiums, to find a cubby hole somewhere and doze off to the lingering smell of hot dogs.
“So you’re a loiterer,” snarked Wetchy, “a bum and so young too. Ah what the hell. If you can play third, we’ll give you a shot.”
“Why do you assume every human being is a baseball player?” asked fungo man, “or has the potential to be one? You suffer from a one track mind Wetchy. There are players and there are fans and then there are those who like to sleep inside stadiums.”
I took another hit off the beer, took a deep breath, let out a long exhale, and began to speak.
“I lost my parents to a double suicide and bought a bus ticket to San Diego, but that wasn’t my destination.”
“Where were you planning to go?” asked fungo man.”
“Anywhere but home. I had three weeks to use the ticket and I could stop and stay anywhere along the way.”
“So let me guess. Three weeks passed and you wound up in Marshville,” said an irritated Wetchy. “No one comes here unless they have a little baseball left in the tank….washed up prospects who lost their chance at making it, for one reason or another…..tripped over a sprinkler, busted their ankle, screw inserted, hobblers for the rest of their life, but good enough to play first base in Marshville, Bill Buckner their patron saint. Others took to cocaine and booze, spent years in the gutter, but experienced a baseball revelation, to pray to Jesus and to play ball, a Josh Hamilton species. And you? You come to Marshville and don’t have some tragic story ending in a return to the game that once made you happy? I don’t believe you.”
“No,” I said. “I just wound up here, as random as a monk parakeet in Brooklyn.”
“That’s not so random,” snapped back Wetchy, “because there are monk parakeets in Brooklyn and yeh, them and their lime green fluorescent feathers stick out like a toilet in a farm field, but they are far from random. They’ve been there for decades. Build nests at the top of electric posts. I’ve seen them up on Avenue J. You ain’t fooling anyone kid.”
Fungo man walked back to the fridge a third time and tossed me another beer.
“So, what’s with the stroller?” he asked.
“It’s where I stash my beer. Last thing my parents drank before they overdosed. I like sharing the euphoria they experienced. Reminds me that there’s still a chance.”
“Do you ever watch baseball?” asked fungo man.
“Oh yeh. I don’t remember when I first caught the fever, but the first player I remember was John Briggs. My dad was from Philly and he had a poster of Briggs up on his bedroom wall.”
I stood up and walked towards the water cooler, my back to Wetchy and fungo man. “I think I inherited my mom and dad’s melancholy, “the fits,” my dad called it. Whenever I got that way, dad reminded me that Briggs played 12 years and finished with a batting average above .250 and an OB% above. 350, signs of consistency, “which is what we’re striving for,” he would say. He taught me how to play strat-o-matic baseball and took me to baseball card conventions.”
“Do you collect sets or individual cards?” asked a warmer Wetchy. ” I see you as a sets guy, someone who likes completion.”
“I collect both. All kind of cards,” I said. “Come to think of it. I should go back home and get my cards before they seize our home.”
A few minutes passed. It was the first time in weeks that I hadn’t thought about my mom and dad, my mind suddenly occupied by baseball cards.
“I got an idea,” said fungo man”
He started pacing.
“Did you ever hear of the Continental League?” he asked.
“Yeh, my dad talked about it as a way to mellow the sting of New York losing both the Dodgers and Giants. A new league that never happened, right?”
“Something like that. Well, it’s about to happen again,” replied fungo man.
“What is?” I asked with sincere curiosity. “Don’t tell me we’re gonna turn Marshville and its competitors into the Continental League? I like that idea. We could compete with the MLB.”
“Well, that would never work,” said fungo man. “You know how the MLB gobbles up all rival leagues. But, we’re gonna tell anyone that asks what you’re doing here that your grandfather was set to be a journalist for the Continental League and when the league never happened, he passed on the journalism itch to your father and when your father died, his last words were “Continental Times.” It’s your turn kid.
“Turn for what,” I asked.
“You’re gonna write about every game that’s played here at Hawthorne Stadium and there are plenty of games. All teams play here, all 12 of them and on some Saturdays, there are four games, first one starting at 9:00 a.m. so get your pen and paper ready. It’s the beginning of the Continental Times. I have a copy machine at home and we’ll make hundreds of copies of your story and hand them out to the couple dozen fans who attend – game summaries, interviews, editorials. And don’t you worry about sleep. There’s room in the grounds crew room and I know Epstein, chief of the grass. Got plenty of room beside the rakes and hoses over there. I’ll have him rig up a hammock for you. And food? Plenty of peanuts, hot dogs, and coke. It won’t kill you. What do you say?”
Fungo man looked at Wetchy and then me. I laughed. So did Fun-go man. Wetchy shook his head and said, “Takes all types.”
if earth disappeared, would the rest of the galaxy really care? would they even notice? i feel you donnie moore and if i knew you before you shot your wife three times and killed her and then killed yourself, if i knew you, i would have encouraged you to dance dance dance dance more lift up your legs and dance dance dance dance more and then just maybe, all that misery woulda passed and there’d be another day…
brewers baseball and things 