Half a Right Leg and a Mouth Full of Sputum

Last issue of Volume 1!
Brewers/Cardinals World Series!
The Big O gets sexy!
PLUS: Tommy DiMarco's watercolor of Guera!
All this and more in the latest Archive issue.
Just click on the tab above & look for issue #17.

Untranslatable

By Bob Stanley

One October afternoon
standing on the knoll above the tetherball poles
the sixth grade guys huddled together
eager to dispel the fifth-grade rumor
that the World Series was over
and the Giants had lost.
Expecting one more miracle
obscured in transistor static
we heard it was true: final score one-zero.

The next April Grandpa Joe sent me a poem from Paris –
some American missed the crack of the bat
the dust - the tension
and the casual inattention that turns to a roar
without warning - untranslatable.

Each season would go by
and win or lose, we’d stand with the black and orange

That last season
when cancer was coming at him like an
inside pitch, he called
hoping we could go to the game
as he took me twenty years before to the
night game Mays won off Warren Spahn in sixteen:
one-zero
but by then I was asleep in his arms.

This time it was Dwight Gooden and the Mets
but I couldn’t make it –
you took the bus out there by yourself
it went extra innings again.

Can that many years go by
and still the zero be on the scoreboard?
The peaks and valleys of a single game
are easily described in a box-score
but extra innings
well, that’s just poetry.

The Day We Were Humiliated into Playing Horseshoes

Richard Rosen finds a new definition for Billy Ball!
Viola Weinberg starts Billy Martin advice column!
The Fearless Forecaster answers questions!
PLUS: Guera strikes back!
All this and more in the latest Archive issue.
Just click on the tab above & look for issue #16.

Adrift and Addled on the Mad River

By William Fuller

9:00AM Sacramento train station. If I knew how prophetic the name on our car would be, I might not have gone (which of course would have been a mistake). Of the six or seven major league teams that are currently playing the worst, Donna and I were on our way to see two of them. Next stop: The Oakland Coliseum.

11:30AM The train arrives! We make our way to the A's ticket booth and score some choice tickets (this is NOT the team across the bay). We're sitting one level up behind home plate, a little to the first base side. We decide to start this one in style, so we get a table at the Westside Club, looking straight out onto the field. Before we're seated, I need to use the restroom - more to collect my wits than anything else - caffeine and disorientation have me semi-reeling. I walk towards where I think the bathrooms are, but it's dark and somewhat confusing, especially in my condition. There's an open door; I walk through and marvel at how clean this ballpark bathroom is - probably because of the section we're in - it's so first class, they don't even have urinals - we each get our own private enclosed stall. I'm the only one in there, odd but it is an hour before game time. I do my business, and as I start to wash my hands, a woman's voice comes from the entrance: "Are you cleaning up in here?" I turn around and she's looking straight at me. I realize I dress kinda ratty, but what the hell is she talking about and what is she doing here? And then, finally, I get it - I've just spent the last few minutes in the women's bathroom. Needless to say, I make a quick, apologetic exit as the woman moves as far away from me as she can, not taking her eyes off me for a second.

12:40PM First inning and the A's are already ahead of the Orioles 2-0. This second baseman Jamile Weeks is really impressive, despite a flurry of recent errors. We've finally finished our lunch and are ready to take our seats. As we enter our section, the usher stops us and asks to see our tickets. Problem is, with the tickets we bought, we got $10@ off the bill - and now we're not sure if the waitress gave us back the tix. When we left our table, we were talking to the mother/daughter next to us and exchanging blog addresses. I can't find the tix. Donna thought she had them, but cannot find them either. The usher is adamant - there are actually some seats in the outfield today that are only $2 (it's Two Dollar Wednesday!), and he's gotta be careful no scofflaws like we appear to be get into the better seats. Finally, after several more minutes and a coupla runs scoring, Donna locates the tix. We're in our seats!

1:20PM A's first baseman Brandon Allen hits a huge fly straight into center field. O's center fielder Adam Jones misjudges it, and it soars over his head and hits the base of the 400 foot fence, bouncing back at him. Allen goes flying past first. Jones bobbles the ball as Allen turns second. Jones seems to get control, but amazingly, drops the ball again. Allen is waved home - Jones finally gets control of the ball and hurls it to the cutoff, who sends it home, but incredibly Brandon "Barry" Allen beats the ball! An inside the park home run! Never have I beheld such a sight live! Astounding!

2:30PM A sky-hi foul Oriole ball heads straight towards me - it falls one row in the empty seats in front of me. But at this point, slow witted and confused, I watch the ball come to a stop as the gentleman with a mitt to my right goes over the seats and snags it!

4:15PM Back on the train, Jack London Square: final notes. The game ended with a ninth inning out at home, the A's victorious. Exciting game, great day. Who cares if it doesn't matter one bit in the 2011 scheme of playoff hopes and world series dreams? Who cares if the bulk of the last few hours was one embarrassing moment to the next? Any day at the ballpark is a day well spent. Note to self: Will have to do this way more often.

Infield Suite

By Bob Stanley

As we file in
the symmetrical green
begins to play its little music
soft strum of gloves tasting soft dirt
swung by bodies loose and warm –

Fielding – being of the field,
at one, loose, low,
strong and centered –
the process of finding that center –
Fielding.

* * * *

Keep the ball down
comin’ in, comin’ in
two out, two on,
a jam you’re in
you know you’ve arrived
ball in hand
with a one-run lead
as you stand on the mound
you have all that you need
let fly the ball
let it cast its design

* * * *

It wasn’t recording the out at first base
it wasn’t the hand-slapping victory dance
the end of the inning, the end of the game

but the moment
two down
bases full
all at stake

when you paused and looked
into center
and back

at the game that had brought you
to stand in this spot

Evening warm
ball in glove

it’s small
it’s white
and forever
in this life
you will reach for it
in its flight.

Unwrapping Your Fourth Gus Zernial, Part II

By Richard Rosen

So what did I inherit from my nephews? I immediately wondered if something really valuable turned up, if I should come clean and share the money or ? So just to make sure I went to an on-line price guide to see what I actually had. The most expensive card: #1 Ken Griffey Jr., his rookie card worth $38, about five times the value of the next most valuable card, #25 Randy Johnson at $7.30. After this the prices drop precipitously, in the $3.50 to $4.00 range, Gary Sheffield, John Smoltz, Craig Biggio, and ironically enough, Mark McGwire and Barry Bonds, the former worth 1¢ more than the latter. In the $2.50 range, a picture of Nolan Ryan throwing a football, though from the looks of things I wouldn’t quit my day job. Finally bring up the rear in the Dollar Club, Ryne Sandberg, George Brett, Greg Maddox, Robin Yount, Mike Schmidt, Ozzie Smith, and one of my favorites, Donnie Ball Game, Don Mattingly. Most of the other cards fall between 30¢ and 50¢; the cheapest ones I found belonged to Rance Mullinicks and Paul Assenmacher at 19¢.

The other box my daughter handed me included some interesting players, and a few great ones. Here are three Hall of Famers, Nolan Ryan (who the year before was only 12-11), Eddie Murray (28 homers, .284 BA), and Bert Blyleven, who certainly didn’t have a Hall-of-Fame type year in 1988, going 10-17 with a 5.43 ERA. I also found Ken Williams and Al Leiter, both now Yankee broadcasters, and Joe Girardi, the Yankee manager, who spent 1988 in Pittsfield—that’s FIELD, not BURGH—and hit 7 homers in 357 ABs. Then there was Fred Lynn in a Detroit uniform, Jack Clark in a Padres uni (though he spent ‘88 with the Yankees), and Jim Abbott, the one-handed pitcher, the Angels’ number one pick in 1988, just coming off a gold-medal performance at the Olympics, where he went 8-1 with a 2.55 ERA. Moving from the famous to the infamous, we can start with Ozzie Canseco — that’s OZZIE not Jose — steroid-user Rafael Palmeiro, who was with the Cubs in ‘89 and hit 8 homers in 580 ABs (pass the syringe, Raffi), and Wally Backman, still a few years away from bankruptcy, DUI and being fired from the Diamondbacks for not telling the truth. Finally, believe it or not, I found Omar Vizquel's 1989 rookie card; Vizquel is now 44 years old and still active.

I’m not sure what I’ll do with that second box of cards. Guess on the one hand I could put them away for a rainy day; they must be worth in the vicinity of $50. Or maybe I could trade them, hows about Dwight Smith, Greg Briley and Rob Murphy for Gus Zernial? Nowadays he’s worth $8.

You Butchered My Story, You Heartless Assassin

BD staff stricken with grief!
Jack Hastings sets out for San Franciso, ends up in Ensenada, and finally makes it to Chavez Ravine!
The Fearless Forecaster sums up the season!
PLUS: Jagne Parks answers Guerra's attacks!
All this and more in the latest Archive issue.
Just click on the tab above & look for issue #15.

Oh, Ricky!

By Peggy Kincaid

The cutest boy I ever saw lived next door.

His little sister was my best friend, but

this isn’t about her. It’s about sneaking

into his room to get the scent

of boy and see his baseball posters

and touch his boy pajamas

when I spent the night with her.

I was only 9, but really, that’s old enough

to know how fine that sandy-haired boy looked

in his tight baseball pants. Lucille Ball

had nothing on me with her Ri-i-i-cky!

That was the cry of my insides:

Oh, Ricky, please notice me.

And when I watched him play the field,

snagging grounders, pulling down line drives,

snapping the ball to third, running over the first baseman,

I melted into my blueberry snow cone, and,

Oh, Ricky, my Bazooka bubblegum froze solid.

Unwrapping Your Fourth Gus Zernial

By Richard Rosen

When the call came in, I knew right away from the sound of the ring it was my daughter. She was spending the week in Vermont, visiting with her two male cousins. Apparently the boys were cleaning out their closets and, never big on sports themselves, they wanted to know if I wanted some old baseball cards. Silly question; while I don’t actively collect them anymore, I still have my collections from when I was a kid a looooong time ago. My prize possession among all the hundreds of cards is my 1957 Topps Mickey Mantle, valued at $650, though that would be in mint condition and mine was far from that. Of course back in the day I was collecting these now prized pieces of cardboard we didn’t realize that someday some of them would be worth a small fortune, or actually what would have been a fortune in 1957, but today is a few tanks of gas and a ticket to the promenade level behind home plate at AT&T Park, along with a sausage smothered sauerkraut and an ice-cream. Sure I’ll take ‘em.

The kid gets home and hands me two very heavy, very well made boxes, both holding “high # series” Upper Deck cards from 1989. Here are a few surprises; as Zimmerman sang, “the times they are a-changin’”. Back in the old days the cards came 5 or 10 in a package wrapped in plastic coated paper with a flat rectangle of powdered bubble gum. When you bought these cards you had no idea which ones were inside. Early in the collecting season then, each time you
opened the package there was the thrill of several new cards to add to the collection. But as the number of cards in the collection increased, your chances of finding new cards decreased, and then you understood about the agony of defeat when you unwrapped your fourth Gus Zernial. Your only hope was to unload your doubles, triples, quadruples, working a trade with your albatrosses (much like the Giants would like to do with Barry Zito) that would net you a new player. If worse came to worse you could always clothespin one of the cards to the front fork of your bicycle where it would make a clack-clack-clack sound like a motorcycle as you pedaled along.

But nowadays (or at least in 1989 and I assume still today) you buy a sturdy box of about 100 cards and you know exactly which numbers are in the box. Think about it, THE CARDS ARE IN A BOX, a corrugated cardboard one at that, surely meant to protect them. In truth, you were no longer buying baseball cards in the sense that we did as kids, to look at endlessly, to play games with (flip the cards toward a wall, the one that lands the closest wins, a card that “stands up” against the wall, officially known as a “leaner,” is an automatic winner), and (God forbid) to write on when the player gets traded to keep things up-to-date. No, once we bought baseball cards, lots of them. That’s one reason why they’re so valuable today: every kid that wasn’t headed to the ROTC in junior high to avoid PE had baseball cards, and because they were so common, no one gave them much thought, and so they were destroyed in one way or another or lost or thrown away, leading to relative scarcity and the baseball card boom of the early 2000’s. Today you’re not buying cards, you’re making an investment, the cards come in sealed “strong boxes” better not opened, you might rumple one, and just tucked away somewhere where your mother can’t find them. It’s akin to buying a US savings bond and waiting a few years for it to mature.

To Be Concluded

The Slide Part II

By Bob Stanley

Very suddenly things begin to change. The ball ricochets away to the left, angling towards another diagonal wooden backstop, and the catcher – one of these proud youngsters we would love to beat - the catcher jogs after the ball. After all, I'm only two-thirds of the way to third base. But I can read the angle of the next bounce the ball will take which will carry it a little farther down the line towards first base. I can read the mindset of the catcher, the angle that the pitcher will receive the ball at, as he comes in to cover the bag, and I know that Sully has scored, with two outs, and if I don’t score this inning - well, who knows. Remember, I still have to reach third.

But at that time-frozen moment, when all is computed, and the battle is joined, I accelerate, negotiate the inside corner of the bag and dash for home. I do it because my father, thirty years ago, must have told me it is better to play than watch, I do it because a down-on-his-luck former major leaguer told me to trust myself, to take the extra base, to force the mistake. I do it, in the end, because I think I can.

Time, which had stopped, suddenly unravels as I run, now really run, as I have not done for a long time. But also swiftly, catcher recovers, retrieves ball, flips to pitcher covering plate. As I close in, time slows down again, as if decision and awareness were a more complete definition of how we measure our lives than seconds or weeks, I'm almost there, but I can see I'm in trouble. He has taken the throw, and though his back is turned, he is pivoting his torso to face the sitting duck that races toward him.

This was where indecision proves beneficial to my cause. In a straight-on slide I'm dead to rights – instinctively I feel he’d tag me on the foot as he swings around to find me in the obvious spot. Collide? Do the Pete Rose thing? I'm 40, he’s 30. It’s 10 o’clock at night and this is a rec league, friendly, you know. Check, I rule this out. Out of options, I stumble, high speed half-step pitch forward, and trust gravity to suspend for one short time – I dive, nay, crash, into the hard dirt, glasses rolling off, 210 pounds of un-toned poet slamming into the dust, but to the first base side of the plate, away from the base at an angle he does not anticipate – I know this can be done.

Now it is just the battle of two hands reaching for something at high speed. I can see my goal. He can’t see his. Even as I skid, my right hand hesitates, then splays forth. Exactly as his glove sweeps above my arm, my open palm sprawls across the plate. Touches it. Even the umpire can see that the tag is missed. I have touched down. The startled call is SAFE, and the game, which after all is only a game, is won.

There must be moments of peace in this life, some sense of unbridled gratification. Certainly the high-fives from my jubilant teammates, the pats on the back, my fuzziness (where are my glasses?) at discovering blood on my face and blood and dust everywhere on my white uniform, certainly these are to be kept as congratulation, a sense of what has been done, But to me the moment of definition was the moment when I first saw the extent of the possible, and made the first move, the burst of whatever speed these knees could provide, and the banked turn around third, as if there were no boundaries, and all things could be, at the moment we let ourselves go.

And Then He Kicked Her

Ken Koss vomits into his pocket, attacks a pet, and pens a World Series Summary!
Jack Hastings sets out for Chavez Ravine, changes his mind, and heads for San Francisco!
Jagne Parks pouts!
PLUS: Guera not happy with BD covers!
All this and more in the latest Archive issue.
Just click on the tab above and look for issue #14.

The Slide

by Bob Stanley

(Note: Bob Stanley is Sacramento's current Poet Laureate. Among other things.)

The whole thing only took about fifteen seconds. The rib, whether or not it was broken, is less painful every day. The cut on my cheek is healed, still a little slick, a little red where the skin is filling in, but the scab is off. The season is over, we didn’t win a championship t-shirt this year, but I still remember the one play as if it just happened. I replayed it over and over in my mind, for the first few days, and it still stays with me now, nearly two weeks later. I think it will for a long time.

I first sensed we would come back and win while I sat on the bench, even though we were behind by seven runs. The team we were playing had crushed us, 20 to 1, a few weeks before, and we were behind 13 to 6 at the time. For some reason I mumbled to nobody in particular, “We have a really solid team tonight.” I wasn’t sure why, but there it was, some vague confidence bubbling to the surface.

The story really doesn’t begin until my second run-scoring double, when I stood on second base in the cool October night. Not that those two doubles weren’t an accomplishment in themselves, I just fused determination – stance, elbows, eyes, hands gripping the bat – with concentration – staying with the ball until and after contact – to drive it into the gap in right. I'm not sure if I ever worked so hard for a hit and had it come out so right. Surprised myself, I did.

So here I am on second. Sullivan’s on third, we’re down by one, one out in the bottom of the last inning. Almost like Casey at the bat: “There was Jimmy safe at second, and Flynn a huggin’ third.” Sullivan to tie, Stanley to win. Thirteen-Twelve. On the very first pitch, the batter lofts an easy fly to medium left-center. After the catch, Sully tags and scores, I tag and dance halfway towards third. When the ball scoots past and under the catcher, I quicken my pace, continuing toward third, when our story begins.

To Be Concluded

Crawling Back Into Tuesday Alone

"Doris Lessing at Chavez Ravine"!
The best second baseman in the American League IS NOT Frank White!
What kinda shoes does Rickey Henderson wear?
PLUS: The Fearless Forecaster calls Ken Koss a misogynist, then answers his quiz!
All this and more in the latest Archive issue.
Just click on the tab above and look for issue #13.