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.