Baseball Diary Vol 1, #13

September 23, 1982
Los Angeles

"By and large [baseball] is the sport that a foreigner is least likely to take to. You have to grow up playing it, you have to accept the lore of the bubble-gum card, and believe that if the answer to the Mays-Snider-Mantle question is found, then the universe will be a simpler and more ordered place."
--David Halberstam

Cover image above by Jagne Parks


Doris Lessing at Chavez Ravine
by John Hastings

Last Tuesday I woke up alone.
There were no messages on my answering machine.
I turned on the television and watched (small) figures
move fitfully over a (bright) green.
The sound was too low to understand the chatter.
But I thought I heard a note of hysteria
or perhaps only a dial tone.
I am not sure.
It may have been an echo of my time passing
(in the language of stones) as it often does.
There came an interlude.
A (heady dazzling) rush of image.
I felt the axis of my interior world shift farther from the sun.

I was in a (dim) concrete passage that curved away in the distance.
A clamor fell like sleet from above the (blue white) lights and
shattered reverberant all around me.
I thought perhaps I had come under the sea.
But the (still) air was too heavy with the cloy of stale beer
and onions and sweat.

I ran down the passage. My shadow danced (brokenly insane) along
the walls in time to the passing of the lights overhead and then
fell headlong swallowed up in a flood of (white) brilliance from
a (sudden) open-ing on my right. I plunged into the light and came
up in the (strong) arms of a (round angry) man. His eyes spat from
within dark circles as he led me deeper into the (blinding) glare.
"What am I to do?" I asked him.
"You know," he replied as he slid the (smooth) wood into my hands.
And I did. Almost.
Somewhere deep within the layers of ice a (shaggy blistered) memory
stirred and whispered of (tingling) Sunday rituals of peanuts and heroes.
But before the beast could wallow free there was a swirling of the
(searing) brilliance. It coalesced into a (small) mockery of the
sun and sped toward my face.
So fast and filled with threat I could only stand glazed against
the sound of many thousand bodies tensed and hissing against the
(bright) plastic of their seats and taste (hot) leather from its streak.
(Small) knowledges burbled up from my mental tarpits.
Bat and ball. The crowd. The (aching) light.
Dimly I saw figures shifting in a (green) haze and felt their eyes
fall toward me.
"I must swing the BAT at the BALL!" I cried (triumphantly).
But already it was too late.
Screaming out of the (perspective-less) distance (white and deadly)
it was before my nose and gone and all in the same instant of time.

The crowd breathed out a cloud of menace that settled around my
shoulders like the (cold) cloak of the (drowned man's ) sea.
I steeled myself now ready to face that hero's moment.
That (raptured) child's dream of a time that lights the fuse
of destiny. I felt my muscles swell as the wood in my hands
drew power from the night like some antenna tuned to a broadcast
of all the will and passion that lay beneath legions of
(sweat-sheened) flesh.

From out of the (long) dark beyond the stars that (tiny) comet
hurtled toward the (blazing) sun that I had become. I swung
(a mighty swing) and (blue) lightning coursed down my arms and
out along the (gleaming) wood knifing through the (gelid) air
twisting me helpless into a (delicious) spin round and round and
round faster and faster until I was frayed into threads and the
threads stripped to particles and the particles hurled into space
pinwheeling sparks to color the void.

There was a non-time as I re-formed.
Flowed together like cold oil.
I found myself crawling back into Tuesday alone.
Still no messages on my answering machine.


THIS IS YOUR EDITOR AGAIN: WELCOME
The first televised sports event was a baseball game on February 17, 1931. It took place in Tokyo and was played by members of the Waseda University teams...Jackie Mitchell was the first woman pitcher in the history of professional baseball. In 1931, playing for Chattanooga, she struck out Babe Ruth her second day on the team...The "bullpen" originally was the roped off area where standing-room crowds were kept. It didn't become the term for the relief pitchers'
warmup area until about 1909 when the Bull Durham tobacco folks plastered giant posters of bulls on about 150 ballpark fences...Last week during the Dodger butchering of the Astors in the first game of their series here, we were stunned by the sight of two-baggers flying through the air with uncommon abandon. One of us almost got beaned by the hurtling goobers. After calming down a bit, we san before us Roger Owens, "The Peanut Man". Owens' knack for accurately placing bags of nuts six or seven rows, eight or nine people deep is earning him a reputation and a presumably healthy bank account. And he never seems to do anything as pedestrian as throw them over or underhand; they're always tossed from around the back or under a leg. Here's what the back of his business card says:

Roger Owens is the man
Who throws the peanuts in the stands,
People come from everywhere
Just to see him throw a pair.

So when you see the Dodgers play
Help Roger Owens make his pay.
Buy your peanuts from him and you'll see
He's making peanuts do down in history.

...You don't think Rickey Henderson broke Lou Brock's record in a pair of Keds, do you? No, ma'am. He wears Mizuno shoes imported to the United States via Burlingame, California. He and the R.K. Mizuno Sporting Goods Ltd. Company of Osaka Japan desinged them. The back cleats are angled inward and the hell is inclined, theoretically increasing a runner's speed and stability. Brock set his mark in a pair of shoes made by Converse.


LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Dear Editor:
I really enjoyed the humorous story by Ann M in my last BD. Wow, where on Earth did she get the idea for a ROYAL fan who thinks Frank White is a better keystoner than Willie R? And how about the part where she had him counting frames on his video recorder? Perfect touch, really, man, just the kind of nuttiness you'd expect from a ROYAL fan. Of course, in real life, Frank's fielding per cent IS one-one hundredth of a point higher than Willie's, but then Willie will get 40 more put outs and 50 more assists than Frank in an average season. Then too, he's a better hitter, he's faster, and he walks more than Frank, which is why he's scored 80 more lifetime runs in 260 fewer lifetime games. I also liked the way she had her character crowing about Frank's five Gold Gloves, and completely ignoring the fact that he plays at least half his games on plastic grass, which makes fielding a LEETLE bit easier than on the real stuff (no, no, no, not THAT stuff) which God intended should cover a baseball diamond.

Now, gee, about your Ken Koss Kwiz: that's a real toughy. Let's see. Seven was a "MAN" can reach base. Hey, is this a trick question? A BATTER can get on with a hit or walk (including intentional walk), by a fielding error or being plunked with the pitch. Hmmm. That's four, right? He (or she) can also reach base by forcing another runner or through catcher's interference (Dale Berra led the NL in 1981 in being awarded first base because of catcher's interference with three, Charlie Hustle was 2; surprisingly, Glenn Adams was the ONLY AL'er to reach first on interference in 1981.) So, 4 and 2 is, um, six, so I need one more. Well, heck, we all remember the 1941 World Series, when the Dodgers had the Yanks down 4-3 with 2 outs in the ninth in game 4. Hugh Casey had 2 strikes on Tom Henrich, Ol' Reliable swung at strike 3, but Mickey Owen, the Bum backstop, muffed the pitch, Henrich reached first, the Yanks scored four runs, won the game 7-4 and the Series 4-1. So I guess the seventh way a BATTER can reach base is on a dropped 3rd strike (wich less than two outs, first base must be unoccupied). Of course, a MAN can reach base as a pinch runner, but your KWIZ wouldn't be THAT sneaky, now, would it?
Sincerely,
F. Forecaster
Oakland, California

Dear Fearless Forecaster:
We hate to burst any bubbles you may have been blowing, but we at Baseball Diary are assured that Ms. M's column last issue is true. Evidently such a Royals fan does indeed exist. As for your answers to the Ken Koss Kwiz, we don't understand what you mean by "He (or she) can also reach base by forcing another runner..." Your other seven guesses are correct. Guess ole KK can be THAT sneaky. By the way, BD takes no responsibility for the validity of any of the answers of Kwestions in the Ken Koss Kwiz, nor do we endorse the Kwiz or Ken Koss himself. As for his Kwestion this issue, here goes:

"Who scored the winning run in the 1962 Dodger-Giant Pennant Playoff Game?"

Answer next issue.

BD published and edited by William Fuller