by BB Sheehan
These people in Iowa, they work hard with no complaint and when they have fun they don’t excuse themselves. A ballplayer could do well taking that attitude. These fans in Iowa understand baseball down to their box scores. Home field advantage, Iowa!
Sometime I lose my place when I’m here and I see a mall and I think I might be in Pacoima or Burbank and I realize I’m nowhere near anyone I know, I’m just in a mall that looks like anywhere, anyplace in any states of the great united ones. Say hey, it’s another mall USA.
There is a pitcher who pitches like he is from the other side. They don’t trust him as a starter because he is so wild if he was allowed to throw a full nine innings he would have killed half the cows in the county while striking out the side. The way they talk about this guy is that he has an arm like an elephant trunk except he doesn’t spew water when he hurls.
He has a one hundred mile an hour fastball and he doesn’t smell like a pachyderm, so he has a good chance of making it out of the minors leagues.
I pick up a bat and stand against the gargantuan who is obliterating the next generation of those who would stand lonely in the batting box. The gargantuan is not a ballplayer. He can throw the ball a hundred miles an hour, but he can not pitch the ball a hundred miles an hour.
He cannot throw anything that isn’t over the batters head or for a quick stop at the backstop behind the catcher. He could hit you with a wild pitch three states away. You’re safer in the batter box. I’ll take my chances and go tusk to tusk with old elephant arm.
So I go extra bases against the elephant man in a simulation game and I get noticed. He throws so hard if you make contact the ball is going to rocket back if you don’t break your bat or your arms. You want me to be your dog, but I’m going to take that bone you’re throwing and make it a chew toy. Try playing with my life and head with a hundred mile an hour fast ball and I have to take the life out of it before it gets me. Baseball good and evil 101, for all those school boys at home who are taking notes.
One guy here when he gets mad says, “Horseshoes!”
We immediately branded him as a weirdo and stole his expression, “Horseshoes”, like we had thought of it in our sleep. Some people say “This sucks”. “Horseshoes. I don’t believe his simpleton act because he spends most of his time reading books about mind control and hypnosis and he stands on the mound like he is some Vegas magician who has come to make our batting averages disappear. He’ll strike out the side and come back to the dugout all awshucks, twernt nothin, an innocent babe amid the throng of evil. Horseshoes, not even close. He is on my team, but if he wasn’t I’d make his magic act disappear real fast.
I don’t get the religious guys and how they think that holy stuff applies to baseball. Baseball is not biblical. The bible was written before baseball ever started and the rules of baseball do in no way mention religion.
The Friends of the Secret Code of the Cubs have devised a reason that the gods or The God would be angry and vindictive with the Cubs and thereby causing them to lose to the point of excess. The reason is a secret, because the gods don’t have to explain themselves to anybody. And the Friends of the Secret Code of the Cubs don’t know anything, but they can say it is a secret and thereby absolve themselves from actually speaking the truth on a subject that they know nothing about. The secret remains a secret and the code is hereby unbreakable.
CHAPTER 80
Baseball tomorrow in the corn. Enough talking. Let’s play ball. Ballplayers are drinking too much here in Iowa, but if there is a drug that baseball authorities will give you a hearty slap on the back for using it is beer. I think baseball exists to sell beer. They sell enough of it during a game and they have enough commercials for it during the games on TV. I’m starting to think that they don’t trust players who don’t drink. It’s bad for business. Some wise ass friend of Sligo’s told him that the Cub’s luck was really the residue of cheap beer. Wise ass friends can be right. CHAPTER
Saint Sligo is spending his summer in Chicago, reading the local sportswriters who are trying to outguess themselves on how the Cubs are not going to make it to the World Series much less lose the World Series. Yes, Sligo used to say, if we were just lucky enough to lose a World Series I’d be happy. St. Sligo is in Chicago preparing my grand entrance, but he better keep his mouth shut, because he knows it doesn’t work like he thinks it does, making it to the major leagues.
CHAPTER 81
I’m dreaming again. I’m at an old timers game and I’m introduced, but no one remembers me, so all the crowd starts booing me and the worker wall in right field opens up and the grim reaper comes running out after me, the new version of the chase an old man with a stick competition except this time the stick is a gigantic sickle. The announcer incites the crowd, “ladies and gentleman, introducing Slash Sickle” and the crowd is in a Roman Coliseum frenzy. I escape Slash, but there is giant bobble head doll with my name on it in center field and Slash incites the crowd further by taking a few hacks at it before knocking my head out of the park. The crowd wants more so I appease the crowd by blowing up my head like it is inflatable and throwing it into the grandstand where the crowd tosses my head back and forth between the lower deck and the upper deck like a beach ball at Dodger Stadium. I wake up sweating. So wrong. They don’t throw beach balls at Wrigley.
CHAPTER 82
The Legend has arrived from the Mets and he remembered me, “Oh yeah, the guy with all the lesbian chicks.” I could tell him that they weren’t all lesbian and that you can call a lesbian a chick at your own risk, but it was good to see a familiar face. “Man we couldn’t believe they let you go. You can play.” It’s good to see the Legend.
“So Ledge, are you still black?”
“Damn you’re still a wise ass. Maybe that’s why they canned your ass. Yeah I’m still black. Can you still jump like you’re not white? We couldn’t believe this guy. White guys aren’t supposed to jump. They’re supposed to hug the ground like they own it and they’re afraid someone is going to steal it.”
So I show Ledge the town with some of the team who haven’t gone to church. Church is good, but it is a Wednesday night and we don’t have a game tomorrow.
Ledge says he doesn’t eat Chinese and he doesn’t gamble so Ho Chi Mini’s is out of the question.
There is a bar here called Twist Mellows that thinks it is still on the old chitlin circuit and they book any band still playing old school soulful oldies. It is a favorite with the drinking ballplayers because they get recognized there and the other drinkers buy them drinks.
“I like a place like this”, says Ledge, “but too much blues, you lose, but damn we aren’t in New York City. Shit I’ve been here two days and I’m going crazy already. I couldn’t understand ghetto fellows going to those small town colleges and end up robbing gas stations. Hell they’re just trying to see if anyone changes expression out in these here hills.”
Play ball.
A young lovely walks by and asked us if we are ballplayers.
“No goddamit we came here for the cow convention.” The Ledge says his piece and leaves.
Moooo. The Ledge just pissed off a lot of cows and their mothers. Horseshoes.
CHAPTER 83
So I’m not down on Sligo like sometimes I want to be. He is a good help with clichés since there are true facts clichés and there are clichés that hacks have learned that makes them sound like they know what they are talking about, while they’re making hay, in the pouring rain, while the sun shines. True fact clichés you learn in Little League. Keep your eye on the ball. Play’em one game at a time. Saying, hey batter, hey batter, swing will make a batter swing at a bad pitch and strike out. Sorry, hacks talking. Hey batter chatter puts the pitchers mind at rest in Little League, because when he hears you jabbering he knows you haven’t run off with the rest of the team to get ice cream. If the pitcher thinks you’re
out eating ice cream with the rest of the team he’ll try to strike everybody out, but he can’t since the last person to bat was his grandmother and she hit a grand slam home run. Obviously, chatter doesn’t work.
They like the name Mickey O’Really here in Chicago. After the trip to New Orleans we little kids of AAA got to play a game at Wrigley while the parent club wasn’t looking. So our pitcher is named O’Riley and all of sudden I hear people in the stands saying, “O’Really? No O’Riley”, and laughing like it was the funniest joke in the history of Irish jokes. Pretty soon they’ll be laughing at, “Patty-O? Patio furniture.” Get it? I need to stay focused on baseball.
As far as buying drinks these fans want to buy you the damn bar. The Ledge notices and I tell him I can give him an Irish nickname if he gives me a few seconds to think about it.
“Damn O’Really, you think the ambition in my life is to be some big, red nose alcoholic. I am one ambitious mother. But then again these guys are buying me the good stuff. Call me great googily mooga .”
“Sorry, those are my cousins.”
“Call me Bishop O’Pastor.”
“The honorable Bishop O’Pastor.
Now the drinks are talking. Irish psychotherapy. All you need is a license to pour.
St. Sligo walked into the bar near closing time and bought everybody a drink. He’s thinking this is the year of the Cub.
“Get your ass moving and get out of the little league. You want to be on the team when they are champs. They’ll name a street after you. They’ll name a church after you. The Pope will have you declared a saint. A real saint, not just a saint in name. The patron saint of baseball.”
I didn’t remember much from the few times I had been in a Catholic Church and I’m not sure what a patron saint is, but I don’t think baseball and saints get along too well.
“Bless you Uncle, I’ll work on it, but don’t expect any miracles.”
“I don’t, I’m a Cub fan. But hurry up. Soriano just woke up from two month coma and Ramirez is back off the Disabled List. The Cubs are in first and it is almost August, but Houston is making a move and there is always St. Louis to worry about.”
Like I’m going to go to the World Series from AAA in three months like it is some freaking Disney kid movie all predictable and happy that parents show their kids until they send them out into the world to get their asses kicked.
“Why don’t we to church tomorrow morning and pray for a quick ascension for me to the major leagues,” I said
“Don’t crack wise about the big leagues in the sky. They might knock you down to single A ball.”
“The gods are that swift with the payback.”
“Don’t draw attention to yourself like that. They don’t even need a reason to get you like that. Don’t bet against the house. The house always wins. The house built it and the house makes the rules.”
“Did you get that one from the bible?”
“No, but I have another one from the bible. Thou shalt not be a wiseass or the heavens will smite thee the way Albert Pujols smites a fastball.”
“Into the left field bleachers.”
“Yes that way.”
I finish my drink and try to picture the next step in our chat.
“So are you going to find that secret society that is keeping the Cubs from winning.”
“What, the management?”
“No, the Friends of the Secret Code of the Cubs.”
“That’s the best name they could come up with? Who are they?”
“It’s a secret.”
“Where did you find out about them?”
“I didn’t, but they have to exist. How else can you explain all those losing teams?”
Sligo pushes my empty glass away to make a point.
“No more drinking for you. You can’t handle it.”
“You need to start your own society.”
“You need to sober up.”
“Enemies of the Secret Code of the Cubs.”
“Oh no, it’s happened to you already. You’re a cubbiephreniac. Thinking about the Cubs has made you crazy. Maybe I can get you traded to another team.”
“No, this is the way it’s got to be. I have to destroy the secret code and only then can the Cubs win the World Series.”
“I’m going to send you back to your parents with a note apologizing for ruining the life of their only son.”
“You can send me back to my parents after the Cubs win the World Series.”
“They may never see you again.”
“Fine, I couldn’t face them with anything less than the ring of the World Series.”
“They don’t care about that.”
“They will. Oh yes they will.”
“Talk to me tomorrow when you’re sober.”
Sobering words from the king of insobriety.
CHAPTER 84
So I dream again that night the Enemies of the Secret Code of the Cubs are having a secret midnight meeting. Candles light the big room and it is filled with cubbittes in their traditional garb although their faces are obscured by blue and red bandannas. The center of the room has some kind of druid looking sacrificial altar and the grand cubby bear marshal presides over the dark ceremony. The victim is brought in. It wears a Cubs uniform and cap. The name on the back of the uniform, O’REALLY. The crowd spins the victim around. It is a goat, but a goat that looks like me. The crowd cheers and the marshal raises his sword.
CHAPTER 85
I’m getting jumpy. My quasi-girlfriend tells me bedtime stories and they give me nightmares. It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. No point in getting delirious. I can’t wait to get back on field and straighten out a few line drives over the fence. Chicago was great. We play a game not just in a major league stadium, we play in Wrigley Field. The players on the Las Vegas 51’s felt like winners just being there too and they left winners, beating us 4-3 in a game we should have won.
I should be sending postcards, “I’m playing at Wrigley”, but I don’t because I’m not playing at Wrigley any more, I’m back in Iowa playing for the “Battling Cornstalks” better known as the Iowa Cubs. It’s last call at Twist Mellows and I’ve got maybe two drinks left before I start feeling like a Chicago style alchy. I’ve got to move on to the great fields of sobriety for a different look at things. I should be surfing, but now I’m driving a 63 Chevy and playing old school soul oldies. Good thinking. The gift of sobriety has made me want to go out and drink to excess. I’m not a song writer, I’m a ballplayer, but I think any song writer on the planet would see the love song somewhere in my life even though most people who meet me wouldn’t think for a second that anyone would love me even for a misinformed minute. I think that’s where rap came from. Those guys knew that no woman in their right mind would look at them twice so they decided that their only chance was to gangster bitches.
I’d make up my own rap song, but I can’t think of rhyme dumb enough to get the attention of an audience and where is rap without an audience, just a strange noise in the night going bump, bump, fuck you bitch, make some noise or I’ll kill you, no, shut up or I’ll kill you, do something or I’ll kill you. Shut up bitch. Rap can just die out on it’s own.
I called home and Dad answered and there was a lot of quiet, not to be shocked or anything but there was always a lot of quiet when Dad and I were talking. It sounded like everything was okay and the sisters who never wanted to know me were okay and Mom was okay, but she didn’t want to talk which meant that she wasn’t okay and that the reason she wasn’t okay didn’t necessarily have to do with me, but it might have or not. I’m glad I called home and got that all cleared up, so I can concentrate on baseball.
The Iowa Cubs need a catcher, so they tried me out at the position and now I’m playing there every day. I’ve always played a lot of different positions. I can be a catcher, but the only question is, how long can I be a catcher? It’s the dirtiest jo
b in baseball besides being an umpire and after a couple days of it my knees and lower back start to ache, but I can handle the job so they give it to me. I’ve been a pitcher, so the pitchers listen to me or at least they nod their heads when I talk which sometimes means they’re acting like they are listening to me, but are planning to go ahead and do whatever it was they wanted to do in the first place. I do what I can to make them better pitchers and make them win. I don’t want no Coney Island babies up there pretending to be pitchers.
Sometimes when a batter is up there and full of it, thinking he belongs in the hall of fame I chant, “you’re a Coney Island baby now, you’re a Coney Island baby.” Usually they don’t know what I’m saying, but it distracts them enough, because maybe they think they should know what I’m saying. The important thing is to get them to think which a lot of them just aren’t good at.
The All Star break is coming up. I didn’t make the team which is bad. I’ve played all over the diamond and that doesn’t always get you notice the way being a good position player will get you notice. We have a break and I’m going back to San Pedro for a couple of days.
My sisters meet me at the door. “Baseball, borinnng.” That’s all they can say around me. So I do the parent and family thing for five minutes and the phone rings and it’s J.P. and she tells me there is going to be a game at White Point Park with the high school crew and that I should be there. I tell everyone about the call and my sisters go, “baseball, borinnnng”.
CHAPTER 86
The Lon and Ron Show:
Lon: Looks like our boy O’Really has gone to the park to meet up with his onetime, sometime used to be.
Ron: Don’t know what to expect from this one. This is no woman in white. Last year she led the Ivy Leagues in breakups.
Lon: Still learning what she can in college.
