A Midsummer Madness

by Guy Franks

  Rick Burton remained best friends with Shake and he and Linda raised their three children within the friendly confines of Connecticut. Poo Bear never saw her witch but she played one, many years later, in a London production of The Wiz.

  Larkin and Kalecki, along with Bennie Jonson, coached in minor league baseball for many years to come. They mended troubled swings, sent home thousands of runners, drank too much, told tall tales, and applied their trade for a fair wage. Bennie never overcame his jealousy of Shake but he finally won a championship with the Zanesville Greys in the Frontier League in 1993.

  As for the players—Goff, Hoffman, Horn and Cap, Davis, Ellsworth and all the rest—they went on to varying degrees of success. Some like Estrella peaked and plummeted while others like Burks got their moment in the sun and took advantage of it. A few like Rosecrans, having lost their edge, quickly faded from the scene and found nine to five jobs outside baseball. And some like Ron Deer toiled many years in the minors before hanging them up and going into coaching.

  Steve Basset and Gwen Cymbel, the Posthumus and Imogen of our drama, remained chaste until the night of their marriage, then made up for it with a vengeance by producing seven children and buying a bigger house every other year. Steve pitched successfully in the bigs for five years until elbow problems and surgeries took him out of the game, but a big payday and wise investments made the transition a soft one. He and Gwen run a popular retreat for Christian couples in the mountains of Western North Carolina.

  Iachimo or Iago, Don John or Proteus– taken as a whole, our villain Luis Santiago was fated for a fall. It happened the next year when he got a dose of the clap and learned, rather quickly, that he was allergic to penicillin. He nearly died from anaphylactic shock, and his subsequent convalescence and loss of strength led to an ERA of 7.05 and a record of three and ten. He was traded to the Padres, had some small success, and married a Mexican beauty who beats him over the head whenever he looks twice at another woman.

  As Shake promised, Mike Faust was let go as the Kingsmen’s trainer. He hooked up with a Double-A team in the Texas League and found takers for his alchemy. Baseball banned steroids in 1991 but that didn’t deter Faust. By the mid-nineties, he was employed as a trainer for a Triple-A team and riding high, but a combination of failed drug tests and follow-up investigations finally led to his downfall. He resurfaced sometime later as a “personal trainer” to a big homerun hitter in the National League and is now serving time for obstruction of justice.

  To round out our villains, Ed and Rae Cornwall remained married and childless for another four years until Ed found love and offspring in the arms of a kinder, gentler woman (his Administrative Assistant at Lyon Bolt Manufactory). What followed was a nasty and protracted divorce. Today Rae lives alone with her servants in the Lyon castle and the local boys (who will be boys) occasionally, on a dare, throw rocks at her door and run away.

  Corey Lyon-Danzig—the Cordelia to Rex’s King Lear—eventually dropped the name Danzig (and the drug-addicted musician who went with it) and married a Rock Concert Promoter. It shouldn’t be a surprise to learn that her husband is hot-blooded and prone to mood swings and that only Corey, in her magic, knows how to manage him. She enjoyed many years of success as the owner and GM of the New Britain Kingsmen and introduced a number of popular promotions such as Murder Mystery Night, Revenge of the Nerds Night, and Fred Flintstone Night. She is regarded as a pioneer for women owners and an icon in the Eastern League.

  Corey also kept Speed on. Our favorite clown and wise fool became the oldest serving clubhouse manager in the minor leagues. He still sleeps on a cot, does the team’s laundry, inventories sunflower seeds, and makes sure each player has their favorite beverage waiting for them after the game. The young players tip him generously and listen politely to his puns and riddles. His rapier wit is lost on most of them but occasionally one will get the point.

  Rick Benedict and his bride Bernie have their spats but it is always much ado about nothing. To paraphrase the Bard, they were too wise to woo (or wed) peaceably. They raised a flock of sharp-tongued daughters who are all excellent softball pitchers.

  There’s not much to say about Dark Lucy, only that she finally found a man to dance with her at the Fire Festival of Lithia. And it wasn’t Bennie.

  Papi Stallworth enjoyed a gallimaufry of gambols. His Prince Hal never returned his phone calls so—as the Bard might have said—he resettled in a town full of cozenage (cheating), followed after flirt-gills (loose women), visited the stews (brothels), and continued to hic and hack (drink and whore) his way through life until he died of a heart attack in bed with a bosomy doxy (prostitute). To his bully rooks (friends) he was a spruce companion, even if he was a bit of a popinjay, who could outswear and outdrink any man in Christendom. Setting the attractions of his good parts aside, he had no other charms and was a fellow past saving.

  His Sweetness—Hank Prince—fared much better than this creature of bombast. After his call-up in ’86, he never looked back and played sixteen years in the big leagues. A five-time All-Star, Hank did commercials for shaving cream, breakfast cereal, and became a spokesman for inner city sports programs. He got his mom and siblings out of Sunnyside and bought them a big house in Atherton, California where they live today. Like his mentor Chili Leonard, he took a number of young players under his wing and taught them the ropes, including how to order and properly eat Chinese food.

  Orson Kent married Rose Porter or, maybe we should say, like Rosalind in As You Like It, she married him. Certainly the date, the venue, the guest list and honeymoon destination were all fixed by her. Not that he objected. Orson worked himself up through the ranks—Director of Player Development, Manager of Baseball Operations, etc.—and eventually took over principle ownership of the big club from his father. Rose is a published author, mainly sports biographies, and is a frequent guest on Oprah. Together Orson and Rose make a fashionable couple, and if the gender lines appear blurred at times, they don’t seem to mind and who are we to judge?

  Dane Hamilton, our erstwhile Hamlet (only with better parents), found that he’d rather bear those ills we have than to fly to others that we know not of. With a hint of reluctance he wed Delia and, with somewhat less reluctance, sired two sons even though he knew he was probably adding to the list of thieves and murderers in the world. Mankind still troubles him and Delia patiently listens to him rant, but he has baseball, an enterprise of great pitch and moment. Like his father before him—first as a player in the big leagues and now as a manager in the minors—he finds solace in the poetry of baseball and agrees with the poet Sharon Olds who once said, “Baseball is reassuring. It makes me feel as if the world is not going to blow up.”

  Which brings us finally to Shakespeare Louis Glover and his beloved Mimi. If Shake plays many roles—baseball manager, the Bard, Henry the Fourth, Leontes in The Winter’s Tale and a bit of Prospero from The Tempest—then Mimi plays but one role. She plays his other half. Together they built a winning roster of loved ones that features Emmanuel on the mound, the Bard catching, and friends and family in the field. Their love for one another fills the stands. But before we strain this metaphor any further, let us visit Shake and Mimi in their retirement. It’s in a big house on “Top of the Hill” in Daly City, big enough to hold grandsons over the summer and entertain the many guests (baseball stars, old coaches, and alumni) who come by to visit them. On occasion, Shake walks over to Jefferson High School to watch a baseball game. Mimi enjoys working on her quilts while listening to the Giants game. In-between they are inseparable and can be said to be happy (if happiness is more than mirth and laughter) and together share a love that is both large and small in its expression. If this be error and upon me proved, I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

  If by our fictions we have offended, remember but this and all is mended: When sweet spring awakens, baseball is near, the season for cheer, crackerjack and beer. Green grass and ground balls,
blossoms and base knocks; it all returns once we spin up the clocks. So close the cover and pick up a mitt, the time is nigh to work up a spit. Take it up the middle, around the horn, a lazy fly ball and a can of corn. Give it a ride, get off the schneid, ducks on the pond and Roger Kahn. Pick it clean and look dead red, a little chin music and all is said.