Even more self indulgent childhood memories

Childhood often walks the fine-line between the blissful and boring, and Big League Chew was an integral part of the blissful “baseball experience” that my friends and I so desperately wanted to be part of as young boys. We would scan our stacks of baseball cards and see players like Lenny Dykstra and Tony Gwynn with a not-so-subtle, chipmunk-like slab of tobacco stuck in their cheeks as they posed, bat skillfully wielded in the lazy, sun bleached spring training summer–and we wanted to emulate that with pink, shrouded shreds of sugar-coated goodness. We were hip to the insider culture that only the pros knew about; at least in our own minds.

My parents were insanely cheap; and this didn’t seem to be strange at all as most parents of the 80’s seemed to adhere to this doctrine. My friends and I decided that we would need to be enterprising, so our destiny was to knock on doors and sheepishly ask the neighborhood psychos if we could have the pleasure of raking their lawns for 5 dollars. The riches would be immediately spent a mere four blocks away at the appropriately named Happy Market for some Big League Chew and a couple of packs of baseball cards. The leftover dough would be used to rent a movie that was skillfully chosen in VHS form from the Movie Hut down the street for 1.99 a day, and if we were lucky had the name Schwarzenegger or Van Damme on the box. The solitary zit-faced teen wearing an Iron Maiden shirt at the counter would look up my mom’s rental information on the ancient IBM computer and oblige out of boredom or indifference.

I recently walked around the old neighborhood for the first time in over 20 years. The houses still looked the same, as if time had never happened. There’s where I used to wait for the bus. That’s where I got into a fight with Tim C. There’s where I used to shoot hoops for hours. That’s where a kid’s father told another kid to “fuck off” and ran over his skateboard.

It was a quiet neighborhood and I was hoping my younger self would walk out of my old house so I could tell him about all the wonderful adventures he would have in the future and warn him about all the disasterous mistakes to avoid. I would tell him to forget his anxieties concerning adulthood and to enjoy the simplicity, lack of corruption and absolute wonder of his life at that moment.

2 boys trading baseball cards, Summer 1974.

Looks like he’s, well, you know.

Steve Miller Band’s “The Joker” poured out of the Mustang in the driveway as Pete and Nick sat on the front porch. They had just torn open a few packs of baseball cards and decided to make a few swaps before the cards were relegated to a rubber band and the back pocket of faded dungarees.

“Ok, you like the A’s right? I’ll give you a Dave Hamilton for George Brett.”
“Are you kidding me! You must think I’m a fucking idiot. That’s not a fair trade; and besides, it looks like he’s taking a shit!”
Pete’s older brother, Craig, stopped washing his black treasure and walked over with kinked hose in hand.

“You turds need to shut the hell up before I hose you down. Besides, I got Amy coming over and you two dumbasses aren’t gonna ruin my chance at getting some trim.”

“You haven’t got a chance in hell,” Pete spat, shoving a brick-hard powdered slab of gum in his mouth.

“Keep talking big mouth and I’ll give both you and your stupid friend knuckle sandwiches. You’ll be spittin’ out teeth for a week”

Craig continued washing his car, alone with the hose, the suds, the black beauty and the privacy of his own young and perverted mind.

“He thinks he’s such a big shot.”

“Yeah, I can’t wait until I get older so I can kick his ass…so Dave Hamilton for George Brett?”

Green and Gold Fan Spotlight

Carmen was destined to become an A’s fan from birth, born and raised in Oakland, the child of a 60’s era, black leather jacket clad Huey Newton revolutionary/Berkeley professor and a teenage beauty pageant queen and Cuban refugee. The professor met Zoe at a small community theatre in Palo Alto where his future wife was performing as “Bianca” in Othello. He loved her adaptation and asked her to dinner where they proceeded to eat oysters and wash them down with a dry Cabernet. The oysters must have worked as Carmen was thrust into the world soon thereafter, not even a year later.

The girl became an A’s fan at a young age and would hang out at the Coliseum often on weekends with her high school clique. They would sneak in alcoholic lubricant, snacks and a transistor radio while loitering in the bleachers on lazy Indian summers; sunbathing while listening to the Talking Heads and giving the bleacher creatures something to gawk at between innings. Her favorite player was first baseman Chris Carter because “he was this absolute monstrous, beautiful black man blessed with a pleasant expression on his face and an easy, almost lackadaisical ambiance.”

In the unfit roads of adolescence there are bound to be a few bumps on the way, and Carmen felt these at the hands of the Oakland police. “I had a malleable mind at the time and some friends had influenced me to steal clothing and such. I got busted stealing some door-knockers (earrings) that had my name in the middle. It was so obvious.” When she was busted a second time for stealing art books it was “time for a re-examination of the program.”

Hard work and diligence paid off in 2008 as Carmen graduated with a degree in economics from SF State. She now works as an editor at the San Francisco Weekly. “The Weekly is often given to smart-ass editorializing that seems more geared to getting a reaction than making a concrete point, but it’s fun.”
“I’ve learned that we can be one person’s saint, another person’s genius, and someone else’s imbecile; and this is exactly why I do whatever I feel like doing every day without even an inkling of what anyone else thinks about it.”

A short story ode to Mike Epstein

Epstein, in the locker room after winning the 1972 World Series, wearing his prized “Marshamallow Disco” t-shirt. (disco light effects added by the editor for comedic effect.)

It is a cold December night in 1972, and I am with Mike Epstein and his wife. We are exiting his cherry-red Ford Thunderbird and about to enter the Marshmallow Disco. The “Marshmallow” as it is called is in a dingy, industrial block of Manhattan. There are a group of homeless folks staring at us as we exit the car–a unwordly group with distorted faces that would make one either question their drug intake or the group’s relativity to the planet Earth. I feel safe as I am with a man who has a hulking presence and once kicked the shit out of Reggie Jackson in the locker room. Some would say that this dust-up has even overshadowed Mike’s baseball oeuvre. A drunk Puerto Rican woman approaches Mike and his wife shouts,
“Look, bimbo, he’s with me.”
The “bimbo” skulks off in a fit of hysterics and Mike growls,”Look, man, I don’t have time to hassle with that shit. I got my old lady with me.”
Mike steers his wife in the general direction of the VIP door. There are smokers gathered, sitting on high school cafeteria scratched iron chairs–their legs crossed, casting appraising glances every which way with primal, reptilian eyes. You can hear the O’ Jays and Sly and the Family Stone bumping inside. There is American dissolution in the parking lot as American decadence flails away in a cocaine-induced dopamine explosion inside. The alcohol turning once happy groups into an imminent decent of after-hours grotesque buffoonery. A woman grabs a man on the way inside.
“Every damn time we fuck I gotta listen to your bullshit after we’ve finished. Why don’t you let me enjoy my afterglow for a change?”

Ex-marine uncovers reptilian aliens who turn out to be A’s fans.

Ubbesk seems harmless enough.

Ex-marine Kyle Odom was arrested on Tuesday after shooting a prominent preacher twelve times in Idaho after claiming that the padre was in cahoots with reptilian aliens from Mars that have been here “long before us” have technology “millions of years ahead of ours.” These aliens had been harassing him for about two years after he contacted one during a meditation session. These hyper-sexual, paranoid aliens rule the Earth and have made President Obama their sex slave — a species of “amphibian-humanoids” that include dozens of U.S. politicians.

“The Martians came to Earth here before humans, live underground and bred humans so they can walk among us,” Odom wrote.

This blog was contacted by Ubbesk, the supposed leader of the alien species who wanted things to be cleared up.

“We have never contacted this man, Ubbesk said, and I have 4 witnesses that can tell you I was at a spring training game in Mesa on the day I supposedly contacted Mr. Odom.”

Ubbesk then went on to say that he has high hopes for the team this season and he is highly disappointed in the play of Billy Butler.

“The guy is a disgrace to the human species…I will never figure out why humans feel the need to consume so much pre-packaged crap.”

 

Khris Davis, Noodles and Los Angeles

“Noodle Arm”

The man sits regally and casually; wearing old style European clothing. Perhaps I felt this way because I was sitting in a park that reminded me of Spain– buildings towering around us in order to block out the sunlight. A couple of hummingbirds zip by me; connected in a seemingly sexual position. What a strange sound. As my attention span carbon copies the urban wildlife I notice that the “European” man is staring at me. (This is also known as the “devils” work of double–sense deluding.) The man rises and quietly opens an aluminum walker. And it is a woman. She was simply waiting for her granddaughter in the outside smoking section of a train depot in the middle of Los Angeles.
I rub my eyes and grab a newspaper to pass the time; a rare and tragic event that I enjoy and makes me look like a moth-eaten antique.
FRONT PAGE: More cosmetic culture. An American culture that cultivates an idea of a free destiny within a firmly imposed but imperceptible and uniform attitude. Most people are confused by this dilemma and just choose the easy way out: make money and fuck everyone else. Who am I to judge? I’ve done the same with impunity and thought I was better for it. We learn to sleep at night with no guilt. Sometimes that sense of peace and safety is all we have to hold on to.
ENTERTAINMENT: Idiot hip-hop artists and their self-importance; a soon-to-be-dead genre because of its chichi and an unrealistic approach to self-impressions as well as economics, actors schlepping terrible movies that will be forgotten within weeks, the occasional mass-produced book review, artists trying to make money from David Bowie’s still fresh corpse etc.
SPORTS: The A’s have acquired Khris Davis from the Milwaukee Brewers. Left fielder with some pop and a noodle arm. So– the only weakness is that we wont get a 7-5 tag-out during a dink base hit; and at least I am slightly reassured that Beane (or whoever the hell the new G.M. may be) is at least trying to put a competitive team on the field in 2016 and not tanking like many other teams……although everyone knows if they start slowly, the FOR SALE signs will quickly go up again.
I fold the newspaper and lay it on the bench for future travelers. The thought fades as soon as it appears.

More fictional adventures from baseball scout Bob Hale!

The 5 tool prospect I was looking for was a disembodied spirit who lived in the clouds of my imagination. Those fluffy clouds have taken me from the deadlands of Northern Texas to the swamps of Louisiana. 100’s and 100’s of miles driven on black asphalt turned gelatinous by the unrelenting ball of fire in the Dixie sky.
My name is Bob Hale– Southern baseball scout for the Kansas City Athletics.

Scouts like to pride themselves on the prescience of finding a “stud” or a highly touted prospect. I, on the other hand, am a realist– I believe our lives are no more than the sum of manifold contingencies, and no matter how diverse they might be in their details they all share the same essential randomness in design: this, then that, and because of that, this. I was an expert in what it was that I was searching for, but like a gold prospector, finding it was a matter of luck and timing. And as you may or may not know, most prospectors who headed to the Wild West in 1849 ended up broke or dead.
Bouncing around from mosquito infested small town to dusty shit hole becomes unnerving after a while. Scouting isn’t a typical job where you must dress nice, smell good, be charismatic, be a team leader or have excellent communication skills. This isn’t academia and no one wears tweed. Most of us can’t do anything else–this is all we know. This leads to many lonely nights in hotel rooms with nothing but an orchestra of empty bottles. Most of us can’t even afford a truck stop hooker. Eventually the alcohol hits the blood stream and you stare at the dirty sheets…reminiscing about a girl who you once loved and who loved you in return. The ghosts of youth are always hiding around the corner, and since loneliness and time are your only consistencies the ghosts visit often. It is easy to be hard- boiled about everything in the daytime, but at night it is another thing.
Baseball men are naturally superstitious; and I am no different. I wear a gold chain around my neck given to me by my grandfather–St. Christopher, the patron saint of travel. There was no stronger bond with my grandfather than the baseball bond. I was the first grandchild, and since I was virtually fatherless he must have felt some sort of sense of nurturing. My mother was overwhelmed by the prospect of a small child with no job prospects in her future so my grandparents molded me in their own image. Those early days were pleasant for me as I was a curious young man with a shit load of piss and vinegar. I ran hell and high water around my Chicago neighborhood with my buddies; experiencing the world with fresh eyes and a zeal only a youngster could have. My mother, on the other hand, was a bit tyrannical and not educated or patient enough to converse or understand someone ready to devour the world so I didn’t see her all that much.
Grandfather would take me to the old Cubs Park in those early days. (They didn’t name it Wrigley until 1926.) I loved outfielder Max Flack in the way that only adolescents can love an unobtainable celebrity-object even though he was considered the “goat” of the 1919 World Series. The 1920 season on the field was disappointing—the Cubs tied for fifth place with a 75-79 record but I didn’t care. Max Flack managed to hit .302 to lead the team, but the real bright spot was the reemergence of Grover Cleveland “Ole Pete” Alexander as the pitching leader. My future was all but written.
I lay here with a battered copy of Playboy spread across my chest, and I wonder where all the days, hours, minutes and seconds went to die forever. Sometimes I embellish my existence and tell myself that I bring happiness to millions of fans and dreams to hundreds of young men. “Let go or be dragged.” That’s how the Zen proverb goes. I remembered that I had read this in a small china shop in San Francisco as I drank my second cup of oily coffee with just a nip of Old Crow and slowly drifted away…
The ‘ol banged up Chrysler started with a bang and a plume of smoke. The morning air is sticky already. I heard there was a young man with one helluva fastball in Baton Rouge and I always seem to have a rousing time there. The Yankees are interested as well so I’ll have to drive like a bat out of hell through the night to get there before they do– just to watch a teenager throw a five ounce sphere of cork, rubber, yarn, and horsehide. Let the chase begin.

Al Dark and the summer of 1974.

Loves the Mercury Cougar.

Alvin Dark was fired by owner Charles O. Finley in 1967 and here he was taking his grief, again, in 1974. The Oakland ball-club had just lost to the Sox, 3-2, and Charlie O. was throwing a tantrum of epic proportion in the manger’s office. Dark knew that the players had heard some of the one-sided conversation and hoped that his embarrassment would light a fire under their asses.

“I’m playing to win!” screamed Charlie, veins protruding from his neck and eyes popped out as if he was being squeezed by an anaconda. This was, after all, the jungle.

“If you don’t start playing aggressive baseball I’ll kick your fucking ass out of here!” “We won the World Series two years in a row without you and we can win again without you!”

Al understood what was going on– Charlie was from Chicago and hated losing to the Sox more than getting a root canal or a coat that wasn’t plaid. Dark was a Christian so he didn’t raise his voice or even curse. He just sat there, eyes staring directly ahead in an omnipresent out-of-body experience that lasted about 30 seconds until he snapped out of it.

“We’re not wrestling with the mysteries of the universe here, Charlie, it’s just a goddamn….”

Dark stopped himself in mid-sentence and privately scolded himself for the blaspheme.

Mr. Alvin Dark walked the parking lot of the Coliseum alone, the primordial universe spread before him. He slowly lowered himself into a green ’74 Mercury Cougar and started flipping through radio stations with impunity. Thoughts began to develop and unfold as he forgave Charlie for his paradigm of curmudgeon behavior. The song “Thankful for what you’ve got” poured out of the speakers as Dark thought, ” It’s not that the celebration becomes less fun as we get older, it’s more purposeful. Our intentions adjust with the weight of responsibilities and existential dread….and the slow erosion of joint cartilage.”

Dark put key to ignition and foot to pedal as he drove away, leaving an empty parking lot…and the primordial stars to themselves.

I’m just a gun cleanin’ fool.

This is a short piece of fiction inspired by a very poignant moment of reality.

 

God, I love Leila.

Sounds like she is feeding the dogs right now. Jesus, those tits are amazing.

They are talking about ebola on the radio. I’ve been feeling feverish lately. I need to get that checked out. Ebola….that sounds funny.

Leila wanted to go get a”falafel” earlier. I had no idea what she was talking about. “Middle Eastern food,” she says. I wanted a Cuban sandwich.

The dogs are barking. Neighbor is fussing around in her backyard. I wonder if she knows I’m famous?

Puma puntu…or is it Punku? I just know that it fascinates me. Wow. How’d they do that?

Leila

“You’re  a lot to handle…sometimes I just give up. But I’m all you have. You don’t have anybody else in your life.” Leila told me this earlier. She’s probably right. I need to call my manager about that autograph session later this week.

I do not think Mr 50/50 is born or conceived yet. God, I love Leila….her ass is amazing. Yummy.

I would love to be the hitting coach of the Oakland A’s. I love Oakland; the fans made me feel wanted again at the reunion.

Leila is cooking something. God, I love her. Wow. I made my Major League debut a year before she was born.

I think I need to clean my guns. I was the first man to achieve 40/40…perhaps I can be the first man to clean 4 guns at one time…..

 

 

 

 

Hank Bauer had a very bad day.

This is a short piece of fiction inspired by a very real situation.

Hank Bauer slammed down his glass of scotch as his wife, Charlene looked on. Charlene was worried about the glass because it was part of a crystal set and she didn’t want the assemblage to be compromised.

“Hank isn’t supposed to use those,” she thought.

There was now a large gash on top of the deep brown oak desk where the glass had chipped away the smooth, glossy veneer. The glass was still in one piece.

“That son of a bitch Finley embarrassed the hell out of me today — I told that hippy Jim Nash to cut his sideburns,” Hank snarled, “and what does Charlie do? He tells Nash that they’re nice.”

“I’m sure…”

Jim Nash and the “hippy” sideburns that started the fracas.

“Now I’m the laughing-stock of the goddamn team! I tell you Charlene, if anyone pulled that shit in the Marines he’d be picking my foot out of his ass.” Hank had spent nearly three years in the South Pacific during WW2, surviving attacks of malaria, sustaining shrapnel and winning numerous medals. He was proud of all of this.

Hank wasn’t finished. “I’m telling you that this shit wouldn’t have happened in Baltimore. I had that goddamn team on a leash, and that’s why we won it all in ’66.”

“Maybe you should talk to Charlie?” Charlene was speaking in hushed tones.

Bauer took a long slug from his glass, drained it and poured another. “Son of a bitch already fired me in Kansas City, I’m not going to put up with his foolishness again…you know what he wants me to do? He wants me to pinch hit for the catchers during every at-bat. I tell you — it’s a goddamn circus, Charlene.”

“Hank…”

“I’ve never dealt with so many bores, bastards and phonies in all my days. If it was up to me I’d roll the whole thing into the sea like a sack of waste.”

Bauer started peeling off his khaki shirt, in turn putting on his military uniform. He usually did this on flimsy pretext. Charlene exited the room quietly. Bauer let the anger rise until he began to see bright, quick flashes. The synapses in his brain entered places they had never been before. He began to see new dimensions in everything that had happened.