Baseball Cards With Curious Stories to Tell

“No artist tolerates reality”–Nietzsche

My girlfriend told me that a man had tried to hang himself in the tree out in front of her house with his tie. Apparently, he had decided that his life was to be consummated right then and there in front of her 1940’s, white stucco, Spanish-style bungalow until someone called the proper authorities and he was taken away wearing what I’d imagine was a starched shirt and a face full of confusion. 

“Look, the tie is still on the branch,” she said.

The culprit was gray with blue vertical stripes and dancing in the breeze as the sunlight glinted off the fabric. (eventually, the tie created a life and mystique of its own, ceasing to be an inanimate symbol of economic good faith and encouraging me to acknowledge its insistent sadness–as I did almost every time I walked by.) 

I pointed out that the branch (which was about 8 feet off the ground) was inadequate for such an undertaking as it would break instantly under the weight of even an average-sized man.  The scenario was like trying to hang a piano from a piece of string – it’s a fool’s errand and doomed to fail from the start.

“How should I know what he was thinking…just another weirdo,” she said in a hard and detached manner.

We were headed to the Mexican swap meet where I was to find myself as the only gringo who had even bothered to show up that broiling day. The girlfriend was tickled by this. She bought an elote (corn) with chili powder, and I bought a random, mysterious, and seductive box of baseball cards and a Mexican League (Toros de Tijuana) baseball cap from a large, sweaty, ungainly man who clearly didn’t want to be there. He grunted in an undistinguishable language, too remote to be interpreted. I wasn’t sure if we were in accord with the price so I just held up a 20-dollar bill and he nodded in agreement. I took a cursory glance at the cards and then shoved them under my arm. 

Later that night we were at home watching a Charles Bronson movie when I decided to thumb through the dusty, frail cardboard. 

“Will you look at that…a Rickey Henderson rookie card!” I said, startled that dizzy with excitement is no mere phrase.

“Is that good?” 

She didn’t even look up as Bronson blasted another scumbag in the chest with his metaphorical cock, a .475 Magnum. I was elated to discover the all-time greatest thief as the other thief on the tube was getting his life snuffed out by a chain-smoking germophobe.

“Yeah, it’s good I’d say…real good.”

***

Hey guys…please give Disaffected Musings a look if you get the chance. it’s an interesting blog written by a “Moneyball” pioneer with a focus on baseball, cars, and opinions on other various topics.

Rickey poses for Playgirl

The GOAT.

It’s 104 degrees outside as I’m typing this, and it seems like an irrefutable idea to sit around the air conditioner and watch a few horror films meant for the garbage heap while drinking copious amounts of iced tea. I’m still not comfortable being in large groups of virus puppets, and shame on the people that decided to congregate in large groups this past Memorial Day Weekend.

Ezra Pound was quoted as saying, Stupidity carried beyond a certain point becomes a public menace, and he was absolutely correct on that account in more ways than one. The major component in the masses of saliva exchange logic can only be seen as self-serving and uncaring; so don’t expect compassion if you are one of the revelers who just happens to acquire a healthy case of the plague. You can probably tell from the latter sentence that I am seemingly a huge proponent of retribution, and you wouldn’t be wrong. More than likely, as life is always unfair in this way, one of the “party animals” will probably give it to someone who dies (grandma or grandpa) while their own case remains dormant. Despite all this nonsense, I still have to repress the inclination to punch someone in the face who stands right next to me in the grocery store while blathering on their phone with spittle flying everywhere, but hey, nobody’s perfect.

***

At any rate…the internet wormhole strikes again! I stumbled across a photo of a barely clad Rickey Henderson for Playgirl in July 1984, and I thought, “Gee, that was an interesting year in pop culture.” I was in elementary school and I absolutely adored Michael Jackson. The biggest topic on the playground was: would you bang Madonna? and what Garbage Pail Kids would you trade? Of course, we were all virgins and wouldn’t know what to do with our peckers even if Madonna was a pedophile who was attracted to small town Catholic school knuckleheads who carried aluminum lunchboxes with Luke Skywalker emblazoned on the lid. I stared at the photo of Rickey for a minute and his powerful legs seemed to stand out in the photo for, oh, about 1,406 reasons. The photo was meant for a different gender (or not?) and maybe even a different race (or not?) but it still resonated from a baseball standpoint. Is this what happens when there is no baseball? Are you relegated to watching games on MLB.TV from 2019, playing fantasy games on your phone and staring at photos of Rickey Henderson’s legs?

Sigh…I think I need to get outside. (with 6 feet of social distancing, of course)

Observations and stuff

Rickey’s stance?

Recently, a friend and I were walking to the corner store on a bright-sunny-day-beer-trip, lazily immersing ourselves in conversation about Glenn Danzig‘s new album of Elvis covers. My opinion was that I found the album to be trite, self-serious with no irony, and it ultimately garnered a shrug and a yawn; but even more hilarious and interesting was the almost universal frothing at the mouth by the gate-keeping reviewers who saw it as rock and roll anathema and a retrograde head-scratcher. Besides, couldn’t I just listen to Elvis himself? Is there any reason why I shouldn’t? Danzig, in all his glorious, visual hilariousness could never surpass a fat Elvis doing a rhinestone studded, scuzzy Las Vegas, word-slurring, pill popping rendition of “In the Ghetto.” There is, alas, only one “King,” and Mr. Danzig is just the former lead singer of a band whose t-shirts have been relegated to the scrapheap of clueless millennial teenage rebellion. This album only exists to create more landfill.

We passed the “Rickey Henderson” statue that I noticed that someone had (lovingly?) bestowed a mask, no doubt an attempt at humor or perhaps a micro-aggressive reminder to Trump fans (and every cro-magnon attempting to adopt the modern human sleeve without internal logic) that surely no amount of patriotism or amendments can stop a virus or even death. These are surreal and almost hilarious times and I couldn’t help but suppressing a snicker as I put on my own mask before entering the store, per new regulation, to an absurdity that can only be seen as the “new normal.” I seemingly can only wonder and perhaps dream of a world without The ‘Rona and maybe even Glenn Danzig for good measure since wondering and dreaming seems to be the only pastime that makes sense these days besides drinking and hand washing.

 

Rickey… damn near greatest of all time.

Oakland’s finest.

Poised between going on and back, pulled Both ways taut like a tight-rope walker, Fingertips pointing the opposites, Now bouncing tiptoe like a dropped ball, Or a kid skipping rope, come on, come on! Running a scattering of steps sidewise, How he teeters, skitters, tingles, teases, Taunts them, hovers like an ecstatic bird, He’s only flirting, crowd him, crowd him, Delicate, delicate, delicate, delicate – Now! – 

Robert Francis

People wax nostalgic about Ty Cobb and the other dead beat- dead ball honkies….but make no mistake, if my man Rickey was around and even ALLOWED to play with those bigots he would have stolen 2000 more bases.  Now before anyone gets crazy about an era they’ve only READ about, let me explain–In the dead ball era it was damn near prerequisite for someone to steal. If you had less than 50 in a season, you just weren’t that good.  (apparently they didn’t give a shit about sabermetrics, as in 2010 in the American League there were 1505 stolen bases and only 540 caught stealing. A success rate of 73.6% which is almost 22% higher than in 1927. And 1927 was a high year as the success rate for a SB in that era was usually well under 60%…. Ty Cobb’s stolen base percentage for his career was probably around 67 percent.) Of course, there is always the argument that the era that I speak of had a lackadaisical attitude towards balk calls and other mound chicanery… and that is true, yet I find it hard to believe that an inferior athlete such as Babe Ruth, whos home run trot is famous for its daintiness can actually have 123 career swipes…a mere 77 behind Jose “robo-athlete” Canseco. What the fuck is going on here? This sport makes as much sense as a 40-year-old divorcee in Ibiza….entertaining, wealthy, fun to look at, yet ultimately a head shaking affair.

Ahhhh…but isn’t life itself a head shaking affair? How can you make sense of the serial killer, religion, black holes, or the time I vomited on the subway.

You can’t.

….and by you I mean YOU…the reader. You don’t know shit. Admit it. You will want to fulfill your need to be “the correct party” and regale me with NUMBERS. I don’t need numbers….I’ve seen the greatest base stealer of  ALL TIME in my life time, and until they put robots on the goddamn field that will never change.