And now.
S'
The Quiz
1) What 3000 hit slugger was so consistent that he had the same
number of hits on the road as he had at home?
A) Honus Wagner
B) Stan Musial
C) Rod Carew
D) George Brett
I1ORTH
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2) Name the only player with 20+ pinch-hit taters.
A) Cliff Johnson
B) Rusty Staub
C) Frenchy Bordagaray
D) Merv Rettenmund
The moon was full, the ouzo was fine, and the cries of "Let’s
mambo! Or Mizourka! Or some damn thing!" rang across the
Mediterranean sand. 1 was engaged in a dancing frenzy with a one
armed Greek fisherwoman who was wearing a diaphanous white dress,
when a filthy, ill-shorn, unemployed deck-hand garrotted me from
behind.
"Four months scrubbing decks on a tramp steamer, but I have
ferreted you out. Now you are mine!"
With effort, I freed myself, and thrust him to the beach.
"Sir, you are bereft. Stand away, or I will summon a constable.
The local authorities make short shrift of febrile vagabonds such as
yourself."
"Ha! You invoke the police? I possess writs and documents!
You may recall a lost weekend in Atlantic City, I'm sure. I bought
your markers, you pig. You come with me and write, damnit, or you
go with Fat Tony Scalemo to God knows where."
"You think to feed me to the Mob? Say hello to being
bouillibaisse, you weasel." And with that I grabbed him by the
soiled lapels, and dragged him, squirming and screaming, down the
beach, where I pitched him into the sea.
Amidst his flailing and gasping, he proved verbose.
"You have been ungenerous to me, but I will offer you this. In
the event of my untimely death, my high powered Miami attorney
has been instructed to take the proper steps, particularly in regard to
my debtors. And, as an adjuct, I might point out that I cannot
swim."
With a furious oath, I waded into the pulsing waters and rescued
the worthless, yet providentially recently bathed Editor from the surf.
Within an hour we were on a plane home.
My beloved editor over-indulged in airline cocktails and fell asleep,
snoring intolerably.
The Great American Game should be an unrelenting war
of nerves.
Ty Cobb
Hello. Much has happened since we last talked, or as Mrs.
Baseball incorrectly puts it, I lectured. Major League Baseball, after a
season ending strike, has suffered a 30% attendance decline this year,
the bad P R. in the press is of epic proportions, and ABC and NBC,
the two other partners in The Baseball Network, have thrown up their
hands and said they refuse to deal with these cretins ever again, which
means five or six years. The U.S. Senate is poised to strip MLB,
Inc. of its monopoly-free status, and the Office of the Commissioner
of Baseball is now being used as the storeroom for old Curt Flood
legal files. The time of games is encroaching on three bloody hours,
and it’s possible we may yet have a strike or lock-out this season.
All these months of this, and the owners insist that they "aren’t ready
to negotiate." Yeah, neither was Tojo fifty years ago.
MLB, Inc. is committing suicide, on a spectacular scale. You
may say to yourself, "This is not my beautiful game. How did we
get here?" Not an easy question. Let’s look at the record.
Bud Selig, acting commissioner, and his cabal of retrograde
stooges have fought tooth and talon to preserve the status quo in
labor relations, which resulted, predictably, in the disastrous lockout
of ’94. But baseball was in peril before that.
Alert readers will note that I said "baseball", and not merely MLB,
Inc. Yes, the game itself is losing interest at an alarming rate, and
there is dam little anyone can do about it. Make no mistake, the
game will never die, or even come close, but it will never approach
being the National Pastime ever again.
Which is sad and symptomatic.
The casual baseball fan is virtually extinct. For the most part,
you are either a big fan, or you don’t give a shit. If you talk to a
non-fan, the mantra is inevitably, unalterably the same;
It’s boring
It’s too slow.
There’s not enough action.
My reaction to this used to be* a patient explanation, or, ahem,
"lecture", about how they were confusing motion with action, the
beauty of the dynamics of the game, the aesthetics of the proportions
of the field, the grand traditions, and so on. Then, when their eyes
begin to glaze over, I excuse myself and walk away muttering.
I have no numbers to back this up, but it seems to me that most
really big baseball fans are old, or at least, getting there. This is
because baseball demands attention over a nine inning or 162 game
span. You need a certain amount of maturity to deal with this game.
(Not something Mr. Baseball has a great deal of, so go figure.)
This was not always so. Forty years ago, kids played baseball,
period. If you happened to watch the Extreme Games on ESPN
recently, you saw where the focus of today's sporting youth is; Rock
climbing. Moto-cross. Wind-surfing. In-line skating. Insane
skateboarding. Parachuting off large rocks. And so on.
For these folks, instant gratification is just way too slow. Team
sports, with their lessons in teamwork and camaraderie are deemed
clumsy and unnecessary.
But that’s okay. Everybody grows old.
Unless you crush yourself like a noxious insect jumping of a large
rock.
*
i M ' N , , o r A < V A M B Q F lM t P U
1
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• B I B O H ,5 A « T B H H I - I „ ‘ « 1
► B tH A « !. P « l M t C u C B I l ( O t T O T l
3) Any small child knows Babe Ruth pitched and played the field in
game 4 of the 1918 World Series. But one other player has done this
in a series. Name him.
A) Jim Kaat
B) Vic Raschi
C) Todd Worrell
D) Hooks Dauss
® aatle
fiarp et
4) One NL MVP finished second in scoring nationally in his college
basketball career. Who is this guy?
A) Bob Gibson
B) Marty Marion
C) Jim Konstanty
D) Dick Groat
(Cleaning
DONALD THOM
P.O. BOX 773
CANNON BEACH OR 97110
436-1114
5) What speed merchant stole 38 consecutive bases in 1975?
A) Mickey Rivers
B) Cesar Cedeno
C) Davey Lopes
D) Joe Morgan
North Coast Pride Network
P.O. Box 2798
Gearhart, OR 97138
(503) 738-0215
Philip
Thompson
*
* architect
H|\J|
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Are you someone filled with
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Answers:
). 5
¿A
5.C
4 b
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...Nahcotta, the Moby Dick Hotel
on the Long Beach Peninsula,
setting for New Yorker Mary
Bringle’s mystery novel Little
Creatures Everywhere sets
the stage for the third annual
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published or hopeful.
M y s te r y
W rite rs’
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R.I.P. Mick.
at the
A cynic is a person searching for an honest man
with a stolen lantern.
Edgar A. Shoaff
M o b y Diclc H o te l
Nahcotta, Washington
October 28 - October 31
Join special guest NW writer
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opening dinner a la Nero Wolfe.
Workshop participants will help
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