josh pincus is crying

As I watched the 2009 baseball postseason, I thought about my long association with the Philadelphia Phillies. 

As a kid, I was never a sports fan. My brother and father would park themselves in front of the television and rabidly watch anything that remotely resembled a sporting event. Depending on the time of year, our house was filled with the sounds of kicked footballs, batted baseballs, whacked hockey pucks or basketballs swishing through nothing but net. There was always some sort of elimination round of some playoff of some series — punctuated by the heated and opinionated arguments between my brother and my father. I was usually off somewhere drawing, as — to me — one sport was just as boring as the next. But soon, all that would change.

In October 1977, I passed my driving test and was awarded a license to operate a motor vehicle in the state of Pennsylvania. I happily offered to run errands for my mom and drive friends around. I used any excuse I could think of in order to tool around Northeast Philadelphia in the most reliable of vehicles from the Pincus Family motor pool: my mom’s 1969 Ford Galaxie.

The Galaxie was a massive assemblage of steel and rubber that was sturdy enough for battle. It boasted a dashboard that looked like it belonged in commercial airplane. In what was obviously an exercise in poor planning, the radio was wedged into a most inconvenient corner space to the far left of the steering wheel. This gave only the driver control of the soundtrack for each ride.

The 1977 baseball season ended and the first place Phillies were once again denied a trip to the World Series, this time by cross-country rivals, The Los Angeles Dodgers. It was in that time between the 1977 Fall Classic and ’78 Spring Training that my brother gave me a valuable piece of advice, and probably the only piece of advice from my brother I ever followed. He suggested that I apply for a job at Veterans Stadium, home of the Philadelphia Phillies, as a vendor. It proved to be the greatest job I ever had.

In February 1978, baseball players began reporting to training camps throughout Florida. Meanwhile in Philadelphia, I obtained the necessary employment certificates allowing me to work, in compliance with Pennsylvania law. I borrowed the Galaxie and carefully navigated southbound Interstate 95, a thoroughfare I had only traveled once before, and that was while accompanied by a driving instructor. With my hands properly on the steering wheel at 10 and 2, I kept the car steady and as far to the right on the highway as legally possible. After a grueling forty-five minute ride (that should have taken twenty), I arrived at the 50 million dollar multi-purpose concrete structure that was known to locals as “The Vet.” I parked my car in the enormous lot and followed the signs towards the employment office. An uninterested woman with no inflection in her voice asked me some questions covering my age, where I attended school and how I heard about the job. She then directed me to another office that was empty except for an industrial-looking camera and a neutral photo backdrop suspended from a metal frame. I stood before the frame and smiled when cued. After several minutes, I received my laminated ID card and just like that I was officially a vendor for Nilon Brothers, the company that operated the food service at the stadium. I didn’t actually  work for the Phillies, so, unfortunately, I was not on the same payroll as Mike Schmidt. But, in sixty days, I’d eagerly return to hawk my wares amid the cheering crowd of baseball faithful.

My brother and a number of his friends had worked as vendors for five years. I was welcomed to the fold as long as I could provide transportation to the ballpark as part of a carpool. I committed and was welcomed once again, this time more sincerely. Arrangements were made and I was to drive a car full of my brother’s buddies to The Vet every fifth home game or when needed.

It was unseasonably cold the first week of April in Philadelphia, but that didn’t keep the 1978 baseball season from starting. I got a call from one of my fellow vendors informing me when to be ready for pickup for Opening Night. A car packed with my brother’s friends pulled up in front of my house. A horn honked as my signal to join them in seconds or be left behind. I scurried down the front lawn, and climbed into the back seat, squeezing between two hulking college seniors. They were anxious to start the new vending season, as they had all turned 21 and were now legally permitted to sell beer. That’s where the real money was.

The policy of vending for Nilon Brothers was this: Vendors essentially worked for themselves, meaning there was no salary. A vendor would arrive at the stadium several hours before a game and queue up for admittance. Once the vendor entrance opened, one would proceed to what we called “the laundry”. It was a counter where a man sat and distributed smocks in exchange for your ID badge and ten bucks. The smock was a red, white and blue striped pajama top that identified you as an authorized Nilon employee. I suppose Nilon felt that carrying a tray of foodstuff and screaming one’s head off was not enough to allow for proper recognition. At the end of the night, once your smock was returned (no matter how soiled or sweat soaked), you would receive your ID and full deposit. After putting on the clown-like smock and tying on your own supplied change apron, vendors would head to one of four vendor-only commissaries placed strategically throughout the stadium. I, and my carpool colleagues, worked out of commissary 535 in the right field upper deck. The commissary was set up like a cafeteria. There were sections for each product — soda, peanuts, beer — from which a vendor choose his item for the night. I sold Cokes, which were dispensed in waxed cups and arranged in wire trays of twenty. A tray of Cokes was purchased by the vendor — that’s right, purchased— for $14.25. Different products cost different amounts and, therefore, offered different profit margins. With a catchy “call” and swift feet, a tray of twenty Cokes at eighty cents apiece brought the vendor $16.00 — and a profit of a buck seventy-five. An average summer game would net about thirty-five dollars, a huge sum to a seventeen-year old. On a really good day, fifty bucks could easily be made, if a fair amount of hustling was involved. Rain delayed games were great because there was a captive audience, no game and nothing to do but buy food. Vendors loved rain delays. Oh yeah, vendors had to provide their own change. Aside from a workplace, Nilon Brothers provided shit.

My first night of vending was exciting and I was ready to vend. However, after toting a heavy metal tray laden with twenty, ice and soda-filled cups up and down steep, cement steps into the dizzying heights of the 700 level, I was dragging my ass. The tray weighed a ton and, due to the chill in the air, Cokes weren’t exactly a hot commodity. As baseball season went on and the weather got warmer, vending blossomed into a great experience. I hustled through the crowds, deftly tendering two dimes for every dollar I received for a Coke. I perfected my attention-getting call of “Heeeeeeyyyy! Coooooooo-ke He-YAH!” as I worked the bleacher throngs. The camaraderie among most vendors was great. I acknowledged the other vendors I passed with a wink, as though we were part of a secret club. There was McKenna, a geeky string bean with thick glasses and his unmistakable call of “Give your tongue a sleigh ride!” when he sold ice cream. There was old Charlie Frank, a legend among the elite clutch of hotdog vendors, with his rapid-fire call of “DoggieDoggieDoggieDoggieDoggieDoggie”. There was my brother’s pal Scott, another hotdog vendor, who served up two dogs on one bun, affectionately called a “Scott-dog”. Since hotdog sales were tallied by the roll inventory, this treat was not uncommon, but only available to vendors.

Nilon Brothers didn’t care much for competition. Enterprising, yet unauthorized, street vendors that set up on bordering Pattison Avenue infringed on Nilon’s high-priced fare. Besides that, they were vending illegally on private property. Each night, policeman would systematically confiscate shopping carts filled with Philly soft pretzels from some rogue salesman. The offender would be chased from the premises and his offerings carted into the bowels of some stadium storage area. Those storage areas were adjacent to the vendor laundry. One night at the seventh-inning vendor departure time, as a group of us were returning our smocks, a voice from behind inquired, “Are these pretzels for anyone?” We turned around to see Jim Lonborg, the lanky Phillies pitcher, who had just gotten pulled from the evening’s game. Upon receiving several shrugs from the cluster of vendors, Lonborg grabbed a strip of eight baked-together pretzels, jammed them into the webbing of his glove and headed off to hit the showers.

The drives home from the game were an adventure as well. If I was a passenger, I was usually relegated to the back seat where I had to survive the smell of at least five of my brother’s friends, all sweaty and tired, but charged with adrenaline. If I was the evening’s driver, I had to maneuver around the ancient train tracks that littered Delaware Avenue, while deflecting the passenger trying to reach through my steering wheel in an attempt to change the radio station. When I’d get home my parents would ask who won. “Who won?” I’d reply, “I don’t even know who was playing. I was too busy making money.”

On October 1, 1978, along with the Phillies season, my career as a vendor came to an end. The weather had turned cold and I needed to secure a job that lasted more than a few months.

In 1996, I began my tenure as a Phillies season ticket holder. With the package we purchased, my family began attending every Sunday home game the Phillies played. Today, as my wife and I sit in the stands of Citizens Bank Park, the new home of the Phillies, there are several vendors ambling through the crowd that I recognize thirty-one years later. Their calls are raspier and their gaits lethargic, but they are unmistakably the same guys. It seems sad to me that men of advanced age are still working the ballpark mobs. I suppose they don’t want to give up the greatest job they ever had.

This week’s word on Illustration Friday is “frozen”.

Ted Williams was one of the greatest players in the history of professional baseball. Despite his career being interrupted twice for military service, he was a two-time MVP and a seventeen time All-Star. He was the last player with a single season batting average above .400. Nicknamed “The Splendid Splinter”, Ted was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1966. The only team he played for, The Boston Red Sox, retired his uniform number in 1984. In his final years, Ted suffered from numerous cardiac problems. He had a pacemaker installed in November 2000 and underwent open-heart surgery in January 2001. He died of cardiac arrest on July 5, 2002 at the age of 83.

After his death, Ted’s children battled over his final arrangements. Ted’s oldest daughter, Bobby-Jo, wanted to fulfill Ted’s wishes of cremation, with his ashes scattered in the Florida Keys. His children from his second marriage, John-Henry and Claudia, wanted their father to be cryonically frozen in liquid nitrogen at Alcor Life Extension Foundation in Scottsdale, Arizona. After a long and brutal struggle involving lawsuits, forged documents and criminal accusations among family, Ted Williams was shipped to Alcor, where his head was removed from his body and the two pieces were separately preserved.

In a 2003 Sports Illustrated article, fired Alcor executive Larry Johnson alleged that the company had mishandled Williams’ head by drilling holes and accidentally cracking it. Johnson also claimed that some of Williams’ DNA was missing. Alcor denied the allegations of missing DNA and explained that microscopic cracking can result as part of the process of freezing the head. Mr. Johnson asserted that, “They had his head in a container that is like a freezer chest … and it was malfunctioning. So, they wanted to move his head into another vessel to lower the temperature down to minus 321 Fahrenheit. So, they got a tuna fish can, and they put it in the bottom of that vessel. They set the head upside-down on top of the can and filled the vessel with liquid nitrogen. Well, obviously, after two or three days of being in that state, the can was stuck to the top of his head. A technician grabbed a monkey wrench, took a swing at the can and missed. He missed the can and hit the head. He drew back again, took a second swing, hit the can and sent it flying across the room.”

Concerned with the safety of his earthly remains and the dignity of his legend, Red Sox fans took action. After a marathon letter-writing and petition-signing campaign, The Red Sox Nation won the guardianship of Williams’ head. According to a detailed schedule, each fan in the Boston Metropolitan area will be awarded custody of Ted’s head for a period of three days. During this time, the custodian must keep the head frozen and secure. At the end of three days, the fan will pass the head on to the next designated member of the Red Sox faithful on the list.

In his thirteen season career, Donnie Moore posted a 43-40 record and a 3.67 ERA. He was even selected to the All-Star team in 1985.

Donnie’s downfall came on October 12, 1986. He was pitching for the Angels in Game 5 of the 1986 American League Championship Series in Anaheim. The Angels held a 3-1 lead in the best-of-seven series against the Boston Red Sox. The Angels held a 5-2 lead in Game 5 going into the ninth inning. Boston rallied and put two more on the scoreboard on a home run by Don Baylor, closing the gap to 5-4.

Donnie came in to shut down the Red Sox and win the series and the first-ever pennant for the Angels. There were two outs and a runner on first. Boston’s Dave Henderson ran a count of  2-2. The Angels were one strike away from advancing to the World Series. Henderson stood in and took Donnie’s next pitch out of the park, giving the Red Sox a 6-5 lead. The Angels scored in the bottom of the ninth, forcing the game into extra innings.

Donnie remained in the game for the tenth and, after a double play, Donnie got the Angels out of the inning. Unable to score in the bottom of the tenth, the Angels sent Donnie back to the mound in the top of the eleventh inning. Donnie put Don Baylor on base and, again, he faced Dave Henderson. Henderson belted a sacrifice fly to the outfield, scoring Baylor. The Angels could not score in the bottom of the 11th, and lost the game 7-6. The Angels lost the remaining games at Boston’s Fenway Park and lost the series. Donnie became indelibly associated with the Angels’ loss of the pennant and it haunted him for the rest of his days. Donnie was released by the Angels at the end of the season. He signed a minor league contract with the Kansas City Royals. He appeared in a few games in the Kansas City farm system and was released from his contract.

On July 18, 1989, during an argument with his wife Tonya, Donnie shot her three times, in full view of their three children. Tonya and their 17-year old daughter Demetria fled from the house. Demetria drove her mother to the hospital. Both survived the shooting.

Back inside the house, still in the presence of one of his sons, Donnie fatally shot himself.

The illustrationfriday.com challenge word this week is “modify”.

Ray Chapman was born in Beaver Dam, Kentucky in 1891. Ten months later and 150 miles away the man who would kill him was born.

Ray was an above-average shortstop playing with the Cleveland Indians in the early twentieth century. He led the league in several hitting and fielding categories. He batted .300 in three seasons and is 6th on the all-time list for sacrifice hits.

To his New York Yankee teammates, Carl Mays was a son-of-a-bitch. He was a mean, belligerent, complaining loner who had the disposition of a man with a constant toothache. He was, however, a master of deceptive pitching. In the early days of organized baseball, aside from the basics, there were few rules to be followed. This allowed for baseballs to be scuffed, scraped, sandpapered, spat upon, and cut by pitchers. Coupled with the fact that one baseball usually lasted an entire game, hitting, and even seeing, a ball was extremely difficult for batters. In addition to the physical augmentations Mays used on the ball, he earned himself the nickname “Sub” because of his underhand, “submarine”-style of pitch delivery.

On August 16, 1920, in a game at New York’s Polo Grounds between the Yankees and the Indians, Ray Chapman stepped to the plate in the fifth inning. Mays went into his wind-up and threw with his regular submarine delivery. The pitch was high and tight and Chapman never moved out of the way, unable to see the ball. Mays heard the ball crack and it was immediately returned to him at the pitcher’s mound. Mays assumed the ball hit Chapman’s bat, so he routinely tossed the ball to first base for the out. The “crack” was actually the sound of the ball penetrating Chapman’s skull. Chapman was rushed to a New York hospital where he died twelve hours later, after surgery.

This incident forced Major League Baseball to modify some of its rules. The spitball was officially banned. Dirty, scuffed or otherwise defaced baseballs are regularly replaced by umpires. Batters are now required to wear batting helmets. The submarine pitch, however baffling, is still legal.

The Inspire Me Thursday inspirational word this week is “ticket”.

I live in Philadelphia and I’ve been going to baseball games for a very long time. I struggled alongside the struggling Phillies in those years in the late ’90s when they out-and-out stunk! I also sat in the stands as the Phillies fought their way to their second World Series Championship in 2008. To paraphrase James Earl Jones from “Field of Dreams”: There has been one constant through the years…” The parking lot ticket scapers. These guys fascinate me. I see them every game as I drive through the gates to park the car. They prowl the lots displaying a homemade sign of torn corrugated pasteboard. They exhibit their stock of tickets like a burlesque fan dancer. They also look like they don’t have two nickels to rub together. They address everyone who passes by them with, “Need tickets?”, followed by “Selling tickets?” I don’t understand. Can’t they make up their minds?

It not like Phillies tickets are a rare commodity. Sure, they sell out games now that they have a World Series trophy, but usually tickets are pretty easy to come by. Most games have tickets available at the door.

I’m almost positive that the guys in the torn shorts and stained t-shirts aren’t authorized ticket resellers.

The Monday Artday challenge word this week is “lucky”.

On June 2, 1925, Yankees manager Miller Huggins replaced regular first baseman Wally Pipp in the starting lineup. Pipp was in a slump, so Huggins made the change to boost the team’s overall performance. Huggins started Lou Gehrig instead. He stayed in the lineup for fourteen years. Although he played with injuries or sometimes appeared only as a pinch-hitter, Gehrig played 2130 consecutive games.

At the midpoint of the 1938 season, Gehrig’s performance began to diminish. At the end of that season, he said, “I tired mid season. I don’t know why, but I just couldn’t get going again.” Although his final 1938 stats were respectable, it was a dramatic drop from his 1937 season.

Spring training 1939 showed Gehrig’s physical strength and coordination in serious decline. He struggled through April 1939. On May 2, 1939, Gehrig informed Yankee manager Joe McCarthy that he was taking himself out of the lineup. He never played baseball again.

After extensive testing at Mayo Clinic, the diagnosis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) was confirmed on June 19, Gehrig’s 36th birthday. The prognosis was grim. He would experience rapidly increasing paralysis, difficulty in swallowing and speaking, and a life expectancy of fewer than three years.

On July 4, 1939, the Yankees retired Gehrig’s uniform number “4″ (the first uniform number retired by a Major League Baseball team), and honored him between games of a double header. Gehrig gave his famous “I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth” speech before a packed and tearful Yankee Stadium crowd.

However, Gehrig was wrong. He is not the luckiest man on the face of the earth. Jim Belushi is.

I’ve had Phillies season tickets since 1996. I sat through some bad years and I sat through some great years, including 2008’s championship season. I’ve been to many ballparks in many different cities. The game on the field is only a fraction of the entertainment to be found at the ballpark. Sometimes the game doesn’t command the same interest as the antics in the stands. Last Sunday’s Phillies game was no exception. Once again, there was this guy…

Lost. Hopelessly lost. I’ve seen him at many games. Reluctantly sent out to the concession stands by his group to load up on hot dogs and soda and beer and snacks. He waits in an endless line, missing several innings and usually a game-shattering play. Hearing the distant cheers, he stands stuck in a queue, lifting himself on tip-toes as he tries to catch a glimpse of the action on the field. Finally, his turn to pay arrives. He fumbles with a few pieces of damp currency, gets his change and hurries back to his seat. It is then he realizes he has become disoriented. He has visited so many food stands that he has forgotten where his seat is. And his friends have his ticket stub. He helplessly chooses a random aisle and spends the next five innings with his back to the game, scanning the crowd for a familiar face. The hot dogs are getting cold, the ice is melting in the Cokes, the beer is spilling. His friends don’t spot him — for Christ’s sake, THEY’RE  watching the game. Oh, it’s not always the same guy, but always he’s just as lost.

The dudes behind me account for the other entertainment in the stands. For fourteen seasons, in two different stadiums, some dude has sat behind me and kicked my seat. A child, an old man, a teen, a drunk. Doesn’t matter. They all kick. This past Sunday was my lucky day. I was treated to seat kickers AND some of the most inane conversation I’ve ever heard. There were two dudes, not much older than 21, dressed in their Phillies regalia, knocking back beer after beer and loudly expounding on the wonders of THEIR  universe…
[Note: Each statement started with an “ach”, a guttural clearing of the throat — JPiC]
Dude 1: ach, Dude, Johnny told me he’s, like, gettin’ a new car
Dude 2: ach, Dude, no way
Dude 1: ach, Dude, aw yeah. what kinda car does your mom drive? She’s got a truck, right? Does it drive good in the snow?
Dude 2: ach, Dude, it is totally cool in the snow.
Dude 1: ach, Dude what happened to your Phillies shirt?
Dude 2: ach, Dude, di’nt I tell you? Last year at the Phillies parade, I got hit by a car. I woke up the day after the parade and I had blood and dirt on my Phillies shirt and I said ‘Dude, what happened?’ and they said ‘Dude, don’t you remember? You totally got hit by a car and the dude that was driving got out all scared and shit and you started laughing and you ran away.’
Dude 1: ach, Dude, that’s awesome. Dude, y’know one time, my dad got tickets to a game back at the Vet [Veterans Stadium, home of the Phillies from 1971 to 2003. — JPiC] and my dad took me up to the press box and he knocked on the door and I met Harry Kalas [Harry Kalas was the long-time announcer for the Phillies, who passed away earlier this week. — JPiC] and he signed a ball for me and I just hung out in the press box with Harry and we were talking baseball. [Based on the “dude’s” approximate age, this anecdote is a total fabrication. — JPiC]
Dude 2: ach, Dude that’s cool. Yo’ dude, I didn’t know you smoked. Does your sister smoke? Does your mom know you smoke? Do you have to hide it from her?
Dude 1: ach, Dude, I’m gonna quit smoking in three years when I finish school.
Dude 2: ach, Dude, at my school, I was the mascot for the football team.
Dude 1: ach, What was the mascot?
Dude 2: ach, Dude, it was a cougar. It was great ’cause the girls all wanted to take their picture with me, so I had girls totally all over me. It was the best job ever. But it sucked.
Dude 1: ach, Dude, at school I have a break every morning from 9 to noon. It’s, like, the most boringest two hours.

And that’s how it went, non-stop for nine innings.
The Phillies won on a walk-off home run by Raul Ibañez. For one ticket price, I got twice the entertainment.

Three nights ago, the only thing on 22-year old rookie Nick Adenhart’s mind was not giving up any runs to the Oakland A’s starting lineup. Nick scattered seven hits and three walks across six innings, while ringing up five Oakland batters on strikes. Nick was looking great in his 2009 season debut as part of the pitching rotation of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. Reliever Jose Arredondo took over pitching duties in the seventh inning and gave up two runs. The Angels sent two more relief pitchers in. One blown save later, the Angels had lost and, although he threw six scoreless innings,  Nick finished the game with a “no-decision”. Nick and his teammates hit the showers. In two hours, a selfish, lowlife, drunk piece of shit named Andrew Gallo would take away Nick’s chance at a second start.

Nick was a passenger in a friend’s Mitsubishi Eclipse as it approached the intersection of Orangethorpe Avenue and Lemon Street in Fullerton, California, a short distance from Angels Stadium. Andrew Gallo, driving with a suspended license and a previous DUI conviction, ran a red light in his Toyota Sienna and smashed into the Eclipse, instantly killing two of the passengers. Gallo fled the scene on foot. Emergency workers arrived and pulled Nick and his friends from the wrecked vehicle. Nick was rushed to University of California-Irvine Medical Center, where he died from injuries sustained in the crash. Gallo was apprehended on an embankment on interstate 91, thirty minutes after the accident.

On Friday morning, April 10, Gallo was charged with three counts of murder, one count of fleeing the scene of a traffic collision involving death or permanent injury, one count of driving under the influence and one count of driving with a blood-alcohol level above the legal limit. Gallo’s blood-alcohol level was triple the legal limit. He faces a sentence of 55 years in prison.

The day before his first 2009 start, Nick called his dad in his native Baltimore and insisted he fly in for the game. “You’re gonna see something special.” he told his father.

This story was updated in the Orange County Register on June 11, 2009. The driver of the car in which Nick Adenhart was a passenger was legally drunk, according to autopsy reports. She was also under the legal age for the comsumption of alcohol.

With The 2008 Philadelphia Phillies headed to their first World Series in fifteen years, I can only think of my father. My father died the day The Phillies won the 1993 National League pennant. This would be the Phillies’ first trip to the World Series since their loss to The Baltimore Orioles ten years earlier. He didn’t live to see the team that went “from worst to first” — his team — go on to play their hearts out against The Toronto Blue Jays. He didn’t get to see the longest game in World Series history, most total runs scored in a single World Series game, and most runs scored by a losing team in a World Series game. He didn’t get to hear about the death threats made to Phillies closer Mitch “Wild Thing” Williams. He especially didn’t get to see Joe Carter’s walk-off home run. I believe that had my father lived, that would have killed him.

My father was the typical Phillies fan. He loved them when they were winning. After a Phillies win, he would smile and pump his fist, proclaiming “All the way, baby! All the way to the World Series.” When they were losing, he would snap the TV off in the fifth inning and grumble “Bums! They’re bums!”

My father was a simple guy who led a simple life. He was born in 1926 and was raised by his father, a bigot in the truest sense of the word, who my mother called “the dumbest man ever to walk this planet”. And by his mother, a stubborn, die-hard, Nixon-loving Republican, who my mother said “was too mean to die”. Unfortunately, my mother was right. My grandmother outlived my mother by four years and my father by two. My father’s simple pleasure was watching his Phillies. He grew up following and loving the Phillies. He loved to tell the story about how he cut school to go to a Phillies game. He saw a no-hitter and, because he was supposed to be in school,  couldn’t tell anyone that he was there. Well, my father also liked to make shit up. It’s a great story, but Chick Fraser pitched a no-hitter for the Phillies in 1903 and they didn’t have another until Jim Bunning’s gem on Father’s Day 1964.

My father took my brother to Phillies games at Connie Mack Stadium. My mom and I would stay home and listen to the game on the radio. When I was old enough, my father took all of us to beautiful new Veterans Stadium. My father worked for local supermarket chain Pantry Pride and would get free tickets from his suppliers. My family would usually sit in the Oscar Mayer field box — about ten feet from first base. I remember during one game against The San Francisco Giants, shortstop Chris Spier threw a ball to first about twelve feet over the head of Giants’ 6-foot 4-inch firstbaseman Willie McCovey. McCovey looked at Spier in disbelief and my father said to me “He was throwing that ball to you!”

My father cheerfully related stories about Richie Ashburn and the “Whiz Kids” (the 1950 Phillies). He remembered with contempt the Phillies’ infamous 1964 ten-game season-ending collapse. Of course, he beamed when Tug McGraw struck out Kansas City’s Willie Wilson to win their one and only World Series in 1980.

Sure, the Phils made it to post-season a few more times in the early 80s, but they ultimately suffered some lean years. My father suffered right along with them, cursing them all they way.

I can still picture my father settling down in his chair to watch a Phillies game. He had a Tastykake Chocolate Junior and the biggest fucking glass of chocolate milk you ever saw. To one side there were a few packs of Viceroy cigarettes, which he would run through by the bottom of the third inning. He’d fall asleep by the fifth and wake up in the bottom of the ninth, in time to catch my mom attempting to change the channel. “I was watching that!” he would state indignantly.

Last night, as my wife, my son and I watched the Fightin’ Phils stomp the Los Angeles Dodgers right into the ground of Dodgers Stadium, I couldn’t help but think of my father. I think my son was channeling my father when he said “I can’t believe those bastards are going to the World Series!”

Well, Dad, it’s been fifteen years coming.

The challenge word this week on Monday Artday is “steampunk”. This may be an unfamiliar concept to some, so I’ll do my best to explain it. According to Wikipedia,  the Internet source for everything (including a little bullshit), steampunk is a genre of  fiction that came into prominence in the 1980s and early 1990s. The term denotes works set in an era or world where steam power is still widely used—usually the 19th century, and often set in Victorian era England—but with prominent elements of either science fiction or fantasy, such as fictional technological inventions like those found in the works of H. G. Wells and Jules Verne, or real technological developments like computers occurring at an earlier date. Clear on that? I didn’t think so. Well, If you are one of the six people who saw the Will Smith-Kevin Kline movie “Wild Wild West“, you get the idea. That said, let’s get to my illustration.

In the late nineteenth century, a field game called base-ball  was becoming popular throughout the countryside. With the game still in its infancy, participants sought ways and means with which to gain an edge over their adversaries. Long before the abundance of steroids infiltrated these contests, players relied on technology to enhance their performance. One such player was C. Abercrombie Wheatsworth III. “The Crom”, as he was known to be called by spectators, was the mid-short fielder for the Manhattan Island Gyroscopes of Greater New York State.
In the late summer of 1896, The Gyroscopes were embroiled in a brutal struggle with the Cleveland Steamers, their league division rivals. Tempers were high and nerves were on edge as the score stood in a dead heat at 3-3 in the crucial bottom of the ninth inning. The winning run was on third base. “The Crom” approached the lime-delineated batter’s box and keenly stared down the hurler on the mound. The Steamers’ pitcher, Dirk T. Sanchez, was a mysterious foreign import who had previously played for the Mexican League in Zihuatanejo in the western part of Guerrero.
“The Crom” motioned to the equipment boy to bring his secret weapon. The boy scampered to the dugout and returned with a gleaming length of polished brass, chrome and wood, topped with ornate and elaborate wind deflectors affixed to the massive barrel. “The Crom Pulveritizer” he called it. These were times of limited equipment stipulations and few regulated ordinances. The lanky Sanchez deftly pitched the cowhide-covered projectile at full velocity in Wheatsworth’s direction. Wheatsworth reared back and struck the orb squarely across the brown leather stitches. The sphere rocketed high and far. With his chest puffed out like a Christmas goose, “The Crom” triumphantly circled the bases and once again was the hero of Old New Amsterdam.