4/28/99
Softball: The Lessons of History
Dear People,
Congratz to all on last Saturday's slightly understated 20-13 display of unsightly athletic ineptitude. While the game's three dozen errors tended to blunt the relevance of any individual competence, the juxtaposition of floundering outfielders and the breath taking Cordinices forest created a subtle yet nearly ethereal beauty that perhaps only myself and the most perspicacious of the local aphids could truly appreciate. Yes, rare is the synergy that can equal nature with sport.
Once again, Kleeberger is booked up through next week. However, I have concluded that forcing us from that field leaves us a frightened but ultimately stout people, and that our geo-chronological resilience is a triumph of the human spirit in the face of often overwhelming inconvenience. And perhaps there is no better time to display that frisky flexibility than this weekend, for as you certainly know, this Saturday, May 1st, is the 79th anniversary of the day that Boston Red Sox outfielder Charles "cockroach" Pick went 0 for 11 in a single 26 inning game, the most statistically awful hitting performance in the history of professional baseball to this very day!
You know, sometimes when I've entered a hitting slump and faced the humiliation of three or four outs in a row, I look for needed solace in the spirit of 'ol roachie, whose own batting prowess was no doubt stolen from him in the panic of that fateful May Day of 1920, when the shattering red scare left no Red Sox player untouched, simply because their team name suggested socialist leanings. In point of fact, cockroach was petit bourgeois to the very marrow of his bones, but when Attorney General Palmer told the press on April 30th that he was known to be a "bat wielding Bolshevik," the public frenzy was triggered, and roachie's ability to concentrate obviously evaporated. It's now 79 years later, but we can't just pretend that such an egregious episode of aerobic slander never occurred. Therefore, there will be a game this Saturday, May 1st, at Cordonices Park at 5pm, IF I get enough commits by this Friday noon. So do what you must. Do it for Charles '"cockroach" Pick, whose 26 inning ordeal is an indelible reminder of the raw pain of a player, a team and a troubled nation...Raymond
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