Nancy Mercado - Baseball Crazy: Ten Short Stories that Cover All the Bases

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Table of Contents

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Introduction

I am surrounded by baseball fans. People who can quote the stats, know all the history, and who feel an itch to play when they walk by an empty ball field.

Me? Ive always been more of a fair-weather fan, interested in baseball when it served me (like during a particularly dramatic World Series or when a boy I liked was interested), and to be honest, just seeing a baseball field in a photograph can bring back some painful and potent memories of grade-school humiliation.

But then... the stories for this collection came tricklingin. And being in the company of ten more people who not only know their baseball, and love their baseball, but, best of all, can write stories that encapsulate the spectacular wonder, terror, and joy of baseball, made me feel differently.

I asked these authors to write stories that went beyond simply telling about the game itself and explored more the feelings and emotions we attach to playing, watching, and competing. And Im not going to ruin the game by telling you the play-by-play of what happens in each story. But I will tell you that these ten narratives offer up a compelling panorama of the sport, from the perspective of kids who love the game and those who hate it, the view from the stands, from behind the plate and from the bench. Theres even a story about softball thrown in there, proving that a softer ball certainly doesnt diminish the emotional intensity of a game against rivals.

So what happened to this fair-weather fan after editing these stories? The difference is subtle. These days I find myself lingering longer on the ESPN channel, following individual players careers with a bit more interest, and even entertaining notions of re-joining the local softball league. Could it be that the stories have changed me? Well, Ill certainly never know batting averages, and Ill win the lottery before I ever hit a home run, but now I can truly understand the twinkle in someones eye when talking about a recent game. People are just baseball crazy, thats all!

Best,

Jery Spinelli

POSITION: SHORTSTOP | *ROOKIE YEAR: 1982

BBI: 27 (actually 31 if you count the first four unpublished ones)

CAREER HIGHLIGHTS: Oh boylets say this: It underlies everything else and is much harder to achieve than I ever knew in high school. I make my living writing stories.

FAVORITE TEAM: Philadelphia Phillies

FAVORITE PLAYER: Larry Bowa

BEST GAME EVER: The day I got two hits and two RBIs to lead the Norristown Brick Company to the Pennsylvania Knee-Hi baseball championship when I was fourteen.

THE GREAT GUS ZERNIAL AND MEby Jerry Spinelli

Look at you. Youre dirty again. Your friend is here.

The nun hauled me to the nearest sink and scrubbed my face nearly raw. She took scant care to keep the soap out of my eyes. It was strictly from the soap that I cried. The rough treatment I was used to. I expected it. I deserved it.

I lived in an orphanage. I was therefore known as a homie. That alone was enough to make me feel different, but even among the homies I seemed to be an outcast.

For one thing, I was a wet-the-bed, a designation that entitled me to be paddled every night as I emerged dripping wet from the shower. After lights out I would stay awake as long as I could, only to be betrayed by sleep. In the morning, with the inevitability of eternal judgment, I would waken to the faint damp mustiness of my sin.

For another thing, I was smart. I could already read in the first grade. My hand was forever waving wildly in the classroom. Sometimes a whole day seemed to pass with no one volunteering answers but me. Time and again the nun would scan the seats in vain for another hand. She would try to coax answers from slumping heads. Then, with an audible sigh, she would finally turn to me and flicking her forefinger release me from my bondage of silence. Though my answers were invariably correct, the nun never seemed as happy to receive them as I did to give them.

Then one day during recess in the playground, three of the bigger (and dumber) kids in class came up to me. As usual I was in the dirt near the roots of a huge old tree, playing marbles against myself. One of the big kids said, Stand up.

I stood up.

How come you always raise yer hand? he said.

I shrugged.

How come?

I know the answers.

Well, dont raise yer hand no more.

I squealed, What!

You deef? he snarled. Then he placed my biggest marble on top of my shoe, and with the heel of his shoe he ground the marble into my foot.

I was too upset to appreciate the befuddled look on the nuns face the rest of the day as she kept glancing at my firmly desk-bound hand.

Then there was the great three-day mystery. It took place in the classroom. On the first day it started with the nun turning from the blackboard and sniffing into the space above our heads, rabbit-like. Her chalk hand was still pasted on the board, stopped in the middle of a word. Several more times she sniffed that day, and once, while we were doing our spelling, bent over and ran her pointer along the black dusty space beneath the radiator.

On the second day she turned from the blackboard, chalk hand and all, and announced, All rightout. Out! We filed outside, the head nun went in, and a half hour later we returned. All windows were open, as was the door.

On the third day she came stalking down the aisles. My eyes were fixed on my spelling, but I could trace her movement by the soft rustle of her skirt. It stopped right behind me. Then came the most horrible shriek: Eeeeeey ahhhh-HAH!

It was me. It seems I had an unconscious habit of slipping out of my shoes while sitting in class. And it seems, as I was to learn later, that I was afflicted with a condition in which a perspiring foot, however otherwise clean, gives off an undue degree of odor.

Of course, I was thenceforth forbidden to go anywhere unshod outside the shower room. And kids I never knew found it impossible to pass me without pinching their nostrils. Feet, they would honk.

These things made me feel I was the fly in every pie. Apparently I had been born with a terrible power: I spoiled everything around me.

I had forgotten that a friend would be coming for me on this particular Saturday. (Friend was the Homes word for anyone who came to visit you or take you out. A friend was usually a perfect stranger, but could also be a relative or even a long-lost parent. Some of the homies had a long string of friends. This was to be my first.) Why a friend would want to visit me I couldnt imagine.

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