I
21st century arrived and Gehrig’s Monument Park heroics were transcended by Derek Jeter....his accomplishments at shortstop or as the knothole kids spruced up their jargon.....”Nothing like Crosetti...the “Crow” the Scooter Jeter on the field at bat and off...sitting in the dugout or at the rail...cap off, arms waving the runners across the bases, his joy in the moment....
Leading off from the right side with his graceful Jeterian swing No bipartisan bickering here The resident authorities were all aghast. Susan Waldman’s hot stove corner espousing the prowess of El Capitan...her voice not that of a shill but telling it like it is..
A prescience bordering on a Clark Kent mystique: born into his role, a supreme athlete in motion ..Nijinsky Baryshikov the Kirov ballet ...... the Crow Scooter El Capitan passing Gehrig, in cracking 2722/ hits.
II
The Sunday Caribbean parades on Eastern Parkway, those were but holiday respites..... Carmen Mirandas sushswaying to the bongo drum rhythm.....bigger than Katrina a parallel to Indonesia’s Tsusami tidal waves.........hundred thirty five thousand missing or dead...
Here in Port au Prince the vigilantes machetes in hand vanquished any vestiges of water and reason.. Freud’s “Civilization against the discontents” playing out. Madness lurking just under the veneer..
But what can you expect. Living on two dollars a day the prison doors ajar cannibalism erupting, Port au Prince’s vestiges of civilization crumbling.
Life was on a string ,and the yo yo was swallowed up by the earth faults clashing as the San Andreas in California.....”the big one has hit” cast against the shadows of the palace&populace skeletons......
Balls naked, the truth of posturing playing out.....Right, Marie Antoinette? “If they want bread, give em cake”
Right!.
III
There art thou? Paul de Kruif microbe hunters? Louis Pasteur? Emile Zola? Madame Curie and Paul? The founder of penicillin ,Arthur Fleming? Malaria”s yellow fever m.d? Albert Schweitzer? Jonas Salk? Diptheria? .Doctors without borders can’t do it alone, can they?
On the flight to Shangrila, Ronald Coleman’s quiet mind tried getting the panicky into gear..... escaping the swine flu unto one plane, the last riff of a measure in 7/8th time playing out....... Frank Capra’s “Lost Horizon”
Who was there to kick the cosmic butt and get the island’s raison d’etre back unto the international community track? “Bread and water? monsieur? madame?”
V
There were no lost causes in the House that Ruth built.......the baseball Gods had seen to that......the groupies flocking to the jocks, crowding them for their prowess in a seemingly pop culture that give way to a reality near the old Brooklyn Dodger environs.....
Brooklyn’s “Nostradamus” and Flatbush Avenue reality scene to 230,000 Haitians.....
But did Mamie Van Doren care a whit? No siree....a. knothole kid in quest of a catch.. She had her eyes on an Angel out of Gene Autry’s diamond, subsequently in Anaheim.
Bob Belinsky, a pitcher from the Jersey boy shores....his spectacular 4 starts as a south paw..a no hitter. A former pool hustler and jock out of Trenton ... a life style that dissipated his staying power.....chasing flea flicking floozies in an eight year career.... on and off the mound.
“If I would have known I’d pitch a no hitter I would of gotten a hair cut”
“If music be the food of love, by all means, let thm play on”, his stats ERA4.1 28-57 over his eight years in the majors....
VI
Meanwhile the O’Malley Dodgers slipped into L.A.’s Chavez Ravine, keeping their Sandy Koufax King’s County complete, he off the Lafayette High field Parade Grounds and the semi pro House of David.,competing in Brooklyn.
His L.A. counterpart, Don Drysdale of Van Nuys High, into his Oxnard Boulevard ‘Dugout’ a block or two from Van Nuys Boulevard, where Tom Cruise cruised the Boulevard in his hot rod lamenting....”Where is the coozie? the knothole blonde?”.
VII
Mamie Van Doren may have been a knot hole wiggler, but her mister Belinsky was truly a rookie, and like the New York Jets in their 2010 Super Bowl prelim with the San Diego Chargers were led by Ray Ryan, himself a first year coach, and a rookie quarterback from the Trojans,...... Mark Sanchez
“He’s no longer a rookie,”said the coach, his players imposing their will .... their running game dominating the Chargers in the second half: their punter psyched out missing three field goals, and mistakenly kicking offsides instead of punting, taking ticks off the clock at the two minute warning, the Chargers might have gone all the way down field but the penalties the head butt ....
Interceptions, taking their toll on 30 year old LaDemian Tomlinson’s psyche at best..
17-14, vis a vi divine intervention.
Right Dante Laveli? Otto Graham’s “glue fingers” of the Cleveland Paul Brown dynasty..
Right.
The coach and quarterback had come complete circle in San Diego... 3000 miles from their New Jersey base......
Bo Belinsky, his Jersey number captured by the muse of Mae West ...., losing confidence in his swagger on and off the mound . Eight seasons and the playboy was caught looking...
“ Strike three... Let the 5 o’clock lightning come to you, Nothing is random”
VIII
Jeter’s announcement...tying the knot with his fiancee..... pitchers and catchers report for spring training at the boss’s ‘s facility in two weeks. El Capitan hitching his treasured pin stripes for marital happiness once the 162 game season ends..
“Long live the King.”
Maerin Luther King Day, the Meadowlands, January 18, 2010..
