Cosmic revenge, a moral angst... indeed Cheetah. It would take away Joe E. Brown’s a comic genuis’s breathe away....the ghosts of the Dodgers into their migration.... their “ Ebbets Field” voodoo” haunting the basin’s semi tropical trappings...
Chavez Ravine, bumper to bumper traffic smog......
“Indeed Cheetah, it’s a jungle out there”, said Joe E Brown in the guise of a loinclothed ape man
grapevine..
Scanning the landscape for those vaunted heroes that made his dream come alive....viable at
Ucla’s Joe E Brown Field .,the skipper in “Some like it hot”. Gunning his motor boat’s line.
“I’m a man says Jack Lemmon.
“Well, nobody’s perfect.”retorts Joe E. Brown
II
Traipsing those heroics.....Pee Wee. Pistol Pete crashing into the right or was it the left field center field wall below Abe Stark’s clothing sign...
Fat Freddy Leo the Lip, Cookie Lavagetto Dolph Camili Babe Phelps VVan Lingle Mungo Ducky Medwick Preacher Roe Curt Davis Augie Galan Frenchy Bordagaray Waner breothers (Paul&Lloyd) Whitlow Wyatt Kirby Higbe coaches Charley Dressen Clyde Sukeforth.....
Bobby Bragan Hal Gregg Rex Barney Cal Abrams Al Gionfrido Billy Cox Arky Pete Coscarot
George Shuba Spider Jorgensen Don Zimmer....
Red Barber in his ”catbird seat”, Hilda and her rag timers Gladys Gooding at the organ.. the knothole kids in their 55 cents bleacher rows....... Larry McPhail, the owner, counting the take.
“Awesome unbelievable...
“God has the last word.”
III
Ucla’s Jackie Robinson breaking the color line, his hand eye coordinaion beguiling his grandparent’s slave ridden heritage. A four sport letterman ., sliding home in a squeeze bunt, the steal’s dust swirling over the reality scene.
Mickey Owen’s passed ball, Ed Head Don Sutton Campy behnd the plate..Joe Black Don Newcombe Pafko.....Billy Herman, Eddie Miksis Howie Schultz (a Celtic hoopster), Vito Tamles.... Burt Shotten La Sorta.
The Gas House Gang of Branch Rickey...Stan the Man
Musial Terry Moore Enos “Country” Slaughter “Pepper” Martin the Cooper brothers Marty Marion Whitey Kurowski Creepy Crespie Howie Pollet Johnny Mize at first...(“Big Jahn”)
Max Lanier....
Meanwhile back at the office Montae&Court Streets, Branch Rickey the guiding partner
(O’Malley and his father in law wearing his Judge’s robes a block away) put his hand on Jackie Robinson’s shoulder...
”Bite your tongue. Hold your fire, Mister Robinson. This isn’t Montreal. Ucla. Bigotry prevailss
among ballplayers.. Don’t let the barbs cause any wounds. Continue your aggressiveness Your resume when you were at Pasadena City College Ucla...”
“We’re not here to smoke history. Winning games.... toward the National League pennant. A World Series. That’s our modus operandi.. Be patient, Mister Robinson... .
IV
“Clem Labine, Hugh Casey in the bullpen Sandy Koufax, *Don Drysadale, Maury Wills Steve Garvey Sandy Amoros..... Gil Hodges at first Casey Stengel retired to his bank..Glendale,California..*Drysdale on hearing Koufax pitched a no hitter...”Did he win?”
Carl Oiskine Ralph Branca on the mound. O’Malley now the honcho in those Montegue*Court street reality scene, his father in law wearing his Judge’s robe at the across the street Surrogates Court.....
Calibrating transition to Chavez Ravine in the thinking apparatax....Carl Furillo the Duke many of our heroes guarded in relocating....tentative&doubtful without a passport.
V
Rousseau and Diderot “Tale of two cioties” by Dickens becomes clear in retrospect.. A moral travesty A spaced out trajectory going down the freeway. Illusions of grandeur delusions of grandeur as the O’Malleys sold ther franchise to Fox and the Murdoch” johns..”
Subsequently in trhe rough and tumble Gene Autry Anaheim Angels turf they sold out their souls to the current beleaguered moneyed tycoon.Frank McCourt.... cast in the outfield., East Los Angeles, the barrio East Los Angeles the Mojave desert 29 Palms Rancho Mirage Palm Springs beyond..Nevada and Las Vegas.
The Dodger owner embroiled in a heated divorce , his ex’s legal eagles holding the team as a bailment to their client’s community property.
The owner pleading with baseball’s founding fathers to support his coffers...
The commissioner did just hat... selling out the American past time? The public trust.?
VI
The scenario smacks ofd cronyism and insider trading. “The volice of America” condemns the archaic thinking because the game deserves Judge Labdis’s state of mind,open to a fresh look
for the fans and the age of enlightenment...the information highway.
Right Cheetah?
High school students are tuned out..one out of a class of 5o has ever been to the ball park.
A predestined disaster that seems to be an epiphany.
Joe E Brown’s motor launch crashing the shoals.............
Dangerous sharks, indeed Cheetah!
VII
No real life heroes except among the “ibyan rebs”... Senator from Arizona. Major League baseball supporting the myth..perpetuating the fantasy by tolerating the divorcee’s hi jinks in usurping a franchise that bespeaks the American Dream.
Only a myth, indeed. An asset gobbled up like in Las Vegas faro.
The sellout calls for estoppel, restoring faith in the game’s integrity..not to be interperated the Black Sox betting scandal nine decades earlier.
Burt Lancaster’s “Field of dreams”
VIII
Cosmic revenge playng out.....Bring the Dodgers back to whence they came....the tragedy playing out in the L.A. basin where the only dreams are on the studio screens..
Joe E. Brown’s “Alibi Ike”(Ring Lardner) in the role of an pitcher who falls in love with the team owner’s daughter, Olivia deHaviland, the plot as his “Some like it hot” shattering the dilemma between the sexes..
Right, Cheetah?
Right.
IX
“Restore the game’s integrity. The American past time..... our heroes....
Cosmic revenge playing out.
Jackie Robinson Junior High at the intersection of Jackie Robinson Boulevard and Joe E Brown field .... 3000 miles across North America .. April 28, 2011
