The great Cleveland Indian relief pitcher Satchel Paige took a deep breathe, inhaling…bases loaded, men on base staring him down…. the sweat pouring down his face… looking up at the bleachers where the knot hole kids were ancient history…snapping crackerjacks, shelling peanuts, biting into mustached franks on buns brokered from Nathans on Coney Island’s Sur Avenue, but a an eyebrow from Trump apartments on Ocean Parkway in Brooklyn, N.Y.
Saying to himself….. but staring into his manager Lou Boudreau’s dugout …
“Don’t look back! You’ll see something gaining o you.”
II
Like all those stars in and out of the Negro leagues, this immortal pitcher reared back like a Michael Jordan in disguise, cooking those brain neurons, awakening them all, in his soul…
“Strike three. You’re out of here!,” cried the home plate ump, reminiscent of big time Brooklyn Dodger ump named Majorkurth. “You’re blind as a bat,” howled the batter, refusingto leave home plate.
III
From time immortal, these dark pigmented heroes, have vanquished their own fears and insecurities in contending in theauthority figure white man’s game(s)
“Amos and Andy” broke the ice daily on radio under the surveillance of CBS and Colonel Paley. Jack Benny’s weeklysound effects trip to his safe deposit box, Rochester kibitzing..James Earl Jones left his stewardship in the Air Force, WW2,toacclaim on Broadway.
Didn’t George and Ira Gershwin champion their “Porgy anBess”, recognizing the ordinary routine of s of the denizens living out their dream s, in their shantytown.
IV
“Brother can you spare a dime?” asked Paul Robeson or Ethel Waters of “Cabin the Sky” and “Green Pastures”, the holy rollers into their emancipation on this here Earth. The Reverend Sharpton from Tilden High, Harry Bellefonte of Harlem, Spike Lee of Brooklyn College graduate speech making odes, to Satchel Paige on their mound, all pouncing on their dream, making their pitch…skin pigment or not following their passion.
V
“Jackie Robinson here,” said the sharecropper’s grandson, his voice into the receiver in UCLA basketballer’s music store on S.Western Avenue, part of the ghetto.
Intrepid Don Barksdale, six foot six center, drafted by Red Auerbach of the Celtics . Immortal John Wooden grandmastering 77 consecutive NCAA wins, Wilbur promoted to Athletic Director. Ourselves minoring ( Davage Minor) inPhysical Education. (P.E) Bill Stout, our Daily Bruin editor, in an editorial, broke the fiction of skin pigment..
Dave Minor, post WW2 Toledo, into Ucla’s Wilbur Johns quintet before Michjel Jordan once of Brooklyn coalesced with Scotty Pippen chemistry, coach Phil Jackson into coach Tex Winter’s triangle scheme of schemes on the weak side.
Free association on the political whirl wing, the candidates recognizing the saliva driven cacaphony, the “dog eat dog” skin pigment monkey, doomed to be buried in the coffins of man’s inhumanity to man. I
“Open up yer eyes. It’s only pigment. ”
X
Peering in to the Cleveland Indian dugout, Satchel Paige “Don’t look back, you’’ see something gaining on you,” musing on hiswish fulfillment in the Major Leagues.
“None of this Rosa Parks, sitting on segregated buses.” cried the home plate umpire..
February29, 2016 The City that never sleeps.
