THE OLD PUMAS RISE AGAIN
By John Dawson
Last month everybody went nuts, and I’ll tell you why.
The Pumas won the AA Division baseball championship! Yep! We whupped Mapleville’s butt and ever since we’ve been puttin’ on the dog and crowin’ like a… well, crow. Here’s the front page article I snipped out for you:
PINE COUNTY HERALD 
and Farmers Gazetteer incorporated 1889
and Farmers Gazetteer incorporated 1889 PUMAS TAKE TITLE!
COACH AND FRIEND SAY THEY’RE THE BEST EVER
By Howard Puthoff
They said it couldn’t be done. After last year’s 1-19 season, prognosticators – including this red-faced reporter - were unanimous in predicting another pathetic season for the Puma players, but in one of the most stunning reversals of fortune since the hobo from Elm City won the lottery and lost it all in the Cherokee Casino the next day, Chad Applebottom pitched a three-hitter and the Pumas outdueled the Mapleville Muskrats 2-1 yesterday at Snavely Field to capture the coveted AA title. When news of the victory spread, spontaneous celebrations broke out all over town and Sheriff Badger brought out his tear gas in case anybody got any ideas.
“Our boys worked hard all year and deserve the title,” boasted Coach Lloyd “Coach” Cutler in an exclusive interview with this reporter in a drinking establishment downtown after the game. He was seated with Mrs. Glendene Suggs of Elm City
“They’re a much better team than those boys from 1951, too. They’re bigger and stronger and come from better families,” the coach volunteered. “They’re cute, too,” Mrs. Suggs added with a giggle. This reporter, searching for the human interest angle, inquired where Coach’s wife Wendy was and was told that he’d better stop asking questions that were none of his beeswax.
For a complete report on the contest, turn to the sports page for the box score and full story as well as interviews with both teams by Dale Swinnerton, the Herald’s high-school sports reporter intern, if he got it finished in time for this edition. If not, pick up our Pumas Souvenir Edition tomorrow for the full story with pictures if the Photography Department gets back from visiting his sister in Mapleville by press time.
But, it’s is my sad duty to report – seems like I never have a happy one - that joy was not universal in Pineville. No, a couple of miles away, a group of distinguished gentlemen were sitting at the breakfast table out at the Pineville Retirement Villa. I say distinguished, but I’m just bein’ respectful to the old geezers. And as far as the gentlemen part, that depends on who you ask and how far back you want to go.
But get your autograph book out, because Walter Birdseed, Theodore Hogg, Art Hoogstrom, Oswald Dinkle, Millard Fillmore, Cecil Estes, Sr., and Chet Lester ain’t your casual collection of elderly coots. They’re the remaining members of the 1951 Pineville Pumas State AA Champions baseball team, forever enshrined – if you don’t mind the cliché, I can’t think of anything else to call it – in the imaginary Pineville Pantheon of Sports Heroes. We speak in hushtones of that team and the front page from the old paper is framed up in the De Drop, if that tells you anything.
It’s a beautiful day in Pineville, and you’d think I could wake up in the morning to some peace and quiet but no, at the crack of sunrise – it starts with just one tiny, tentative lil’ tweet – every bird in Pine County wakes up and comes over here to visit. I got a cacophony – imagine Aaron Copland wrote a Bird Symphony - of chirpin’, twirpin’, peepin’ and cheepin’ and whatever else they do. It sounds like the ballroom at a Bird-whistlers convention and somebody’s been handin’ out amphetamines.
In front, Poopmaster Crow and his cronies – they look like an escapees from a Alfred Hitchcock movie - are scopin’ out the proper spot on my lot to squat and excrete. I don’t know what despoils a yard faster than crows ploppin’ poop all over it. And, my-yard-wise, it ain’t like Better Homes and Gardens is itchin’ to come over for a photo shoot in the first place anyway.
I sent the dog out to chase ‘em off, but when I looked out the window a few minutes later he was givin’ ‘em pony rides, which is entirely in character for the cur. He’s supposed to be a watchdog, but he’d give Ted Bundy a cup of tea and a pillow and nose the ottoman over for him to put his feet up on. I asked old lady Armbruster next door – she’s the local font for flora and fauna facts - and she said what I need to do is buy a record with crow-enemy noises on it. You haul your hi-fi out on the porch and turn it up and it’ll be like the Israelites fleein’ Egypt
I also thought about askin’ Aunt Mary to come stand in the yard with a corncob pipe and a hat, but a little bird tells me she’d demur on that. But I might do it anyway, just to see the look on the old buzzard’s face. Or maybe I’ll play some Sheryl Crow at ‘em and see what that does.
Anyway – bear with me, I’m tryin’ to fight off a digression habit – the Old Pumas are digestin’ their oatmeal and the mornin’ Herald, and a lil’ steam was shootin’ out of their bowls and ears.
“Read that part again where he says they come from better homes.”
“Did he say they was a better team?” That‘s Millard, slow on the uptake since his mama dropped him on his head when he was two. Nature compensates though, and Millard was the best first-bagger ever to come out of the state. (For my readers who are unfamiliar with baseball, you don’t need brains to play first base, you basically stand there and play catch.)
“That’s exactly what he said, Millard.”
“Why, that …!” (I’m excisin’ a characterization here related to bestiality)
NOTE: For my younger readers, bestiality is tying a can to a cat’s tail or playing catch with Mr. Duck, and you should never do it.
“He’s nothin’ but a low-class, yellow-bellied…!” (Term involving human waste).
And that wasn’t the half of it it. Old athletes – especially trash talkers who were hotdogs - speak frankly.
A miasma of miscontent had settled on the crusty old boys – I admit I’ve been dippin’ into Steinbeck - and they’re sittin’ there fussin’ and cussin’ and enjoyin’ a proper snit. A Snit for All Seasons in fact, because pride’s a precious thing to an old ballplayer. They were so het up they didn’t even go in for dinner although Sunday’s fried chicken. A surreptitious fifth of Old Crow was makin’ the rounds.
The sweet old relicts – widow-women, you know - noticed the ballplayers sittin’ under their dark cloud, so naturally they had to go interfere with ‘em.
“Now boys, everbody knows you fellas are the best in the history of the state and always will be.”
“That’s right, who can forget that ticky-tape parade downtown?”
“He said they come from better families than you and that’s a load of you-know-what. I knew every one of your mamas and daddies and they was the best people who ever was. Ain’t that right, Elsie?”
Elsie goes yep, although she’s rememberin’ Art’s daddy Frank drivin’ his Ford through the front fence and flattenin’ her new Western Flyer that time.
“That coach ain’t got no room to talk, either. His mother used henna,” Beatrice goes, raisin’ an eyebrow.
“Why, they don’t even have sense enough to put their hats on right.” Mildred’s referrin’ to the boys walkin’ around downtown with their caps on backwards lookin’ like a practical joke in Macy’s window.
“I’ll bet you fellas could go out there and beat the bejabbers out of them boys even today!”
Well, except for the wheezin’ you could have heard a pin drop. I know, that’s a tired cliché, but sometimes you get inspiration, sometimes you don’t and I sat here for five minutes and zippo.
“Say, I wonder….” theorizes Theodore.
“You know, we….” suppositions Cecil.
“But we ain’t took the field for sixty years, and now we’re just shrivelin’ up and waitin’ to die,” Walter philosophizes and sighs.
“You were the best pitcher in the state, Cannonball. Remember how you struck out twenty-two batters in a row that time? Don’t tell me you ain’t still got it.”
Walter’s baby-blue eyes light up under his cataracts.
“The old wing does feel pretty good.”
A half-hour later a solemn procession marched into Miss Pringle’s office. She looked up from Trends in Gracious Retirement Living.
“Good morning, gentlemen! How are we today?”
“Miss Pringle, we’re challengin’ those Pumas punks to a game and we’d like your support, but we intend to go through with it whether you want to be Nurse Ratched or not.”
“Why boys, your retirement years should be activity-filled and personally gratifying in every way! Now, what exactly are Pumas punks?” Whatever they are, she figures they’ll forget the whole thing as soon as their morning meds kick in.
“That coach insulted us, and we’re gonna prove we’re better ballplayers than them snot-nose hooligans.”
“Well, you just go ahead and do whatever you need to do, and I’ll support you in every way I can. But the doctor won’t let me give you any more Dexadrine than what you’re already getting.”
“Miss Pringle, real athletes don’t need that junk,” goes Cecil, disingenuatin’ like the dickens because he’s had a key to the medicine cabinet for three years and runs the black market in Viagra and amphetamines. He’s the go-to man for uppers, I guess you could say.
Well, news travels fast in Pineville, especially when the old crows at the home call everybody they know and blab it at them and they call everybody they know and blab it at them, and so on. Nobody bothered to call and blab at me, but that’s beside the point.
That afternoon Howard from the Herald went out, sensin’ a human interest story and lunch. He sits down with the boys in the cafeteria.
“I heard y’all ain’t happy with what Coach Cutler said in the paper this mornin’. How about a comment on the record?”
“Eh?” goes Theodore. “I don’t hear no record.” Theodore wouldn’t hear Enrico Caruso in his bedroom singin’ Vesti la giubba through a megaphone.
“I mean, what’ve y’all got to say about the Coach?”
“What coach?”
“Hush, Millard.”
“Harold, we ain’t gonna resort to personal attacks against that wetbrain bush-leaguer, and if he wants to cheat on his bride – who is a distant cousin of mine - with the biggest tramp in Pine County, that’s his business.”
“Can I quote you on ‘tramp,’ Oswald?”
“Eh?”
“Walter, I heard you were thinkin’ about gettin’ the team together again, ha ha!”
Walter looked at Howard like you do at your kid when he sasses you. “Look here sonny, you write this down, hear? Them juvenile delinquents can’t hold a candle to what our team did back then, and we’re challengin’ ‘em to a game.”
“Now Walter, fun is fun, but let’s face it, you’re old men now and you can’t get out there and play baseball with a bunch of high school boys.”
The 1951 Pumas stand up. You can only poke wounded pride so far before you wake up the bear.
“You just take this and put it in the paper tomorrow,” Chet goes, fishin’ a piece of paper out of his pocket. “Now get out of here, we got work to do.”
Next morning, the good old Pineville sun is peekin’ in the window, the Mormon Tabernacle Bird Choir has arrived, and here comes the dog bargin’ into the bedroom, fixin’ to go into his Ethiopian-starved-orphan-dog-routine. So I get up and give him two slices of baloney – he’s nuts about baloney – turn Mr. Coffee on and go out and get the paper, which, spoiling the clemency of the day – maybe the zen of it too - is nestled among a fresh edition of crow poop.
OLD PUMAS CHALLENGE YOUNG PUMAS
‘51 CHAMPIONS SAY PUMA YOUNGSTERS ARE ‘PUNKS’
By Howard Puthoff, Reporter
In the wake of the controversial comments by Pineville Pumas Coach Lloyd “Coach” Cutler reported exclusively here in the paper yesterday and which is all over town, we went out to the Pineville Retirement Villa yesterday to talk to members of the 1951 Pumas team. Word had it that the old Pumas were unhappy at statements the Coach made after the game while relaxing in a drinking establishment with Mrs. Glendene Suggs of Elm City. Walter Birdseed, the ’51 Puma team captain, disputes the Coach’s assertion that these senior athletes are in any way inferior to the present Pumas and claims they are still capable of winning baseball games. Here is the statement issued by the old Pumas (edited for vulgarities because children read the paper):
“The 1951 Pineville Pumas are putting out this statement. We were (deleted) by Coach’s comments in the paper and he ain’t got no business talking about our families like that even if he was drunk. Especially since his brother Pete is the pen for passing bad paper at The Pep Boys and his sister Mary Ellen ran off with a Mexican. Besides that, his so-called star pitcher Chad Applebottom is a well-known rapscallion who don’t even know how to put his (deleted) hat on right.
Therefore we’re issuing this challenge to Coach Cutler and his gang of nine punks. We will meet them one month from today at the high school field for a regulation game. The winner will decide whose families produced the real champions here if they’re not too chicken to show up. To those sons of (deleted) who think we’re too old to get out there with those youngsters, just shut your yap and come out and see for yourself because we ain’t dead yet by a long shot. Sincerely, Walter Birdseed, Captain, 1951 Pineville Pumas. P.S. Some of the team has died off over the years may they rest in peace, so we reserve the right to substitute a few men who know how to play. We have openings at first base and catcher and maybe left field. Applicants come to the home tomorrow and bring your glove.”
These golden-agers mean business and the cowhide is now in Coach Cutler’s court. This reporter will follow the breaking story and bring you all the latest developments, if not suddenly downsized due to poor advertising sales last month.
Unless you’ve been Rip Van Winklin’ in a cave for twenty years I’m assumin’ you know what I mean when I say “Global Media Deal.” Some wire service in Mapleville saw the story and put it in a few papers, and then some other papers saw those papers and printed it in their own papers, and then some other papers saw it and put it in their own papers, and this could go on all day, but the upshot is a lot of papers carried the story. Then the Fox affiliate in Firville had a feature on it and they forwarded it to their fellow Foxes, and before you know it, the news was reverberatin’ all over the world, bouncin’ off satellites and causin’ chatter everywhere from the bistros of Paris to the kruidenierswinkels of Ghana, I reckon, if they’ve got the Global Media Deal over there yet.
Out at the home, the phone started jinglin’ about seven o’clock . If it wasn’t Diane Sawyer askin’ for a interview with Walter, it was the New York Times wantin’ to send Tom Friedman out for a story. Regis and Kelly offered to fly the boys out for an appearance. AARP Magazine put the boys on the cover. Barbara Walters told Madonna at lunch that Art gave her hot flashes, and Madonna said she could like totally relate to older men. George Will called his agent and asked him if he thought he could stretch a book out of it. Jesse Jackson called a press conference and wondered why there weren’t any Puma players of color. Danielle Steele noted the wrenching pathos of the deal and began to model Count Luc de Mycroftville after Theodore.
Channel 3 in Mapleville sent their remote broadcast team out to the school and Maria Elena Montoya-Aguilera-Villareal- Hernández was sittin’ across from the coach with the cameraman shootin’ away, so all of Channel 3’s tri-county broadcast area saw it live.
“Coach, indeed the world is watching. How do you respond to the challenge issued by the 1951 team?”
“Well, har-har, we sure are gettin’ a big kick out of those old coots wantin’ to play us a game, har-har! But listen, what’d you say your name was?”
“Maria Elena Montoya-Aguilera-Villareal-Hernández.
“Well, that’s a mouthful, Maria. But I don’t mean no disrespect to them old boys. We’re just proud of our team and y’all can forgive us for braggin’ about bringin’ the first championship to Pineville in over sixty damn years.”
“But the question remains,” she goes, borin’ in for a straight answer like they taught her to do in Journalism 101 when you’re talkin’ to a politician, “will you accept the challenge?”
“That’s a cute lil’ dress y’all got on there, Maria. But listen, we appreciate the joke and if we offended ‘em, we’re sorry. Would you like a cold beer, honey? I got one right here.”
“So, indeed, you will not accept the challenge?”
“Listen doll, we don’t want nobody to get hurt, and you know how it is when you get old, all brittle and fallin’ down and breakin’ your hip and can’t get up. We might go play a lil’ catch with ‘em with a whiffle ball if it’ll shut ‘em up. Are you sure you don’t want a beer?”
Maria turns to the camera.
“And there you have it. The AA Champion Pumas have refused to accept the challenge of the senior athletes, raising the inflammatory issue of age discrimination. This is Maria Elena Montoya-Aguilera-Villareal-Hernández reporting live from Pineville. Back to you, Muhammed, for the farm report.”
Maria Elena and her remote broadcast team bustle out and right past ‘em Mayor Grifter strides into the office.
“Howdy Coach, ain’t it a fine Pineville day?”
“It would be if all these dang interruptions’d stop,” grouched the Coach. He was feelin’ like that little girl who fell down the well that time – you know, one clumsy mistake and the whole world starts watchin’ you.
“This mornin’ we been on CBS, CNN, ABC, NBC, CNN, ESPN and Good Morning Fiji, and I’ve been gettin’ calls from all over the world wantin’ a statement. Some of these places I ain’t even heard of, Coach.”
“Tell ‘em to go to (a truck rumbled by) themselves,” goes Coach. “Wanna beer?”
“Well, Coach, it’s my duty to promote Pineville, and what we got here is opportunity with a big O. What I’m thinkin’ is, lets just say you humor the old boys and play a game with ‘em. Why, we could charge ten dollars a ticket plus parkin’, fill the stadium, and have news media from all over the world here coverin’ the game and spendin’ their money.”
“Diane Sawyer?”
“I don’t know why not.”
“Hmmm.”
“Act like you want to be a good sport, Coach, and tell ‘em you’re sorry for what you said about their families. Say you’ll be happy to let ‘em relive their glory days for a couple hours. Then all you have to do is let the old codgers score a few runs and everbody’s happy. It’ll put thousands of dollars in the economy. Maybe more, if the President shows up.”
“What’s in it for me?”
“Your contract comes up for renewal next year, don’t it?”
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Have a fine Pineville day, Coach!” He turned around and walked back to City Hall, flashin’ his million-dollar smile and howdyin’ all the citizens along the way.
Coach’s phone rings again, and it’s Stone Phillips from CBS in New York
“Yep. You got your tape deal on?”
“Yep.”
“Hey, what kind of name is Stone anyway?”
“Well, my parents…
“Never mind. We hereby accept the challenge of the old Puma boys to play ‘em a game. We’re doin’ this in the spirit of, uh, respect to those old codgers, but we ain’t gonna throw no game. Got that?”
“My mother…”
Well, we show respect to our old folks – they can change their wills anytime - and the Coach’s interview in the paper pretty much perturbed the right-thinkin’ citizens of Pineville. Then the one with Maria Elena on live TV ired ‘em up like nobody’s business. In town, Coach Cutler was about as popular as a gassy cat at a fish wedding.
Not more than an half-hour later as the crow flies, a truck pulls up out at the home and Biff Armstrong from the Pineville Holistic Fitness Center
“Well ma’am, I’m loanin’ y’all some Nautilus gear and a BowFlex and some ellipticals and a treadmill and some weights, because I figure the boys probl’y ain’t in too good a shape for playin’, and I aim to help ‘em out all I can.”
Miss Pringle was slyly admirin’ Biff’s ripplin’ pecs, his Romanesque profile, and his tousled golden hair blowin’ in the breeze, if you don’t mind me tossin’ in a lil’ Nora Roberts for my female readers.
“Call me Shirley.”
“And, Shirley,” he goes, “I’m gonna donate my services to be personal trainer to the team. I’ve been wantin’ some real athletes to work on instead of all the gals that come in and sweat off a pound and then go home and eat a pie,” he goes, ripplin’ his abs and cranin’ his neck around to take a professional gander at Miss Pringle’s backside where he sees she’s been puttin’ some pie away herself lately.
Anyway, he unloads his truck and - presto-change-o - the Recreation Room started lookin’ just like the Yankees training room (pardon me for sayin’ Yankee if it bothers you) and when the boys come tricklin’ in and see it, they all whoop and holler and go put their jockstraps and corn plasters on.
Biff warns ‘em to take it slow, and they step-by-step start awakenin’ their atrophied old aortas and stretchin’ ancient hamstrings and groins – an ancient groin squeaks when you gyrate it - and stirrin’ up fossilized corpuscles and what not. Miss Pringle went and changed into her pink leotard, threw a cherry pie away, and was waitin’ for Biff to finish so she could get with him on some tips for tonin’ up her glutes.
My phone jing-a-lings and it’s Aunt Mary, who I still can’t get the picture out of my mind of her standin’ in my front yard smokin’ a corncob pipe and scarin’ the daylights out of my crows.
“You got your TV on?”
“Why, what happened? Edge of Night havin’ a crisis?”
“You heard the boys at the home challenged the Pumas to a game?
“Yep, I saw that, and…”
“On CBS News, that coach just accepted.”
“I know, and …”
“I got some ideas that might help ‘em out, so I want you to go out there with me.’
“What ideas? I…”
“What is this, twenty questions? Let’s just say I know a few things that can help ‘em win.”
You don’t question Aunt Mary when she says she knows something because she’s got an information network that makes the Global Media Deal look like Marconi’s basement. Plus, the old vulture’s got a heart of gold – it runs in the family – and it don’t surprise me she’s wantin’ to help the old Pumas out.
“Well, as a matter of….”
But she’d hung up.
Well, I put a Sheryl Crow record on and hauled the speaker out to the porch and set out for Aunt Mary’s. When I get there she’s on the phone with old Doc Feeley. I only heard half of what was goin’ on, of course.
“Yes you can, Frank Feeley, don’t tell me you can’t.” Pause.
“Oh, pshaw.” Pause.
“I know you go to Canada
“Well, Frank, if it swells their heads up like a pumpkin what do you care?” Long pause.
“I wonder if Sandra knows what happened when you went to the pharmaceutical convention in Las Vegas
“That’ll be fine, Frank, and get a boatload of it, those boys are old and it’s gonna be like jump-startin’ a ‘51 Buick. Bye-bye now.” She hangs up.
“Well, I…”
“Come on, boy.”
So we get on over to the home. The first thing we see is about ten, fifteen old men snakin’ down the driveway with their gloves waitin’ for a tryout, because every boy in Pineville grows up wantin’ to be a Puma and this might be their lucky day.
Some of ‘em were old Pumas too. Lefty Cobb had actually gone on to play semi-pro ball for a season up in Mapleville with the Mackerels. Floyd Dick – you know Floyd - was there too, believe it or not. When he was on the U.S. Marines team in 1965, he hit five homers in one game against the Yokahama Sea Turtles. Their pitcher hari-karied himself after that, not wantin’ to hear it from the Emperor.
Up sidles a tall scraggly red-head youth with a bulgin’ briefcase and a faceful of pimples and he tugs on Walter’s sleeve.
“Excuse me, sir.”
“Eh?”
“Hello, sir. My name is Brandon Arthur Cheevers, and I’m President of the Pineville High School Audio-Visual Club and official statistician of the Pumas.”
“Eh? A damn spy!”
“No, sir,” Brandon
“I want to help you gentlemen beat the conceited Pumas who get all the cute girls who won’t pay attention to me because I have glasses and brains, sir, and little or no interest in athletic activity, having more serious goals in life. I got inside information, sir.”
“Eh?”
“Yes, sir. I got films of the Pumas games and all their statistics, too. I know their weaknesses and tendencies sir, and that will give you gentlemen an advantage, if you understand what I’m saying,” proffered the pimpled renegade.
Well, Walter doesn’t understand anything near as complicated as all that so he calls Art over. Art’s a retired accountant for a book publisher and understands how statistics can be manipulated.
“Mr. Hoogstrom, if you’ll give me fifteen minutes, sir, I can show you that by applying the basic Markovian probability theory within a variable stochastic algorhythmic formula, I’ve…
Aunt Mary spins Walter around.
“Walter, I got some information about these boys, now listen up.” Walter, remembering that he can’t even remember where he puts his teeth half the time, calls Beatrice over to take notes. Beatrice, knowin’ Aunt Mary’s got the best dirt in town, wheels right on over.
Well, the next few weeks roll on by like the sands of time – actually I guess the sands of time would drift on by or maybe blow on by – and the old Pumas were a different group of men from the ones of thirty days ago. They’d chiseled their paunches down and their thews and sinews were in bustin’ out all over. They were runnin’ ninety-foot dashes, slidin’ on the floor, and hittin’ balls all the way over into the Hogg pasture. Which, cows don’t appreciate baseballs droppin’ out of the sky – boom – and conkin’ ‘em on the beezer. Plus goin’ over to Doc Feeley’s for their new vitamin shots. Everybody was growin’ a new shirt size for the first time in sixty years.
Rhetta Calhoun, she does the costumes for the Pineville Community Players, went and measured the boys for new uniforms which they enjoyed a lot, the old reprobates. Donna Sue Suggs – Glendene’s daughter, you know- went out to Fabrics R’ Us, had lunch at Motel 6 with the manager and came back with three bolts of snazzy red pin-stripe cotton material. Say what you want about Donna Sue, she’s got team spirit and goes to church.
Every night Brandon
“See that, sirs? When Chad
“So Sonny, you’re sayin’ when he blinks three times, he’s gonna throw a fastball?” That’s Millard, wantin’ to make sure he gets it right.
“Yep, sir. Now watch this, sirs. See how he takes his cap off and wipes his forehead? That means that he’s gonna throw a change of pace on the inside corner.”
“What does it mean when he scratches his butt?”
“That means his hemorrhoid is afflictin’ him, sir.”
Aunt Mary wasn’t done helpin’ the boys, either. I was havin’ dinner over there Friday night - fried chicken, if you want to be nosey about it – and she’s tellin’ me some things about the Puma boys. For instance, Chad Chad
She calls Simon, who, fried-chicken-wise, is basically just hanging around bidin’
his time. He jumps up on her lap and rolls over so she can tickle his belly.
“He’s muzzer’s widdle pwecious, izzen ‘ee?” she goes, and Simon starts purrin’ like Long John Silver’s just opened up next door.
“Simon, ‘oo know the Applebottom’s back porch?”
Simon knows every back porch in town.
“Muzzer wants ‘oo go get stinky shoes. Bring ‘em back here, OK pwecious?’ Simon looks up and cat-telepathies at her that’s fine, I’ll get the shoes, but like, what’s in it for me? She dips a chicken leg in pan gravy – her pan gravy won a Blue Ribbon at the fair once - and gives it to him and he trots off.
Of course, I think this baby-talk to one’s cat is ridiculous, especially in view of the fact that Simon’s the toughest specimen of cat you could ever not hope to meet in a dark alley. He’s got a wicked soul and he’s always workin’ on his evil stratagems involving birds, squirrels, mice, and girl cats. Talkin’ baby-talk to Simon is like goin’ cootchy-cootchy-coo at Hitler.
We awaken to yet another beautiful morning in Pineville. The air’s as crisp as a new Denny’s apron, the sky’s as blue as Reese Witherspoon’s eyes, and Pineville got up and had its pancakes and bacon and went on out to the stadium, hummin’ Take Me Out To the Ball Game, which, for my musicologist readers, is the story of a young lady named Katie Casey who is your 1908 equivalent of a henna-wearin’ hussy of the baseball groupie variety. I mean, she blows all her money goin’ to baseball games – she’s nuts about ‘em - and she’s on a first name basis with all the players which was pretty risqué back in 1908.
What a sight, and what a day for a ball game! The stadium was all decorated up with red-white-and-blue banners and was jam-packed with Pinevilleans, Global Media, dignitaries, politicians, celebrities, movers, shakers, people just standin’ there, the Puma Marchin’ Band and basically anybody’s who’s anybody and everybody else who’s not. The only tickets left were Standing Room Only, which means you have to wait until somebody gets up to go to the bathroom before you can sit down. The Elks and Moose had set up concession stands and there were long lines for sodas, hot dogs, fish sandwiches, and ice-cold beer, which naturally, bein’ Pineville, had the longest line. You could buy a Cannonball Birdseed bobble-head doll if you wanted one for $4.95.
Both teams had their own cheerin’ sections with flags and signs. Basically most everybody was root-root-rootin’ for the Old Pumas except the Young Puma parents, who were huddled up in a group behind their dugout keepin’ up appearances but secretly wishin’ the old boys’d beat the tar out of their lil’ terrors and that idiot coach.
In the home dugout, speakin’ of the devil, Coach Cutler’s chuggin’ on a Schlitz and havin’ a pre-game pow-wow with the Pumas.
“Now boys, all you got to do is go out there and have fun. What we don’t want to do is beat those old codgers up too bad. Everbody’s gonna be watchin’ and whether we like it or not, we got to be good sports about this damn thing.”
“Coach,” Chad
“You can knock him down but don’t actually hit him in the head.”
“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Snavely Field, Home of your AA Champion Pineville Pumas!” The Young Pumas take the field and their parents clapped politely but everybody else just sat there.
“And here they are, ladies and gentlemen, the State Champion 1951 Pineville Pumas!” Well, the boys trot on out, flashbulbs start poppin’, and everybody’s rah-rah-rah-in’ for ‘em. They had their dapper new red pin-stripe uniforms with “1951 Pumas” stitched on ‘em and they looked as sharp as a flock of Greek gods comin’ out of the barber shop.
I’ll skip all the team introductions in the interest of time – I know, you’re probl’y already lookin’ at your watch and wishin’ I had a better editor – so after that the VFW color guard marches out.
“And now ladies and gentlemen, to honor America
You know, there’s just somethin’ about baseball and hot dogs and beer and the Star Spangled Banner song that brings out the American Patriot in you. The band started up and the Ladies Choir commences Oh-say-can-you-seein’ like all get-out. It was swell, and Aunt Mary said it made her want a piece of apple pie and a beer and to go bomb some communists or A-rabs.
Umpire Nestor Riley calls Walter and Coach out to home plate to exchange lineups. Coach extends his hand to Walter.
“Hey there, Walter, no hard feelings, bud.”
“That’s too bad about Glendene Suggs gettin’ the crabs, Lloyd.”
Coach jumps about two inches off the ground.
“Where did you hear that?”
Aunt Mary and me were sittin’ in the box seats along third base, and the old goat cackled like a tickled grackle when she saw Coach skyrocket up like that.
“No personalities, boys, let’s just gimme your lineup cards and get it over with.” Nestor’s been umpirin’ thirty years and don’t stand for nonsense.
1951 PUMAS YOUNG PUMAS
Cecil Estes, CF Jason Armbruster, SS
Theodore Hogg, SS Morgan Snavely, RF
Oswald Dinkle, 2B Ryan Strawberry, CF
Floyd Dick, 3B Bryan Zing, 3B
Lefty Cobb, LF Tyler Twistleton, 2B
Millard Fillmore, 1B Joshua Estes, 1B
Mickey Robinson, C Jason Brady, C
Walter Birdseed, P Chad
Out on the mound warmin’ up, Chad
But in addition to his other talents, Brandon
“Those sure are cute shoes, Brianna,” he goes.
Brianna gets an awestruck look on her lil’ sweet face.
Brandon, of course, has mined the mystic depths of the female mind here, knowin’ that the cuteness of their shoes is a concern that pretty much overrides everything else in lives of women worldwide from the time they get their first lil’ baby booties to their Dr. Scholl’s orthopedic slippers when they get old. To hear the actual words “cute” and “shoes” in the same sentence from an actual non-girl was a thrill she had never experienced before and she blushed with…well, I don’t know exactly what she blushed with, but I could see her teeth gleamin’ from Section A.
Chad, feelin’ like a cuckolded adolescent Othello, scowls and spits, and when he should have been focusin’ on his balls and strikes what he was focusin’ on was his abducted shoes and the infernal fickleness of wretched womankind worldwide.
“Play ball!”
The young Pumas take the field, and Chad
“And if you don’t mind me saying so, Brianna, I’ve always admired you not only for your looks, but for your brains as well. To tell you the truth, your mind fascinates me, and has ever since fifth grade.”
Well Brianna, hearin’ the most sacred words a man can ever say to a woman, is basically stunned speechless – quite an accomplishment for Brianna, she’s a lil’ chatterbox – and she’s marvelin’ that an actual boy can be so perceptive and have such good taste in girls and their shoes and be such a gentleman while he’s at it, too. She starts gigglin’ and gives Brandon Chad
“Leading off for the 1951 State Champion Pumas, Cecil ‘The Diesel’ Estes!”
The crowd whoops and hollers and crosses its fingers as Cecil strides to the plate, settles in the box, and stares out at Chad like he’d just as soon be murderin’ him with an axe.
“Don’t drop the ball, kid, or you’ll be suckin’ your thumb in the corner tonight. Har har!”
“Safe!”
Aunt Mary chirps like a hen who just heard a dirty joke. The crowd roars, except for the Puma parents and especially Bryan
“Now batting, with a lifetime .354 average, ‘Ready Teddy’ Hogg!”
Ready Teddy turns around to Kyle and goes “Hey boy, bed wettin’ ain’t so bad, they make medicine for it, you know.”
Meanwhile, Brandon
“I can tell you cherish your hopes and your dreams, Brianna. What do you want to do with a life so full of promise? How do you want to make a difference in the world?” And he reaches out and lightly brushes a few stray strands of her hair back in place.
Brianna, who so far has been complimented on her cute shoes, her looks, her brains and now is being asked what her cherished hopes and dreams are, well, her gorgeous lil’ head starts spinnin’ and she starts takin’ deep breaths, thrusts out her chest, takes Brandon’s hand in hers, and turns away from the field to share her innermost thoughts with him. Women of any age, Brandon
Theodore tips Kyle’s knee with his bat.
“Another thing you can do, boy, is stick your weenie in a hot water bottle and tape it up before you go to bed.” Chad
Old Pumas 1, Young Pumas 0. Yay-hoo!
Over in the dugout, Coach Cutler’s frantically tryin’ to get Glendene on the phone, but he gets her recordin’ because she’s busy out at the Swap N’ Shop barterin’ for a new microwave with Junior. He looks down and tries to focus on his lineup card, but all he sees is imaginary little pediculus pubises crawlin’ on it.
Floyd hit a towerin’ shot over the right field wall with Oswald on first, and when the Old Pumas half of the inning was over, they were up by three. Who said the old boys couldn’t play ball with them youngsters?
Now, Brandon the brilliant statistician, we know. Brandon Brandon Brandon
So right on cue, the other members of the Audio-Visual club – seeded with tickets from Brandon - turned to the cute girls sittin’ next to ‘em and at that moment, six Puma varsity cheerleader girlfriends and two Puma junior varsity cheerleader girlfriends were being complimented on their cute shoes. That’s sixteen cute shoes in all.
This did not go unnoticed by the Young Pumas.
“Now batting, Jason Armbruster!”
Jason steps in and wiggles his bat and his butt.
Walter smiles malevolently in at him just like Don Drysdale used to do before knockin’ Eddie Matthews down, if you remember back that far. He winds up and lets loose a sixty mile-per-hour fastball which is on a beeline smack at Jason’s head. The poor kid trips backward over his own feet tryin’ get away from it and ends up sprawled on his rear end.
“Ball one!”
Walter looks in for the sign, glares at Jason, and lets go another fastball spinnin’ toward his head.
Jason goes down in another heap of dust, brushes off the seat of his pants and scowls out at Walter. He turns to Nestor and goes “Ump, that old bastard’s tryin’ to hit me on purpose!”
“Ball two! Stop whinin’ and play the game, boy. And watch your damn language.”
Up in heaven, Don Drysdale’s chucklin’ and rememberin’ the good times.
Jason gets back in the box. Walter glares in at him and unleashes another sixty mile-per-hour fastball. Jason goes down again.
“Ball three!”
Coach Cutler charges out. “Nestor, that old derelict is throwin’ at my boy, and I won’t have it!”
“He’ll settle down Lloyd, its been sixty years since he’s pitched and his rotator cuff might be a little creaky. Go on back to the dugout now, have fun, and don’t be such a crab!”
That’s about the worst thing anybody could have said to Coach right then, of course. He scratches his head and goes back in the dugout and tries to call Glendene again. But she was busy workin’ on a new toaster oven with Bill Baggerly from Birch City
Walter flashes a bloodthirsty look in at Jason.
Mickey, behind the plate, says “Careful now boy, Cannonball’s insane with the Alzheimer’s, you know, and somehow he’s got the idea that you’re his brother-in-law who owes him ten dollars.”
Jason’s big sister Rhonda was married to a homicidal maniac once who killed his brother-in-law over ten dollars.
As soon as the pitch leaves Walter’s hand, Jason jumps out of the box and the ball floats over the middle of the plate.
“Steeeee-rike one!”
Walter snarls in at Jason.
“Streeee-rike two!”
Walter steps off the mound and walks toward Jason, squintin’ his eyes like he’s tryin’ to get a real good look at him. Jason swallows his Juicy Fruit.
The windup a-a-a-a-a-a-a-nd the pitch.
“Steeeee-rike three! Yer out!”
Jason drags his bat back to the dugout and glances up and espies his lil’ blonde squeeze Ashley Hartley, and for some strange reason she’s sittin’ right next to that Harvey Whatever-His-Name-Is, the fat kid who always gets A’s in Science. What’s up with that, he’s puzzlin’.
Christopher takes the box and looks up in the stands hopin’ to see Heather Baker lookin’ fawningly down at him like she always does. But instead, Norman Bozell, Treasurer of the Audio-Visual Club, had just confided to Heather that not only did he admire her cute shoes and good looks, but he’d always been impressed with her because she’s got such a good head on her shoulders – he wished, in fact, he had her brains - compared to most of these shallow, plain girls in Pineville. Heather, agog, has turned around and she’s takin’ a long searching look at him, which is exactly when Christopher spots ‘em.
He gazes warily out at Walter, tryin’ to fight off the urge to yell at Heather to stop whatever it is she’s doin’ up there.
Mickey crouches down and goes “Well boy, I hope they don’t kick you off the team when they find out you cheated on your Algebra final last week.”
“Steeeee-rike one!”
“If I was you, boy, I’d be careful about climbin’ that tree in Brandi Bellman’s back yard and lookin’ in her bedroom window at night.”
“Steeeee-rike two!”
Every fevered pitch was bringin’ the crowd to a fevered pitch.
“I believe I seen Heather at the Bowlarama last Tuesday night when she told you she had to go visit her sick aunt, boy, and she…”
“Steeeee-rike three!”
“Hey boy, I hear the Kiwanis Club had a good time with your sister the other night,” and he winks at him. Tyler
“Yer out!”
It goes on like that all afternoon. You ain’t ever seen such befuddled, clumsy Puma cubs in your life. Droppin’ balls, missin’ cut-off men, stumblin’ over their own dang shoelaces and gettin’ cricks in their necks from starin’ up in the stands. The crowd was beginnin’ to sense that hey, this could be the start of something big.
As you can imagine – you don’t have to imagine, I’ll tell you - you ain’t ever seen such an angstful dugout as the Young Pumas had either. They were dwellin’ on their Jezebellian girlfriends, algebra finals, enureses, surreptitious-peeping-Tomism, parents maybe gettin’ a divorce, acne, big noses, gettin’ found out about the keg party, amoral sisters, Dad bein’ seen out at the Econo-Lodge with Donna Sue last week – she gets around, don’t she - and the magazines under the bed they thought Mom didn’t know about.
Plus, the things the old Pumas were sayin’ were too personal and embarrassing to share with their teammates, so each of ‘em bore his own private cross back to the dugout and kept it to himself. Instead of the usual dugout chitter-chatter, it was quiet as a soundproof tomb in a graveyard in the middle of the desert at midnight .
Walter knows Ryan can’t hit an inside curve so that’s all he pitched to him and he struck out four times. Justin always takes the next pitch when it’s 2 and 2, so Walter cannonballed him down the middle and he struck out four times too.
At the end of eight innings, it was Old Pumas 7, Young Pumas 6.
Bottom of the ninth. The tension was palpable – another regrettable cliché but if it’s good enough for Stephen King it’s good enough for me.
Up in the stands, on signal from Brandon
Ryan steps up to the plate, looks up in the stands, and sees Caitlin Cane wipin’ tartar sauce off her chin and gigglin’ at Todd Newbury. Todd’s President of the Medicine Club, and he’s got his brachium stretched around Kaitlin’s scapula and glenohumeral joints.
“Steeeee-rike one!”
“Hey boy, you any relation to that Dwayne Strawberry who got kicked out of the army for homosexualism last year? He’s your brother, ain’t he?”
“Streeee-rike two!”
“Boy, you got the biggest rear end I ever saw. Lord almighty, Nestor, look at that thing.”
“Steeeee-rike three!”
Joshua grabs his bat and glances up in the stands, espyin’ Megan McGonigle – Mac and Marlene McGonigle’s girl - sittin’ on Peter Peabody’s lap, murmurin’ some of her most cherished hopes and dreams in his ear. Peter’s President of the Philately Club.
Joshua manages to tap a lil’ grounder out to third, but Floyd can’t quite scoop it up in time, so it’s one out, one on, bottom of the ninth, Old Pumas leadin’ 7-6.
Mickey comes out to the mound for a conference, and Floyd and Millard trot over to join ‘em.
“How ya’ feelin, Cannonball?”
“Pretty good, gettin’ a little winded though.”
“Two more outs and we go home.”
“Did anybody see the end of Perry Mason last night? I fell asleep when he was about to grill the X-Ray technician.”
“That blonde nurse did it.”
“She found out the doctor had a million dollars in securities stashed under his examination table.”
“I had an idea it was her.”
Nestor walks out. “Play ball! Come on boys, let’s wrap this thing up.”
They resume their positions. Walter bends over to pick up the rosin bag and Joshua leads off first.
Millard sneaks up behind Joshua, pulls the ball out of his glove, and tags him on the head. He holds up the ball and hollers at Nestor.
“Look here ump, I got him!”
The old hidden ball trick!
The crowd just went wild, whoopin’ and hollerin’ and stompin’ and shakin’ the rafters and spillin’ beer all over their neighbors. A lesser, more cliché-ridden author might say pandemonium reigned.
Coach Cutler runs out of the dugout, screamin’ and hollerin’ and kickin’ dirt up at Nestor.
“That ain’t legal! It don’t count! They outlawed that years ago!”
Nestor goes “Well, Lloyd, let me look it up,” and he pulls out his Official Rules of Baseball and starts thumbin’ through the pages.
“Nope, it says right here on page seventy-two it’s legal, as long as the pitcher ain’t got his foot on the rubber.”
Coach grimaces and stomps his foot. He sulks off back to the dugout, the word “rubber” echoin’ in his brain like a bb in a can of spray paint.
“Well, boy, since Samantha already left with Darrell, maybe you won’t be so nervous like you was when that twenty dollars disappeared out your mama’s purse last week.”
“Steeeee-rike one!
“Hey boy, anybody ever tell you your ears look just like Dumbo the Elephant? Don’t those things flap in the wind?”
“Steeeee-rike two!
Walter calls the boys to the mound for another conference.
“But if it was the nurse, why did the janitor act suspicious?”
“Because he was gettin’ ready to run off to Mexico
“The X-Ray Technician was gonna leave her husband?”
“Yep, because he was gambling her inheritance away.”
“But how did Perry….”
Nestor comes out again and tells the boys he ain’t got all day.
Walter glares in at Bryan
Crack!
Up, up, up…Up, up, up…There she goes….
Lefty gets a bead on it and races all the way out to the fence, as far as he can go. He turns his back to the field, leaps up and crashes into the fence.
Wait…what? He what? He caught it?
Lefty had shoved his glove over the wall, stretched as far as he could, and come up with the ball!
He’d robbed Bryan
Yay-hoo! Yee-hah! Yow-ie Zowie! I’m paraphrasin’ the crowd reaction but you get the idea.
The fans poured out on the field and mobbed the boys like they do in the World Series on TV. Everybody was woo-hooin’ and singin’ and revelin.’ The band was playin’ “Happy Days Are Here Again” and people that ain’t spoke to each other in years were dancin’ on the infield. Pinevillean embraced Pinevillean, swept up in Old Puma Mania. I even saw a Baptist and a Catholic shake hands.
In the winner’s locker room, the champagne and Ben-Gay were flowin’ and reporters were clustered ‘round all the victorious old boys. Wolf Blitzer was broadcastin’ live into the Global Media Deal. The Pope was holdin’ on line two. It was a madhouse of flashin’ bulbs, reporters interviewin’ the players, and the boys swattin’ each other on the butt with their towels.
But there was no joy in the young Pumas locker room.
Having been triple-played - on the ball field, on the fickle field of love, and in the cruel arena of life itself - the boys were about as defeated as living organisms can get. They were sittin’ on their stools hangin’ their heads like Tom Dooley, each one of ‘em lost in his own private grief.
.
To lose the game to the cootazoids in front of the entire world is bad enough. Then, there were all the private things the Old Pumas had told ‘em during the game which they can’t figure out how they knew. And if they knew, who else knew? And if that weren’t enough, their capricious cheerleader girlfriends – Brianna, Ashley, Heather, Caitlin, Megan and Samantha to name six of ‘em – had all left the game early with the biggest freakazoids in school. I doubt Steinbeck himself could have described the boys locker room without chokin’ up.
Coach was on the phone makin’ an appointment with Doc Feeley. When Doc’s appointment nurse Elvira asks him what’s the nature of the problem, he tells her to mind her own freakin’ business. She goes “What’s buggin’ you?” and he slammed the phone down and kicked his wastebasket. Elvira, though, had just booked an appointment for Donna Sue and she writes “see above” in the Coach’s Diagnosis box. All appointment nurses have a sense of humor.
Brandon and Brianna were parked in Lovers Lane
“How many stars are there in the sky, Bran?”
“Well, since the observable universe must amount to 13.7 billion light-years in relativity and the real universe is highly curved on cosmological scales, it follows that you’d multiply a cosmological time interval – we’ll call it a – by the speed of light to determine the true astrophysiological nature of superclusters. And although Hubble’s data was valuable, Bri, I’ve discovered flaws in certain of its assumptions and to answer your question, there are 67.3 sextillion stars – put twenty-one zeroes after the 67 and you get the idea, give or take a few. But know what?
“What?”
“Out of all the stars since the beginning of time, I’ll bet none of ‘em has shined as brightly as your beautiful blue eyes.”
“Oh, Bran!”
Basically the same conversation was takin’ place in seven other cars on Lovers Lane
The old Pumas finally got on the bus back home and went straight to bed. For the first time in Pineville Retirement Villa history, it was the girls who were knockin’ on the boy’s doors late at night instead of the other way around. But all they heard was snoring.
The snoring of champions.
Well, that’s pretty much the end of the story, finally. I dropped Aunt Mary off at the De Drop – she was in a celebrate-and-get-bombed mood – and came on home.
Of course the first thing I see is a game of Tag goin’ on in my front yard, and it looks like the dog is It. The crows are flutterin’ around chasin’ him and they’re all livin’ the Life of Riley and partyin’ around in between poops. Sheryl Crow’s songbirdin’ away and old Lady Armbruster’s hollerin’ at me that that dang thing’s been playin’ all day and to turn it down before she calls the po-lice. Well, I don’t want to get a ticket for public nuisancy so I do. But maybe I’ll go in and get my Bye Bye Birdie soundtrack and see if that does any good.
It was another beautiful night in Pineville.
