MILWAUKEE. Bud Selig, commissioner of baseball and general manager of Selig GMC-Buick, a car and truck dealership here, today promised a crackdown on major league baseball players who jaywalk following a high-profile arrest of Boston Red Sox outfielder Manny Ramirez in Seattle and a news report linking Yankee pitcher Joba Chamberlain to a New Jersey organized crime family that crosses the streets of New York's Little Italy without looking both ways.
Selig: "Senator, it may look like I'm picking, but I'm only scratching."
"Our fans deserve to know that the players their kids look up to are crossing at the green, and not in between," Selig said in a conference call with sports reporters and traffic safety officers. "I was captain of my school crossing guard in 7th grade, and I take this personally."
"I told the Commissioner, you know, blow it out your shorts."
Ramirez was cited in Seattle for walking against a red light, a misdemeanor in a city that appears friendly on the surface, but which is governed by a nine-person city council composed largely of members of the Grunge-Espresso Axis, a neo-fascist group that worships Kurt Cobain.
On this, the 4th of July, a day intimately associated with liberty, it is appropriate to reflect on the strides this nation has made to expand freedom in the world of sport. Think of Jackie Robinson, the first African-American to play major league baseball. Consider Kathrine Switzer, the first woman to run the Boston Marathon. Or how about Manny Ramirez, the first Dominican outfielder to take a leak behind a manually-operated scoreboard during a pitching change in an American League game. Truly, as a nation, we have much to be proud of.
Kathrine Switzer, failing the Boston Marathon gendertest.
But many are surprised to hear that, until very recently, there were still obstacles to full participation in the athletic endeavors that make this country great. One such barrier fell the other day, as the state of Missouri made it legal, for the first time, to "noodle", or fish with one's hands.
A guy named Phil, with a giant catfish caught by hand
As a teenage boy in a small Missouri town, I often worked with country people who spoke of noodling. Not having much interest in fishing, I never accompanied them on their clandestine trips to muddy creek banks, where they told me they would stick their arms into hollow logs, risking bites by snakes or snapping turtles, to catch catfish by hand. As a result, I have wrongly assumed all these years that the fish they caught would fit on a dinner plate.
It turns out these men were diving under water, holding their breath and sticking their arms into catfish "holes" where they would grab fresh-water behemoths, smaller than a jet ski but not by much, and wrestle them into submission. Where noodling is permitted, a fish must typically be as much as two feet long in order to be a legal catch. Catfish are bottom feeders who will remain stationary for long periods of time, eating anything that floats by, and as a result can grow to be enormous.
"He followed me home--can I keep him?"
You would think that the Missouri legislature, in its wisdom, would have long ago followed the example of the other eleven states where handfishing (also referred to as "hogging") is legal, and let man and fish fight it out fair and square. Missouri's scruples in the area of man-fish relations stemmed not from fear for fisherman's safety, but from a solicitous regard for the fishes' sex life. Handfishing, according to fish and game officials, depletes the number of sexually mature fish. Well, what do you want noodlers to do--knock before entering?
Moby Catfish
Since moving to the east coast thirty-five years ago, I've gone deep-sea fishing a number of times and had naively formed the opinion that it is more challenging than fresh-water fishing. Having conducted further research into hand-fishing, I now believe that the only way ocean fishing could measure up to the challenge of noodling is for the beer-sodden men who pay hundreds of dollars to fish off Florida or Cape Cod to crawl overboard, find a bluefish or a marlin and subdue their prey using nothing but wrestling holds learned on WWE Royal Rumble.
Exhausted noodlers
So here's to America's hand-fishers, true sportsmen who eschew fish-finders and other high tech doo-dads that unfairly tilt the pond in favor of humans. I salute you, but I have one request.
If you don't mind, I'd rather not shake your hand.
BOSTON. When the Red Sox returned to Boston last night from a road trip that saw outfielder Manny Ramirez join baseball's elite 500 home run club at Baltimore's Camden Yards, the slugger seemed distant, his mind elsewhere, as he was greeted by fans at Logan Airport. "I got a promise to keep," was all he would say to a reporter who thrust a microphone in his face, paraphrasing Robert Frost, whom Ramirez adopted as his idol after discovering the flinty New England poet had urged readers to take the road less traveled.
Ramirez and Frost: The poet had fewer strikeouts, but also a lower OBP.
Ramirez was deeply moved by a visit to Baltimore's St. Jude's Childrens Hospital, where he met ten year-old Timmy Kavanaugh who suffers from Osgood Schlatter's Disease, a knee ailment that primarily afflicts young boys. Kavanaugh was unimpressed by the slugging outfielder's five hundredth home run--"Any mook can take some steroids and do that!" Timmy yelled as Ramirez walked by his bed--and the two struck up a conversation.
Ouch!
As Ramirez prepared to go, he asked if there was anything he could do to ease the boy's suffering. Kavanaugh closed his eyes, gritted his teeth, and in a voice that was barely a whisper, said "Could you--run out a ground ball for me?"
"There's a ground ball to short--Manny watches it go . . ."
"Sure, kid," Ramirez replied, his voice betraying emotion. "I can't do it," the boy continued, tears filling his eyes. "I want you to do it for me."
"What's Manny doing?"
So groundskeepers were surprised this morning when they found Ramirez harnessed to a Fenway Park lawnmower, pulling the bulky implement around the base path to strengthen his hamstrings in anticipation of an all-out sprint down the first base line the next time he hits an infield grounder.
"Run, Manny, run!"
"There's no doubt Manny can do it physically," said manager Terry Francona. "He just needs to focus on the job in front of him when he doesn't hit a home run and like, you know, start running."
But his teammates aren't so sure. "If I made $18 million dollars a year," said backup catcher Kevin Cash, who is not related to the currency Ramirez is paid with, "I'd need a lot of time to figure out what to spend it on."
The Boston Red Sox have three psychologists on their staff—Boston Herald.
Dr. Donald Kalkstein rubbed his eyes and looked up at the ceiling as Willy Mo Pena lay on the couch and rambled on about his mother. The outfielder’s fifty minutes was almost up when he said something that caused the Director of Performance Enhancement for the Boston Red Sox to snap to attention.
"I think momma liked my sister more than me because girls are neater than boys," Pena (or was it "Mo Pena", like "DiMaggio"?) said in a pained tone of voice.
"Why do you think neatness was so important to her?" Kalkstein asked. We’re finally getting somewhere, he thought.
"I don’t know—I liked to play in the mud, which is good, because I have to use pine tar now that I am a man."
Hm—thought Kalkstein. "How old was your sister when she was potty-trained?" the Red Sox shrink asked.
"Oh, she picked it up right away," Pena/Mo Pena replied.
"And you?" The Red Sock on the couch couldn’t see the face of the doctor above him, but the psychoanalyst’s eyebrow arched upward as he asked this question.
"Uh—not so good. I had an accident one time in kindergarten."
"I see. Well, that will be all for today. We shall begin again at the same place next week."
"Thanks doc," Willy said. "I think I’m on the verge of a breakthrough."
"Wonderful," Kalkstein said.
"Which way’s the restroom?"
"Out by the elevators on your left."
"Okay—see you next week."
The two men shook hands and after the ballplayer left, Kalkstein looked out his window at the people below, scurrying this way and that, ever striving, impelled by their baser animal instincts to hit away when told to bunt. He heard a knock on his door.
"Come in," he said. It was Bob Tewksbury, the team’s Sports Psychology Coach.
"What’s up, doc?" Tewksbury said with a smile.
"You wascally Wilhelm Reich acolyte you—sit down."
Tewksbury headed for the couch. "Not there, you dingbat," Kalkstein snapped. "That’s expensive equipment for a Freudian analyst."
"Jeez—sorry. What’s eating you?"
Kalkstein realized he had sublimated suppressed Oedipal rage against his father towards Tewksbury, who at 6’ 4" towered over him.
"Nothing."
"C’mon—‘nothing’ means something."
"It’s that damned T.J. Norris."
"What’s he up to now?"
"He’s messing with Big Papi’s swing."
"Hm—bad stuff."
Just then T.J. Norris entered the room brusquely and without knocking, as was his wont. The noted behaviorist used a system of tangible rewards and punishments to cure people of anxieties that the other two psychologists diddled with for years while they paid the rent with sales of "talking cures" and orgone-energy accessories.
"Either of you two mesmerists want to grab lunch and watch the game with me?" Norris asked.
"Why must you always be so damned insolent, Norris?" Kalkstein asked.
"I like to pick on intellectual cripples," Norris replied.
It was Tewksbury’s turn to ask a question. "If you think so little of us, why do you seek our company?"
"Why do people throw peanuts at elephants?" Norris replied. "Listening to you phrenologists babble on is more fun than watching a lab rat beg while I eat a grilled cheese sandwich."
The three men headed down the hall to the lounge, where a wide-screen TV was flanked by tomes with the names of psychology’s immortals on their spines—Erik Erikson, Jean Piaget, Dr. Ruth.
"I’ve solved Big Papi’s problem," Norris said arrogantly.
"Most hitters would gladly take his problems if they could have his homers," Kalkstein said.
"That’s the problem with you Freudians. You’re willing to settle for ‘ordinary unhappiness’. ‘Civilization and its Discontents’, yadda, yadda," Norris said with disdain. "If B.F. Skinner could teach pigeons how to play ping-pong, I can get Ortiz to hit to the opposite field when the shift’s on."
"I think the problem’s sexual," Tewksbury said.
"You think everything’s sexual," Norris said as he grabbed the remote and turned the television to the Red Sox game.
Kevin Youkilis walked to load the bases and David Ortiz—"Big Papi"—stepped to the plate. The infielders moved to the right side of the infield in a mass migration like a captive people fleeing from bondage. As the pitcher looked in for the sign, Papi settled into his stance. The hurler went into the stretch, looked to first, and threw.
Ortiz cocked his bat and swung, driving the ball to left, where it hit high off of Fenway Park’s "Green Monster" near a gold circle.
"That’s new," said Kalkstein, as three runs scored and Ortiz made it to second on the throw to the plate.
"Yes," Norris said smugly. "Take a closer look on the replay."
As the film rolled in slow motion, Tewksbury saw some text next to the new symbol.
"What does it say?" he asked.
"Hit the ring—win some bling," Norris said with satisfaction. "With the right system of rewards, you can teach anybody anything."
DALLAS. Manny Ramirez has become the Greta Garbo of the winter meetings here, telling general managers of clubs who want to deal for him that, most of all, he wants to be alone.
"Manny's decision to leave the Red Sox came down to one guy in a Dunkin' Donuts in Boston," said his agent Greg Genske. "He asked Manny to hand him a Sweet 'n Low, and when their eyes met, the guy recognized him and said 'Nice dinger today.' As far as Manny was concerned, that was the last straw."
The term sheet that Genske is circulating to interested teams accordingly requires them to move to a remote location, preferably one where residents get by on a subsistence economy.
While acknowledging that the request was unusual, interested clubs have been willing to accommodate the man with the best at bat-to-RBI ratio in the majors over the past 45 years.
The Texas Rangers have agreed to investigate a possible move to Guadalupe, Mexico, the Mets are looking at venues on Prince Edward Island, Canada, and the Los Angeles Angels have indicated they would consider playing on Tinian Island in the South Pacific, the site of the first atom bomb test.
"Manny's not some kind of diva," Genske told a gaggle of reporters who stopped him in a hotel lobby as he purchased dental floss, a Spanish-language version of "Mad Libs" and a bag of Andy Capp Pub Fries for his reclusive client, who was reported to be holed up at the Alamo, 270 miles south of Dallas in San Antonio.
BOSTON. Manny Ramirez, the discontented Red Sox outfielder who has been trying to get out of Boston almost as long as he's been there, today threw a roadblock in front of club management as they tried to pave his way out of town.
Ramirez is a "10/5" veteran, meaning he's been in the majors for ten years, five with the Sox. As a result he has the right to veto any trade, and players with this leverage often exact additional consideration from clubs that seek to acquire them.
What does Manny want? A promise that his new teammates will carry him to first base on a litter, a frame with a couch historically used to transport kings and other potentates such as former Uganadan President-for-Life Idi Amin.
Sox fans have had a love/hate relationship with Ramirez during his tenure in Boston, cheering him when he blasts home runs over Fenway Park's "Green Monster," but booing him when he refuses to run out ground balls. "Manny's a hitter, not a track star," said a spokesman for the Ramirez family's interior decorator's assistant's spokesman.
Major league rules prohibit the use of golf carts except when transporting relief pitchers to the mound from the bullpen, so Manny's agent, Greg Genske, came up with the idea of a litter. "Manny has carried every team he's ever been on--it's time his teammates returned the favor," the agent said in a letter sent to the Mets, the Angels and the Rangers, three teams thinking of dealing for his client.
For a slugger like Ramirez, the strength of the batter who comes after him in the lineup has always been an important consideration. With Ramirez in the on-deck circle, for example, opposing hurlers have had to pitch to designated hitter David Ortiz, the Sox' number three hitter, allowing the DH to put up MVP-worthy numbers.
Now, the next four batters on the lineup card behind Ramirez will become significant. "Manny doesn't want a bunch of Punch-and-Judy hitters in the 5-6-7 spots," Genske said. "He wants a comfortable ride, with lots of muscle to absorb the shock of rounding first, a five-year power train warranty, and air conditioning if he's going to Texas."
Con Chapman is a Boston-area writer. He is the author of "The Year of the Gerbil: How the Yankees Won (and the Red Sox Lost) the Greatest Pennant Race Ever," a history of the 1978 AL East pennant race, and a number of plays, including "Number One Hockey Mom," "Please, Pope," and "What Mickey Belle Isle Told You," a trilogy about hockey (JAC Publishing). His work is available on Amazon Shorts (at 49 cents a dowload), and he writes on sports for Flak Magazine.
