Uncle Jumbo's Playground

–Illustration by James Dankert

That was horseshit.

I’m a superstitious guy, and I should have known better than to drag my ass from the house on Friday the thirteenth. I already had a sick feeling on the drive downtown. The muffler on my Celica was kicking up sparks all the way down Portland, and was drowning out Motorhead even with the fifteen-year-old cassette player cranked up as high as it would go.

I also should know better than to sit in the expensive seats. A guy in my building gave me one of his season tickets, but I’ve got no business sitting anywhere inside the foul poles, let alone above the visiting dugout. I know when I’m an interloper, and I was hemmed in on all sides by yahoos. The clown beside me, noticing that I was keeping score, kept asking me who was batting, and though I pointed out early on that this information was provided in various prominent places all over the ballpark, he was clearly addled by all the 3.2 beer he’d consumed (and continued to consume); he was one of those cup-stackers who apparently feel it’s some kind of achievement to spend forty dollars on beer at a baseball game. By the seventh-inning stretch he practically had to get down on his knees to pour beer into his face from his wobbling tower of plastic souvenir cups.

This guy and his pals appeared to have driven in from Dogpatch, and I was almost disappointed that they made it through the eighth inning without taking off their shirts. Actually, they didn’t make it through the eighth inning. Before the Twins came to bat they stumbled away up the aisle and disappeared. Maybe they had some weird animal instinct that a shitstorm was brewing, or perhaps their faithless departure –and they weren’t alone– brought the thing on.

Either way, they ruined the game for me even before the game was completely ruined for me by its ruinous outcome. They thought Buck Showalter was Buddy Bell, and that Orel Hershiser was also Buddy Bell, or at least the same person as Showalter. Every time Hershiser or Showalter went to the mound they chanted, “Buddy! Buddy! Buddy!” or “Bell, you suck!”

I have no doubt that by three o’clock tomorrow afternoon the whole lot of them will be drunk in a boat somewhere, attempting to murder innocent fish with their new Kent Hrbek fishing lures, which I was frankly surprised they didn’t throw at Buddy Bell.

My God, though, I honestly don’t know what happened. That game was over. I’m not about to go back and look at my scorebook to try to recreate the nightmare, but I swear to God if I ever see Terry Mulholland trundling in from the bullpen to relieve Joe Nathan again I’m giving up the lousy game once and for all.