Here's an idea I've been kicking around for a while. I had a slow afternoon at work, so I wrote it up. Think of it as either (a) a morality play directed at Toronto's baseball writers, or (b) a desecration of one of Charles Dickens' finest works. Either way, enjoy.
It was a cold and gray April evening at the SkyDome. The Toronto Blue Jays were playing the Boston Red Sox, and losing 10-3. A few thousand fans lurked here and there in the cavernous stadium, one or two blowing mournful trumpets, as Carlos Tosca came out to make his fifth pitching change of the evening. In one corner of the deserted press box, Richard Gloom, the Toronto Planet's baseball writer, was typing out his daily column.
Yet again, the Blue Jays have shortchanged the long-suffering sports fans of Toronto by delivering an indifferent product to market. The team's hitting is inconsistent, their defense slipshod, their pitching woeful, and their prospects for the future grim. The contending teams in the division are like racing cars, zooming off into the distance, while the Jays are like the old faithful family runabout, coughing and sputtering, and overdue to be sent to the junkyard. Give up, Jays fans: there's no hope now, and there's likely never to be hope again.
A stadium attendant interrupted. "Do you want any more sandwiches, Mr. Gloom?"
"They cost extra, don't they?" Gloom asked.
"Well, I'm afraid so, sir. We can't afford too many luxuries, since we pay our players in American dollars and receive revenues in Canadian. We're a small-market team now, you know."
"Never mind, then. No more sandwiches. Bah! Be off with you," Gloom said. He finished his column:
At this point, the best thing for the Jays to do would be to clean house, stop the bleeding, and accept the inevitable: baseball in Toronto is no longer viable. The team's revenue base simply isn't large enough to compete with the Yankees and Red Sox of the world. When Delgado, Stewart, Halladay, and Lidle leave the team for greener pastures, with the team's supposedly "new blood" soon to follow, why should Joe Fan care? I certainly don't, and you probably don't, either. Never mind baseball. When does hockey season start, anyway? Bah, humbug!
Just as Gloom finished sending his column to the Planet's headquarters, he felt a strange and unusual weariness take hold of him. Oddly enough, he appeared to be leaving his body and flying up through the clouds. After a few swoops, glides, and Immelman turns, he was deposited in front of a white-haired man wearing a Toronto Maple Leafs baseball cap.
"Sparky Anderson? What are you doing here?"
"I used to manage in Toronto, you know. Think of me as the Ghost of Baseball Past."
"Long past?"
"No, Richard. Your past. Take my hand."
"Why?"
"You have no choice, Richard. This is a plot point. You're a writer, of sorts - you understand these things."
"Bah. Very well."
When Gloom took the phantasm's hand, he felt himself descending into an enveloping fog. Badly-drawn hourglasses spun wildly around, leaves were torn off calendars, and slips of paper bearing the years 2002, 2001, 2000, and so on, blew past them like winter winds. Eventually, the year 1977 appeared, and grew larger and larger, enveloping both Gloom and the Sparky-being.
"Wow, what cheesy special effects."
"This is a Canadian production, Richard - not Industrial Light and Magic. Give me a break."
When the fog cleared, Richard found himself in section 22 of Exhibition Stadium (in the upper deck, on the third base side, in case you have forgotten). Ron Guidry was on the mound, and Doug Ault was at the plate. The Jays were losing 8-1, but the fans were still cheering. Guidry delivered. Ault swung and missed. The crowd applauded anyway.
"Hey, Sparky, or whoever you are: want a beer?"
"This is 1977, Richard. There was no beer in the ballpark. Besides, these are just shadows. They cannot see us or hear us." The next batter, Otto Velez, swaggered up to the plate, as if daring Guidry to throw a ball past him.
Richard brightened at the sight of Velez. "My God, it's Otto! Good old Otto! He swung at every fastball he could see, and occasionally hit some of them. Bless him!" As Velez reached the plate, the fans began to chant, "OT-TO! OT-TO!" Guidry delivered his first pitch, and Otto sent it deep on a line to left, past the outfield fence and into the North Grandstand, as the fans went berserk. Gloom jumped up and down, excitedly.
"Did you see that! Did you see it! Good old Otto!"
"But the score is now only 8-2," the celestial being that looked like Sparky pointed out. "The Jays have no hope of winning."
"Who cares? Our guys just scored against the Evil Empire! Take that, George Steinbrenner! Yay, Otto!"
"Take my hand again," said Sparky. "I have more visions to show you."
The fog reappeared. Now, the hourglasses began to reverse themselves. The computer-animated years flew past the two again, in the opposite direction but equally cheesily: 1978, 1979, 1980, finally stopping at 1993.
When the fog lifted again, Richard and his ghostly guide were in the SkyDome. It was Game 6 of the World Series, and the Dome was packed as Joe Carter stepped to the plate against Mitch Williams. The noise was deafening.
"My God, I've forgotten what it's like to see a full SkyDome!" Richard exclaimed.
"It will be full again one day," Sparky said. "Baseball is all about up and down cycles. Trust me on this - I used to manage the Detroit Tigers."
"I don't believe it. Bah, humbug! Baseball in Toronto is dead."
Just then, Williams delivered a slider that was low but right over the heart of the plate. Carter swung and connected... and the fog closed in.
"Hey! I wanted to see that!"
"You have denied joy to thousands of fans, Richard. Think of this as cosmic payback. Now, hold on tight: I do not have much time."
The rest of the 1990's flew past, like a VCR set to super fast forward. Players came and went: Green, Fernandez, Clemens, Hentgen, Fernandez, Canseco, Wells, Fernandez, and more. The stadium crowds gradually got smaller and quieter. In one corner of the press box, one man kept writing and writing, growing gradually unhappier.
"The years have been unkind to us all, Richard, but especially to you," the Sparky-thing intoned. "All those nights spent in an empty stadium, watching losing teams, have turned you into a bitter, grasping, envious, cantankerous old sinner."
"Bah, humbug!"
"My time here is done. Allow me to present my close personal friend, the Ghost of Baseball Present." With an audible crack, much like the sound of a bat hitting a hanging Jeff Tam breaking pitch, the spectre vanished, and was replaced by a dark-skinned man wearing a Chicago Cubs uniform and grinning widely.
"Sammy Sosa? Is that you?"
"It sure is, man! And I'm ready to take you on a trip. Hang on, Rickie buddy - we're goin' for a ride!"
This time, the cheesy special effect was a whirlwind. As Richard hung on to the Cubs' home run king for dear life, he saw a bewildering array of images: Barry Bonds hitting yet another home run into the splash zone, as the Pac Bell fans cheered themselves hoarse; insanely happy Anaheim fans waving rally monkeys; Pedro Martinez toying with enemy hitters in front of the wildly-applauding Fenway faithful; fans everywhere happily booing the Yankees; a collection of zombie-like fans in Toronto writing long Blue Jay-related screeds on their baseball blog; and more, much more.
"Baseball isn't dead, my friend," Sammy said. "It's as alive as it's ever been. Sure, there are lots of lazy, spoiled players, embarrassingly bad teams, and stupid, greedy, indifferent owners. But that's always been the case. Remember Bowie Kuhn? Spike Eckert? Calvin Griffith? Charles Comiskey, whose team was called the Black Sox because he was too cheap to wash his club's uniforms?"
"But what about the Jays' cash-flow problems?"
"Look, man, I'm from the Dominican," Sammy said. "Believe me, I know all about poverty and hopelessness. I see them every day in my home town. You don't need to tell me that life is a struggle against long odds, and a struggle that we all eventually lose. But there's a few things that keep all of us going, and for many of us, baseball is one of them. It got me off the island, and it got you out of the obituary department, my friend."
"So what are you trying to say?" Richard asked. "Should I be writing frothy puff pieces? Toadying to management? I have to tell it like it is, Sammy. I mean, have you seen the Jays' bullpen?"
"Oh heck, man, you don't need to be a homer," Sammy said. "Just remember that the game is supposed to be fun. Remember that baseball, and baseball writing, are supposed to bring joy to life. Don't drag us all down, man, or else."
"Or else what?"
"You have something at stake too, my friend," Sammy said. "And the Ghost of Baseball Yet To Come will show you exactly what it is."
The skies grew dark, as if a retractable roof was closing over the world. Everything vanished. An apparition wearing a black cloak appeared and pointed, with a skeletal finger, to its right. Richard looked: it was the SkyDome. But it was empty. The concrete was cracked, the metal railings rusted. The signs on the Jays' Wall of Excellence were tattered and torn, and the windows in the SkyDome Hotel were streaked with grime and pitted with tiny holes. A newspaper page blew past. The headline read, "Hinske Stars As Northern Virginia Blue Jays Win 8th In Row."
"Northern Virginia Blue Jays?" said Richard. "You mean the Blue Jays have left town? What is going to happen to me, then?"
The apparition pointed to the bottom of the newspaper. Richard looked, and saw a row of numbers in small type. "I don't get it." The apparition continued to point. He saw the headline, "High School Results - by Richard Gloom."
"Oh, my God! I've been sent to cover high school basketball again! No! Say it isn't true!"
The finger pointed, remorselessly.
"I'll change, I promise! I'll become a more interested observer! I'll become a charter member of the Cult of J.P.! I'll even say supportive things about the starting rotation! Just spare me this fate! Please, I beg you! Please, please, please..."
Just then, Gloom jerked awake. He was back in his usual seat in the press box. His neighbours, Richard Griffin and Stephen Brunt, stared at him curiously. "Dick, old boy," said Griffin. "What's wrong? You drifted off to sleep, and then you started thrashing about. You missed all the good stuff!"
"What good stuff?"
"The Jays have scored seven runs in the eighth inning to tie it at 10-10," Brunt said. "It must have been the crowd noise that woke you up."
"Crowd noise? You mean the Jays are still here?"
"Yes, they're still at the plate," Brunt said. "Boston's bullpen by committee is truly awful. Now, shhh: Vernon Wells is coming up, representing the winning run. He's a good young hitter, isn't he?"
"Yes," Gloom said. "He is." He nodded, and reached for his keyboard. "He definitely is."
It was a cold and gray April evening at the SkyDome. The Toronto Blue Jays were playing the Boston Red Sox, and losing 10-3. A few thousand fans lurked here and there in the cavernous stadium, one or two blowing mournful trumpets, as Carlos Tosca came out to make his fifth pitching change of the evening. In one corner of the deserted press box, Richard Gloom, the Toronto Planet's baseball writer, was typing out his daily column.
Yet again, the Blue Jays have shortchanged the long-suffering sports fans of Toronto by delivering an indifferent product to market. The team's hitting is inconsistent, their defense slipshod, their pitching woeful, and their prospects for the future grim. The contending teams in the division are like racing cars, zooming off into the distance, while the Jays are like the old faithful family runabout, coughing and sputtering, and overdue to be sent to the junkyard. Give up, Jays fans: there's no hope now, and there's likely never to be hope again.
A stadium attendant interrupted. "Do you want any more sandwiches, Mr. Gloom?"
"They cost extra, don't they?" Gloom asked.
"Well, I'm afraid so, sir. We can't afford too many luxuries, since we pay our players in American dollars and receive revenues in Canadian. We're a small-market team now, you know."
"Never mind, then. No more sandwiches. Bah! Be off with you," Gloom said. He finished his column:
At this point, the best thing for the Jays to do would be to clean house, stop the bleeding, and accept the inevitable: baseball in Toronto is no longer viable. The team's revenue base simply isn't large enough to compete with the Yankees and Red Sox of the world. When Delgado, Stewart, Halladay, and Lidle leave the team for greener pastures, with the team's supposedly "new blood" soon to follow, why should Joe Fan care? I certainly don't, and you probably don't, either. Never mind baseball. When does hockey season start, anyway? Bah, humbug!
Just as Gloom finished sending his column to the Planet's headquarters, he felt a strange and unusual weariness take hold of him. Oddly enough, he appeared to be leaving his body and flying up through the clouds. After a few swoops, glides, and Immelman turns, he was deposited in front of a white-haired man wearing a Toronto Maple Leafs baseball cap.
"Sparky Anderson? What are you doing here?"
"I used to manage in Toronto, you know. Think of me as the Ghost of Baseball Past."
"Long past?"
"No, Richard. Your past. Take my hand."
"Why?"
"You have no choice, Richard. This is a plot point. You're a writer, of sorts - you understand these things."
"Bah. Very well."
When Gloom took the phantasm's hand, he felt himself descending into an enveloping fog. Badly-drawn hourglasses spun wildly around, leaves were torn off calendars, and slips of paper bearing the years 2002, 2001, 2000, and so on, blew past them like winter winds. Eventually, the year 1977 appeared, and grew larger and larger, enveloping both Gloom and the Sparky-being.
"Wow, what cheesy special effects."
"This is a Canadian production, Richard - not Industrial Light and Magic. Give me a break."
When the fog cleared, Richard found himself in section 22 of Exhibition Stadium (in the upper deck, on the third base side, in case you have forgotten). Ron Guidry was on the mound, and Doug Ault was at the plate. The Jays were losing 8-1, but the fans were still cheering. Guidry delivered. Ault swung and missed. The crowd applauded anyway.
"Hey, Sparky, or whoever you are: want a beer?"
"This is 1977, Richard. There was no beer in the ballpark. Besides, these are just shadows. They cannot see us or hear us." The next batter, Otto Velez, swaggered up to the plate, as if daring Guidry to throw a ball past him.
Richard brightened at the sight of Velez. "My God, it's Otto! Good old Otto! He swung at every fastball he could see, and occasionally hit some of them. Bless him!" As Velez reached the plate, the fans began to chant, "OT-TO! OT-TO!" Guidry delivered his first pitch, and Otto sent it deep on a line to left, past the outfield fence and into the North Grandstand, as the fans went berserk. Gloom jumped up and down, excitedly.
"Did you see that! Did you see it! Good old Otto!"
"But the score is now only 8-2," the celestial being that looked like Sparky pointed out. "The Jays have no hope of winning."
"Who cares? Our guys just scored against the Evil Empire! Take that, George Steinbrenner! Yay, Otto!"
"Take my hand again," said Sparky. "I have more visions to show you."
The fog reappeared. Now, the hourglasses began to reverse themselves. The computer-animated years flew past the two again, in the opposite direction but equally cheesily: 1978, 1979, 1980, finally stopping at 1993.
When the fog lifted again, Richard and his ghostly guide were in the SkyDome. It was Game 6 of the World Series, and the Dome was packed as Joe Carter stepped to the plate against Mitch Williams. The noise was deafening.
"My God, I've forgotten what it's like to see a full SkyDome!" Richard exclaimed.
"It will be full again one day," Sparky said. "Baseball is all about up and down cycles. Trust me on this - I used to manage the Detroit Tigers."
"I don't believe it. Bah, humbug! Baseball in Toronto is dead."
Just then, Williams delivered a slider that was low but right over the heart of the plate. Carter swung and connected... and the fog closed in.
"Hey! I wanted to see that!"
"You have denied joy to thousands of fans, Richard. Think of this as cosmic payback. Now, hold on tight: I do not have much time."
The rest of the 1990's flew past, like a VCR set to super fast forward. Players came and went: Green, Fernandez, Clemens, Hentgen, Fernandez, Canseco, Wells, Fernandez, and more. The stadium crowds gradually got smaller and quieter. In one corner of the press box, one man kept writing and writing, growing gradually unhappier.
"The years have been unkind to us all, Richard, but especially to you," the Sparky-thing intoned. "All those nights spent in an empty stadium, watching losing teams, have turned you into a bitter, grasping, envious, cantankerous old sinner."
"Bah, humbug!"
"My time here is done. Allow me to present my close personal friend, the Ghost of Baseball Present." With an audible crack, much like the sound of a bat hitting a hanging Jeff Tam breaking pitch, the spectre vanished, and was replaced by a dark-skinned man wearing a Chicago Cubs uniform and grinning widely.
"Sammy Sosa? Is that you?"
"It sure is, man! And I'm ready to take you on a trip. Hang on, Rickie buddy - we're goin' for a ride!"
This time, the cheesy special effect was a whirlwind. As Richard hung on to the Cubs' home run king for dear life, he saw a bewildering array of images: Barry Bonds hitting yet another home run into the splash zone, as the Pac Bell fans cheered themselves hoarse; insanely happy Anaheim fans waving rally monkeys; Pedro Martinez toying with enemy hitters in front of the wildly-applauding Fenway faithful; fans everywhere happily booing the Yankees; a collection of zombie-like fans in Toronto writing long Blue Jay-related screeds on their baseball blog; and more, much more.
"Baseball isn't dead, my friend," Sammy said. "It's as alive as it's ever been. Sure, there are lots of lazy, spoiled players, embarrassingly bad teams, and stupid, greedy, indifferent owners. But that's always been the case. Remember Bowie Kuhn? Spike Eckert? Calvin Griffith? Charles Comiskey, whose team was called the Black Sox because he was too cheap to wash his club's uniforms?"
"But what about the Jays' cash-flow problems?"
"Look, man, I'm from the Dominican," Sammy said. "Believe me, I know all about poverty and hopelessness. I see them every day in my home town. You don't need to tell me that life is a struggle against long odds, and a struggle that we all eventually lose. But there's a few things that keep all of us going, and for many of us, baseball is one of them. It got me off the island, and it got you out of the obituary department, my friend."
"So what are you trying to say?" Richard asked. "Should I be writing frothy puff pieces? Toadying to management? I have to tell it like it is, Sammy. I mean, have you seen the Jays' bullpen?"
"Oh heck, man, you don't need to be a homer," Sammy said. "Just remember that the game is supposed to be fun. Remember that baseball, and baseball writing, are supposed to bring joy to life. Don't drag us all down, man, or else."
"Or else what?"
"You have something at stake too, my friend," Sammy said. "And the Ghost of Baseball Yet To Come will show you exactly what it is."
The skies grew dark, as if a retractable roof was closing over the world. Everything vanished. An apparition wearing a black cloak appeared and pointed, with a skeletal finger, to its right. Richard looked: it was the SkyDome. But it was empty. The concrete was cracked, the metal railings rusted. The signs on the Jays' Wall of Excellence were tattered and torn, and the windows in the SkyDome Hotel were streaked with grime and pitted with tiny holes. A newspaper page blew past. The headline read, "Hinske Stars As Northern Virginia Blue Jays Win 8th In Row."
"Northern Virginia Blue Jays?" said Richard. "You mean the Blue Jays have left town? What is going to happen to me, then?"
The apparition pointed to the bottom of the newspaper. Richard looked, and saw a row of numbers in small type. "I don't get it." The apparition continued to point. He saw the headline, "High School Results - by Richard Gloom."
"Oh, my God! I've been sent to cover high school basketball again! No! Say it isn't true!"
The finger pointed, remorselessly.
"I'll change, I promise! I'll become a more interested observer! I'll become a charter member of the Cult of J.P.! I'll even say supportive things about the starting rotation! Just spare me this fate! Please, I beg you! Please, please, please..."
Just then, Gloom jerked awake. He was back in his usual seat in the press box. His neighbours, Richard Griffin and Stephen Brunt, stared at him curiously. "Dick, old boy," said Griffin. "What's wrong? You drifted off to sleep, and then you started thrashing about. You missed all the good stuff!"
"What good stuff?"
"The Jays have scored seven runs in the eighth inning to tie it at 10-10," Brunt said. "It must have been the crowd noise that woke you up."
"Crowd noise? You mean the Jays are still here?"
"Yes, they're still at the plate," Brunt said. "Boston's bullpen by committee is truly awful. Now, shhh: Vernon Wells is coming up, representing the winning run. He's a good young hitter, isn't he?"
"Yes," Gloom said. "He is." He nodded, and reached for his keyboard. "He definitely is."
