Stay Away Agamemnon

An essay by baseball columnist lauriet, Reid B. Tuenlyons

Spring.

It is the sweet right of passage.  Rejuvenation of nature.  We know entropy shall take its effect as this season starts to decay into winter, but now it is spring.

Spring.

A rite of spring.  Sunlight bellows into the eyes of little boys, ready to go to camp.

Cub scouts.

Boy scouts.

Scouts.

Pitching tents, gathering sticks; running, swinging, moving, tossing, turning, sliding, diving, throwing, jumping, striding, leaping, walking, balking, sashaying, pirouetting, trying, trying, trying, trying to play with the big kids.  Trying to build a fire, a soft red light to get them noticed by the troop leader; that is the goal of this camp.  To be one of the few.

One of the few.

One of few.

One few.

O.

.

Men in pinstripes; gazelle like figures traversing the diamond.  Their strides majestic.  Their jaunt poetic.  Their enthusiasm epidemic.  Their play fantastic.  Their statistics prophetic.  Their swings geometric.  Their homers ballistic.  Their tailor Frederic.  Their music Hendrix.  Their bats phallic.

The thin white lines are the only bound which hold these most cerebral gladiators, descendants of Troy, bound by two white lines meeting in celestial symmetry at home; a most noble site to begin one’s journey, then extending out with open arms and warm greeting beyond the bases beyond the wall beyond the fences beyond the stands out into the parking lot and then like a traveller of democracy out into that little side street with the poor paving and moon crater potholes yet travelled so extensively by weary fathers with their all-too-eager-sons ready to share in that most greatest of American father-son ritual that is known as going to the park to watch the men play ball and then extending out beyond that point to that little deli that always serves the warmest cocoa in April and October and the coldest beer in May, June, July and only the first two weeks of August not the other two weeks because that’s when Salvatore, the owner, goes back to the “mother country” with himself and his wife Maria and their two kids, well the older one did not go last year because he had to stay home and make up trigonometry, but really he ended up just goofing around the whole time because the teacher was the gymnastics coach and really did not know trigonometry either and felt that it was best just to let the kids run wild because, hey, it was not like that tight-wad school district was going to let him stick around long enough to get tenure anyway, and might as well enjoy the summer, especially since there is not much of demand for guys with PE majors and next summer he probably won’t be teaching anyway, probably will be stuck in some desk job somewhere all summer, so when you think about it he might as well enjoy the last summer of freedom, better than sitting around with some thick-as-a-post 17 year olds who are probably just going to end up gas attendants or something, and it is not like it stays 90 degrees forever anyway, so he’s out there along with his class which is not worried the least bit about studying but rather buy beer with their fake IDs and party at Salvatore’s vacant house which his son lets all of his friends into, and once got busted by the cops, and Salvatore ended up grounding his son when he got home but that did not matter for here in the reaches of those two white lines anything is fair and as the lines cross town they extend over the highway and then past the housing project then out into the outskirts of town out by the river yes even beyond the office of my dermatologist, Hi Charles, out all the way out way out way out out out out out out out to the ocean where the confines of those two white lines lift up and extend across the seas into the heavens up to God’s arms where God sits watching the field beneath Him with a scorecard in one hand and a hot dog in the other.

Welcome to spring.

To welcome spring.

Spring to welcome.

Spring welcome to.

.gnirps ot emocleW

.gnirps