Maybe Mary was joking, or maybe she just didn’t want her picture taken. Or maybe she was serious. Either way, Mary said it would cost us. As well it should. Mary’s a big deal around here.
So we never took her picture.
She plopped down next to us, 2 rows behind the Mariner dugout, in Peoria’s 80-degree heat. Dave and I had beers and brats in hand. I was snapping pics and texting my family when she came down the steps to her seat.
I focused on the brat. That was before we met Mary.
“I’m Bill, this is Dave.”
She reached to shake hands. “My name’s Mary. I’m 90 years old, and I’ve had season tickets to Spring Training since they opened this park 30 years ago.”
The 2020 Ex-Mariner of the Year announcement was all set for February 2021. It was a campaign marked by the deepest dive we’ve ever taken here at Playin’ in the Dirt. We searched MLB postseason rosters… added a Ross Eversoles bracketfor guys still gripped by the game somewhere you’ve never heard of… an offshore bonus bracket for ex-M’s in foreign lands… we even put in a special folksong bracket for Ex-Mariners named Abraham, Martín, and Juan. And Robi.
So there we were, a year ago, ready to unleash the big announcement. Seriously. It was ready to go. No, teacher, the dog didn’t eat our homework. It was something way worse.
Absolutely, totally, unequivocally not the Ex-Mariner of the Year. (Bellevue Breakfast Rotary)
It was #thatman. Kevin Mather. Voldemort.He Who Shouldn’t Even Have Been Named Again here on these pages.
It’s cheesy, really. A whole book of cheese. We love cheese. With baseball in particular, our weepy overwrought technicolor memories of perfection are just… well yeah. Cheese.
But I gave him the book anyway. And now I’ve had it longer than he did. It was Father’s Day 1996 when he got it from me. With love. Says so right there in my red scribble on the title page.
Tonight’s serving with cheddar please.
It was the June after I took him hobbling up the Kingdome steps to the last MLB game he’d ever see in person, the ALCS opener against Cleveland, when Bobby Wolcott, in the only postseason action of his short career, walked the bases full with nobody out in the first inning. Right about then Dad might have said “well shit, let’s go home” before Bobby found himself and worked the next seven frames for the W.
And it was still a few years from those same Indians sending us a special gift in the form of Jose Mesa, whose two seasons in Seattle were defined by an ERA over 5.00 and by my father’s habit of screaming at the TV that goddammit if they were going to pay any random SOB three million plus to just serve that shit up, why the hell didn’t they let him, Kirby Walker, do it for half that much at 82 years old?
Those are just the kind of cheesy stories that fill the pages of Mudville Diaries. Minus my dad’s endearing profanity of course. People’s best and worst memories of baseball. Verbal imagery. Classmates, teachers, teammates, opponents, brothers, sisters, moms, ballparks, balls, gloves, heroes and goats. But the recurring theme, bang, there it is again, is Dad. And again. And again.
And my dad left the bookmark right at the page where I put it, all those years ago. “Dad, read this” it still says, in that same red scribble. It’s the page that stood out from the cheese. The page that held, for me as I read it in that bookstore, what’s real about men and kids and a game that, like Santa Claus, stays magical for only those lucky few who hold on and believe it to be so. My dad was one of those guys.
Still there after 26 years.
And under that bookmark, still there where I left it on Father’s Day 1996, with love, are these words from Gene Carney:
He was bigger and stronger then And you knew he could knock you over If he really wanted to cut loose He lobbed at first And as he threw harder You knew he was testing you Seeing what you were made of today Noticing how you handled the stings Watching how you backpedaled When he tossed infield flies He made you run Firing one wild high or Bouncing it past your dive Maybe so he could rest up some Maybe so you could rest up some So the game could go on Till dinner time or till dark Or till one of you Grew up
Did we really have that game of catch every day? A couple times a week? Once every season? Once, ever? Did we really, ever? …does it matter?
He was 90 when we lost him. It still hurts after fourteen years, a fresh, jagged blade in the ribs whenever I have big news to tell him, advice I need from him, a ballgame I’d like to share with him.
Or when I just need a game of catch. Cheese and all.
Not many years ago, my late father woke me up at 3AM. He’d been gone nearly a decade by then. But his “Hey! Billy! Write this down!” yanked me from bed, and I ran to the kitchen only to find myself alone, Dad still long dead, and my fingers typing five stanzas he’d dictated to me as I slept.
But I’m no poet.
With that in mind, my daughter – she’s my daughter and my muse – convinced me in 2019 to do this poetry challenge called EscApril. Writers use that happy spring month to crank out 30 poems in 30 days, with a daily prompt to get started. I had silly fun with it, and did it again last year in the second month of lockdown. That made it extra fun.
Then she asked if I planned to do EscApril again this year.
This time I actually challenged myself. This time I decided all 30 poems would relate to themes, characters, and scenes in Diamonds and Dirt. …while using the prompts given by The EscApril People. Whoever they are.
It’s baseball, lies, abuse, revenge… fun stuff. Enjoy responsibly.
I’m on the corner in front of Katterman’s Drug Store. They took one look and ran me out after I paid at the register, caked in dust and sweat from an afternoon on the diamond.
So now here I am. Debating.
Do I rip open this pack of Topps in the August swelter? Risk pissing Mom off even worse than I know she is? I’m late already. Why not take a look? Or do I hop back on my bike, sprint home, beg forgiveness, bolt up the stairs, and take refuge in the bathtub?
One foot on the pedal, I straddle the seat and… no. No! I gotta see who I got. The waxy wrap falls away. Funny, the bubblegum feels like cardboard, and the cards smell like bubblegum.
Tom Who? Why do they fill these packs with rookies?
Yesterday morning, mlb.com projected the starting lineups – without pitchers – for every single major league team. That’s thirty lineups. And let’s just say there’s a ton of ex-Mariners out there who are judged to be good enough to start for one of the 29 major league teams that aren’t Your Seattle Mariners. Fifteen position players, to be exact. Let’s say that again.
Fifteen ex-Mariners, not including pitchers, fifteen ex-Mariners will be on starting rosters for other teams come April this year.
Yeah, hard for us to look at too. But it’s all good! Read on!
(baseball-reference.com)
The fire sale on the Mariners roster takes no account of the feelings of the fans, the burning desire to grab that playoff spot with the men on the club right now, the love we feel as family for these devoted ballplayers who’ve given at least a piece of their lives, bitter as it may be with all the losing, to us. But it’s all business. Stiff upper lip, chaps. And what not.
Here at Playin’ in the Dirt, we had to blow off a little folk-song steam along with all the tears, so here, as our gift to you, our one or two verified readers out there… well, you know the tune…
I focused on the brat. That was before we met Mary.
Edgar and friends (AP)
