Tuesday, August 06, 2002

Notes on a former Chicago Cub lefthanded pitcher from the late fifties

Where are you now, Larry Jackson?

In the bullpen warming up with Grover Alexander maybe? Or hitting long fungoes to Tris Speaker? But Hot Potato actually threw righthanded, contrary to what Johnny Poy Lee recalled. So was that the legacy a soon-to-be father from Toishan saw on the mound that sunny day?

The predestiny of nomenclature explains running into your doppelganger crisscrossing ordained basepaths somewhere out on Idaho fields. At six foot two inches tall weighing one hundred ninety pounds, the ball released sixty feet six inches away probably zoomed in faster than ninety-plus miles per hour. But did he command a breaking pitch, something off-speed or more wicked like a nasty slider?

Perhaps old footage exists of his delivery, his signature windup. Then the possibility to copy his motion, to assume if you will his identity becomes an idea for a project exploring the nature of imitation.