Thursday, December 01, 2005

Notes on a hall of fame

A partition blocks the entrance into the sacred place, a memory palace long forgotten. On the opposite side is a vitrine housing a dusty satin athletic jacket whose reflective gleam shines off the bronzed bas-reliefs and glossy text covering all the walls within. Frozen in time, such a personal moment transcends historicism beyond legend yet fights together to immortalize loss and commemorate something quite mundane as a specific time gone awry. Remember that defense, not offense supposedly wins championships.

The story unfolds from left to right first, position by position as the throngs sardined around the opening passage, read to themselves the words printed below:

RANDY HONOLD
Literally, death to all flying things reincarnated. The best "pure" athlete on the team, leftfielder "Doctor" routinely demoralized opposing teams by casually robbing batters of seemingly easy extra-base hits on montrously-hit balls way over his head. His ability to come in or go back on a ball plus his deceptive giddyup speed enabled him to quickly make up ground to track down any batted ball for an automatic out. Opposing teams frustrated themselves trying to blast the ball past him on the fly and eventually gave up hitting anything in his direction. In the championship game, Randy raced in and watched in disbelief as the deflected liner hit ground and bounced away from him and the prone centerfielder allowing the winning run to score.

CARLTON MOK
Arguably, pound for pound, the strongest man on the team. "Mo" patrolled centerfield with veteran craftiness. What he lacked in size, he more than compensated with desire and intensity. His encyclopedic knowledge of opponent batting tendencies permitted "our Itsilbitsilar friend" as he is often called, to position himeself accordingly to maximize any angle to :get on his horse" chasing down a ball hit in the gap. Ironically, it was "Mo" who dove helplessly at the deflected liner off the mispositioned short centerfielder for what should have been the final out for a championship victory.

WILL CASEY
Never say die. Stentorian six foot eight inch high rightfielder Will intimidated the opposing teams with his size and voice. An incessant chatterbox, he dared hitters to "feed me leather". Slow of foot, Will played any hitter unusally deep. His defensive strategy was to use his height and very long stride to ramble in, building enough momentum to engulf any flyball with his massive iron-grip hands. Playing the first five innings of the championship game, Will rotated out of the lineup for another teammate to play. He coached from the sidelines, screaming encouragement even when the team lost its composure in the final inning.

Visitors now stop to genuflect.

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