DIAMOND DOG & NICKEL COMPARISONS

Originally published on March 10, 1997

Whoa! Un mistek! It should read "and I reckon we'll see you Friday night at Howrey Simon near ten..."

You'll have time to sign-up at your new sportsclub, get your first sweaty whacks in, recover and greet us by then I would suppose.

Batting cage residues: not as sore as you predicted. In fact, not sore at all, just tired, and that's as much a response to excess spirits in a bottle as pumped up team spirit in the batting cage. How's your arm feeling this morning? Uh, not that you were exactly slinging bullets, but it IS a new activity, and spring arm is simply a fact of diamond lifestyle. I feel a slight ache in my throwing muscles. Next week you should really try to flex your own a little bit more in that department, and you definitely need work in the fly ball depth perception routine, but I am confident your natural grace will aid you as quickly as your confidence, not cocksurity, or over-confidence, but simple humility-driven confidence, rises to the occasion. Even infielders must snag a pop fly on occasion...

As I write this I am remember Kerouac's fondness for baseball, and Bukowski's overwrought distaste for it...

CB was simply a jerk, preferring instead to stress his ingenuities and flex his flopmop muscles at the racetrack. A twenty spot staked on a figger-rigged mare of many sure beats running around the bases after just swatting the long ball, in his book I reckon, but man, baseball IS the game! Anybody can play at some level. And you don't have to lose a lot of money to the mafia in the process...

GT