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My friends Steve and Sharon Fiffer started a marvelous site a year ago called STORIED STUFF, where people show the various precious objects in their lives and share the story. He asked me to write one about baseball, so here are my random thoughts attached to an old autographed pill. To see the post in the original site, and to check the many other cool pieces of people’s personal memorabilia, visit Storied Stuff here.

This circus wagon toy from Fisher-Price was one of the most well-built and elaborate playthings I can remember from childhood. The wagon, which contained a multitude of pieces, had wooden bars, working wheels and entrance hatches both front and rear. I’m certain my brothers and I used it as a surfboard, go-cart and mule wagon many times, without inflicting any noticeable strain. Inside the wagon was all the rigging needed to put up a show: ladders, washtub platforms, trapezes, and a yellow center ring with a smooth side and a slotted side.

The circus itself had 11 performers. A camel and giraffe and show horse. A baby bear and a puppy. A monkey with a pipe cleaner tail that in no time snapped off of his wooden body. A seal with a red ball to snap on its nose. A ringmaster who looked like he enjoyed his drink (but remember, drunkenness was funny back then). And of course, a clown.

While I don’t remember getting this wagon as a gift, I do remember that this was basically mine alone, not shared with my older brothers. I spent many hours putting together performances with these and with any other character laying around: a GI Joe, a rubber orangutan, an orange, a swizzle stick.

A few days after President Kennedy was shot, Sacred Heart Church held a special memorial mass. My mother walked up to church and left us three in the care of a neighbor. While she was gone, I decided that all the characters in the circus needed a bath and dumped them in the bathroom sink. That is why the paper adorning the characters peeled off badly, ruining the resale value of the whole set 50 years later.

Apparently, our Scottie dog Tammy smelled some peanuts or cotton candy on this figure and treated himself to some circus food.

And this might be one reason I’ve never been afraid of clowns.

My friends Steve and Sharon Fiffer started a marvelous site a year ago called STORIED STUFF, where people show the various precious objects in their lives and share the story. He asked me to write one about baseball, so here are my random thoughts attached to an old autographed pill. To see the post in the original site, and to check the many other cool pieces of people’s personal memorabilia, visit Storied Stuff here.

This baseball was signed by all of the 1973 Detroit Tigers. I sprayed it with lacquer before my hands wore off the ink of all the signatures. This spherical madeleine is for:

–all the neighbor ladies (Mrs. Moran, Mrs. Galer, Mrs. Caccavo) who knew baseball and knew the players, and taught me a lot about dedication

–Father Bueche who was in charge of the altar boy ranks at church and took us down to Tiger Stadium occasionally, before being removed in scandal later

–all the men in the dark recesses of The Bengal Bar on Michigan Avenue—though I could never see you, I heard your shouts and laughs, and marveled at the tawdry pleasures of adulthood, and wondered who painted that near-psychedelic tiger on your vestibule wall

–the dozens of transistor radios — silver, aqua, cherry red, as the fashions changed — that I used to listen to Ernie Harwell

–the high school Dad’s Club dads, who always managed to snag a dozen of these baseballs to raffle off on new parent night, gladhanders my dad never could stand

–my mother, who pushed my dad constantly to take me downtown to a ballgame

–my dad, who only very late in his life finally told me he much preferred basketball over baseball

–Willie Horton, “Willie the Wonder,” always my favorite player, home-grown

–and Jim Ray, signing right next to Willie, about whom I remember absolutely nothing.

Let’s pause and raise a glass of cheer
To the closing of a horrid year

(Without our loved ones in the room,
We’ll have to give our toast on Zoom.)

Headaches and heartbreaks too long to list
In our own Annus Horribilis

Nor will all be fixed overnight
Like switching off the Christmas lights.

But you would have called me cray
If I’d described all this…STUFF… in May

The crisis has stretched on and on
But still we need to soldier on

Think of all we have endured
Grab your loins, get set to gird.

The one way out of this is through.
We all know what we have to do.

Stay safe, keep faith, be kind to each other,
Soon we’ll gather, sister and brother,

And sing “Auld Lang Syne” and dance and spoon
On or about the 12th of June.

For those of you who miss baseball and have been playing boardgames way too long:

1B   Ted “Clue” Kluszewski
2B   Wally Backgamman
SS   Leo Cardenas Against Humanity
3B   Howard Battleship

LF   Carl Yahtzeestremski
CF   Candyland Maldonado
RF   Shin-Soo Choo and Ladders

C     Ches Crist

RHP   Boardwalk Brown, David Riske, Chase De Mahjong
LHP   Lefty “Life” Leifield, Marshall Bridges

MGR   Luke Apples to Appling

Airan Wright, my partner in illustrative crime (my book covers, Single White Vigilante, and this very website), has been busy with Inktober over on Instragram.  His portrait of Rex below was drawn for the prompt “Mindless.” Not sure if I can take that as a compliment.

Here’s a great review of Rex Koko #3 from the pages of White Tops, the magazine of the Circus Fans Association of America. Now, you might think that an audience of circus fans would be a slam-dunk, that they’d like anything associated with the big top. But you’d be wrong. They are experts, and they will call out something hinky in a New York minute, just like any other expert would do. Luckily, the fans at CFA know what I’m trying to do and, while they will caution that kinkers are not as desperate and crime-prone as I paint them, they enjoy the feel of the world of Top Town and the larger-than-life characters who live there. They’ve seen them, but with less murder in general. I’m very happy that they are fans of Rex.

 

One of my favorite Chicago reading series is Louder Than a Mom. It’s hilarious, it hits my demographic sweet spot, it brings many of my old friends back together, and it takes place in a dark tavern that hosts rocknroll the rest of the week. The closest I will get to enjoying myself in a rock club at this stage of the game.

I’ve performed in the show 3-4 times, but in the March show, I finally had a performance I was proud of. The Link is below. If you are in or visiting Chicago, Louder Than a Mom happens every third Monday at Martyr’s, 3855 N. Lincoln. You should definitely check it out.

• Video projections of Alice’s liver spots
• Alice learns to use SnapChat onstage
• A mean caddy (maybe a Cyclops!?) whistles while Alice lines up a putt
• During “School’s Out”, a bunch of teenagers treat Alice rudely at the CVS
• Alice realizes he should’ve kept all his vinyl
• Dancing car keys taunt Alice while he searches for them
• Eight-foot-tall “roughage monster”

Feb. 17, 2017 —  but updated for today’s realities:

Life is Good

Now that baseball season is on the horizon, take a break and check out our doggerel, served fresh daily, and maybe even contribute if you have a mind to.  Consider it part of your “self-care” regimen.  We ALL need a short break now and again!

BARDBALL.COM

There’s no one begging to be walked when I get home late at night.

There’s no one pushing himself into my lap whenever I dare to sit on the floor.

There’s no one who will bark at phantoms he hears in the Chicago night.

There’s no one who will leave a mess for us to step in when we wake up in the morning.

There’s no one who will sniff at every corner of every fence in the neighborhood, especially when it is windy and below zero.

There’s no one who will love us so strongly and unreservedly.

A couple of days ago, we had to put down Duffy, the wheaten terrier who had been part of our lives for 15 or more years. He was named Harley when we adopted him, but that macho name didn’t suit him at all, so we re-named him Duffy. I’ve never not liked a Duffy. And no one ever disliked him. If anything, he acted too much like a human in the family, getting underfoot, barking to be included in everything. He was pretty uninterested in food yet extremely well behaved. He might have had a dumb name when we got him, but his owner had trained him extremely well.

But his quality of life had gone downhill and wasn’t improving. He’d gone blind and deaf, and didn’t know where he was. Seizures would hit him when he went out for a walk in the sunshine. (I think the sunlight somehow triggered them, but was never sure.) His intestinal tract was irritated more often than not, and when he could find the back door to be let out, sometimes he needed to be carried down the stairs. So it was time to end his suffering. My wife did it while I was out of town on a college visit, because she’s a little tougher than me. (Okay, a lot tougher.)

We probably won’t get another dog soon, because we’d like to travel a little more. But also, because no other dog could really match him. He was one of a kind. He was the dog of dogs. So long, little buddy.

Congrats to Sara Given and her students in the Mexico (Mo.) High School Reader’s Theatre, who earned 2nd place in their recent District Competition, and will be headed to the Missouri State Finals in April !  Way to go!

Their text was Politically Correct Bedtime Stories, and they won IN SPITE of that!  That takes real talent! Good luck at States, everybody!

 

Minnie Minoso
Your name is a song

And why it took so long
To integrate Chicago baseball
God only knows

But you came and showed
The joy of speed
The command of glove
And changed the game
But why do I love
You, Orestes, besides your name?

The Cuban Comet
You flared and flamed
and lit up the place
Wherever you came

Minnie Minoso
Your name is a song
I hope to recall
My whole life long

Hey all you kinkers and flatties out there!

I’m trying to gin up a little flash for Double Indignity in the weeks before Christmas. So I’m going to wade into the waters of a book giveaway, like all the experts tell me.

So if you’ve been waiting for the chance to get a signed copy of Rex Koko, Private Clown #2, as well as a signed poster and who knows what else I’ll throw into the envelope, click on the button below, or head over to Goodreads and look for it in the Giveaway listings before December 10.