Fw: Jimmy Dunstans Corner

[aldoran]

Al Doran
VIA my BlackBerry  
aldoran at pmihrm.com
fastball(at)pmihrm.com 


-----Original Message-----
From: Vance <vance at vanf-graphics.co.nz>
Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 08:02:03 
To:"SNZ Media Release":;
Subject: Jimmy Dunstans Corner

Jimmy Dunstans Corner

 A fictional story by Trevor Rowse
 Any resemblance to softballers you may know is entirely accidental 

 

    Jimmy did not see the ball hit the bat.
    The pressure of the final inning, the excitement of the season, the anticipation of the big prize had let his concentration lapse.
     Now he was paying for it.
    They all grew up together, with little parental involvement, in the State Housing section, just over the creek from the big park. The flat land and few amenities meant that they pedalled for hours, all over town, searching for fun.
    Before long their reputation grew. Larrikins, rascals, scoundrels, ragamuffins and other expressive words have been used over the centuries to describe such a group of boys. They all fitted.
    He almost tripped as he spun left to get to the foul line.
    He was Jimmy “Dunny” Dunstan, the smart one who learned things at school. Max Graham was called “Scuba” because he moved so slowly and there was Jason Malcolm or Jase. They were the followers, along with Weasel, the diminutive and usually unhappy Aaron Michaels, and Blackie, real name Willy Snow, sometimes Snow White.
    Leaders of “The Gang” were Smiler (always frowning) Roberts and Darren (Spike) Webster. Others were Darrell “Sniffer” Watson, Oddy Sparks, Grunter Brown, who said nothing unless to the group, Mario “Nosey Espiani” and the good-looking curly-headed David Boston, called Norman, after the film. 
    Across the bridges, up the creek, making dams and flooding back yards, they did everything except steal, well only fruit that they liked. Darren’s mother would kill him if he was dishonest, but fruit did not count.
    The wind was drifting the ball away from him.
    Was it going foul?
    No it wasn’t going that far.
    Timeless happy days went on until one afternoon the local policeman found them all swinging on trees in the smaller park, right near their houses. He knew them all, with their names in his book many times, and told them about a game which would satisfy them.
    Oh they knew about softball, from school, from the endless queues waiting for a bat, never fielding the ball and countless arguments about who was out and who scored. They did not want to know.
    This was different, said the policeman. If they were interested he could get some one to look after them as a team, put them into competitions and make it all so much more fun.
    No one to back up, no second chance.
    He took a giant breath.
    It was time to dive.
    So they met Manu, the first non-white person to penetrate their group. He was different, twice their age, with some home-made tattoos and a fancy haircut. It did not look promising for the boys but they listened. They did more than that. They played every night after school, Manu or not, into the dark to perfect their skills and for the Dodgers on the weekends.
  
    They did the plays they saw watching the top teams, especially the days when the national provincial championships came to the big park. They watched, talked, questioned, worked as bat boys and learned. By cycling all over town there was always a good game to study.
    No time to think about using the other arm to break his fall.
    Manu was a cunning pitcher and taught them all the skills. Six of them could pitch well enough to win Saturday games, but Scuba, slow in everything else, was the best. He loved getting them out and, when he got too good for the grade, let the other team hit three times an inning to keep the boys busy. 
    They went up to an older grade, happily, and charged through that too. By the end of their second year, coming up 14, most had been approached by other coaches in the club, or by outsiders, to switch. It was beyond their group understanding. They were a one-team club within a club. The association worried about their impact on competitions.
    Their arrival in the open grades, all just over the legal age of 14, was harder. The adults had the experience and more cunning. They kept watching the top teams and learning what it took to beat the wily and sneaky adults. They knew the rules and had weekly quizzes and it was no surprise that Weasel was the bush lawyer supreme. He could persuade umpires to change appeal rulings, quoting chapter and section with ease. It was the only book he had ever bothered to read.
    Diving on and on with the ball still drifting away in the wind.
    Desperately Jimmy stretched his arm.
    Three years later they were so good that the Association allowed them in the premier grade as a second Dodgers” team. Immediately they made an impact and were sly with it, like Weasel, who could fool everyone with his dummy throws and throws to second base without even looking. He was soon the rep third base. Scuba was in the squad as pitcher, not top man, but the papers said it was going to happen. Coach Manu had retired. He said they needed a hard man to go the rest of the way.
    The further it stretched, the further the ball seemed to move away.
    The hour brings the man, they say, and help came from Butch Mason, an older ex-New Yorker who recognised the boys for what they were. They could have survived on the streets of old New York and they were going places.
    There was nothing else in their lives but The Gang, the game and winning. They sometimes went to the movies, but it was all or nothing. That was the same in everything. All went or none went. No one walked or biked home alone, no matter where they were. They were a civilised gang all right, a tribe, and no one was going to prise them apart.
    Butch had played catcher in semi-pro baseball and knew further tricks and better basics, undoing some of Manu’s style in some areas. He encouraged, made them think about their own errors and how to eliminate them, and how to stop any runner moving around the bases, no matter how fast.
    The ball landed in the glove but the impact of his body on the March-dry field was huge.
    Their physical and mental exhilaration was to get a shut out, but were never boring while winning. Other teams lifted standards and the crowds built up to see the Hard Case Boys, as one writer called them. They were showmen with class, like a circus act.
    When the boys were around 19, and getting a little arrogant, the club helped them to the nationals. They raised the cash by group effort, and some of it was physical, building them into men. What a work gang they were and no one took time off, all arriving promptly for the extra work.
    In the first nationals they finished eighth, delighted to see outside teams playing in style. 
    The ball dropped out, rolled over the foul line.
    But to attend the nationals you first had to win your own league so the next season they set out to go through unbeaten. Game after game went by, tournaments, double-headers, midweek matches and they played wherever someone would have them. They were unbeaten all season. It was back to the nationals, with the experience behind them.
    Every one had a paid job, but one that did not involve weekend or after-hours work. If there was one without a job for a while, that was no problem.
    But there was little cost this time, playing the club nationals on the big park, near their homes. 74 matches unbeaten all season and unbeaten going into the final, winner take all.
    Against a club with ten titles, they squeezed Darren home for the lead in the top the sixth and held it.
    But a rough call and a hit put runners on second and third, with two out, in the bottom of the seventh. Scuba was tired but tricky, getting two strikes on the batter, and then came the hit off the end of the bat, the one right fielders dread as it does strange things.
    That was facing Jimmy now. Winner take all.
    Jimmy was flat on his face, no breath, no second chance. 2-1 and all over.
    Lying flat, listening the hubbub of the crowd, Jimmy waited for someone to help him recover but only Butch came. “Good try, son, “he said. “At the Polo Ground that would have been a hit all the way. Not your fault. We were just a year ahead of ourselves.
    He helped Jimmy to his feet and walked him to the team. No one else spoke, to anyone. He felt as if he had lost it all by himself. He was too hurt and winded to speak to anyone in the gang.
    As soon as he could he went to leave the awards’ ceremony and there was no mate to go home. He had no car that day but that would never have mattered any other day. 
    He lived just over the bridge, in the next suburb. It was a short walk but the longest of his life, all alone, almost for the first time, and grieving for his mates. The loss meant nothing to him then, but where were they when he needed them.
    Over the next few days it was the same and Jimmy changed. “To hell with them then, if that’s the way they want it. I did my best, like they did, and we lost.”
    When a couple finally came to his door he would not let them in or see them. He would show them who had the better determination and he vowed not to play for the Gang again. Never. He was the first to transfer, cutting all contact.
    Loneliness still swept over him every day. Grief, anger, disappointment and confusion. He didn’t play long after that, going off to solo sports such as tennis, too high-class for him, and then nothing. His parents did their best to interest him in other things. There was a girl once but she could not handle the moods. Golf, the ultimate person against self sport, was his only solace.
    Jimmy took to wandering the big park in the evenings when people had gone home to their families and friends. Sometimes he would look into the windows of his mates’ houses and see them having fun.
    One morning, a year after the final, a sign appeared in right field at the big park. Jimmy Dunstans Corner. Not even an apostrophe. Someone took it down but there was another there the following year and the next two.
    The Dodgers played on, getting better and better under a new coach who had all the experience and drive. 
    Three years later, in another town, they won the title in another unbeaten season which experts rated as the best of all time. When they came back to the big park to celebrate in the new rooms. 
    Jimmy was outside in the dark, walking down the right field line. He came to his spot. How could he ever forget that piece of grass.
    The speeches were echoing across the field through the perfect softball night. All the names. All the records.
    Jimmy reached inside his little bag and took out a sign. Jimmy Dunstans Corner. Not even an apostrophe! Using a weight he banged it into the unforgiving ground.
    The celebrations turned to cheering the new champions, and toasts. The band started playing, “Take me out to the ball game”, three times, and “We are the Champions”, twice.
    Jimmy sat on the spot. Already half gone with vodka, his drink of the past three years, he swallowed more. “Congratulations, you bastards”, he said and brought out a bottle of pills.
    The music swirled into the night.
    “Now I’ll give you a different reason to remember Jimmy Dunstans Corner,” he said, and added the apostrophe.
    The band played on.
  

 
 
http://www.softball.org.nz/: <http://www.softball.org.nz/>  
 * Email: snz at softball.org.nz 

 Cheers Vance 
 Softball New Zealand web master.
 * Email: vance at vanf-graphics.co.nz