Not much to say tonight, but I want to keep the notes flowing. I’m not even sure why, except to say that writing is the only way I know of wrestling some meaning out of life.
I was out on my bicycle last night, riding home from seeing a band. The moon was nearly full. It was a warm night.
My boys played out back with some other kids from the building today and yesterday. Warm days, blue sky. There were kids of all ages back there. My older boy used to be the little toddler out there, the baby among the big kids. Now he’s the biggest kid, and even my younger boy is one of the big ones, and the toddlers are looking up at them.
I just moved here to Chicago. I always think that way. But I moved here a long time ago. I reconnected with Strat-O-Matic the year we moved here, started playing the online game. The rush of that first online season! I didn’t know anybody except my girlfriend, but I knew those cards, the way they stacked up all the possibilities in clean, orderly rows. The years—they flew. I married my girlfriend in Chicago, saw my sons born in Chicago, saw them go from the toddlers out back to the big boys.
I was thinking all this as I was riding home through Chicago under the near-full moon.
Rodney Scott enters a game as a pinch-runner. He steals second base. He steals third base. These are dice rolls. He could be out, each time, but he’s safe, each time. A fly ball is lifted to centerfield. Rodney Scott tags and runs toward home. Another dice roll. It’s Cesar Cedeno out there. He’s got a powerful arm. That’s what I’ll say, a powerful arm. I almost used the most common figure of speech for an outfielder with a strong arm, but I’m through saying that someone has a gun as if it’s a good thing.
Every moment is a dice roll. You never know when it will end. And it all goes by as fast as Rodney Scott.
***
Worcester Birds notes, games 40 through 45:
- G40: W 4-2
- After team allows 43 runs in three games, Bill Lee halts the skid with 5 shutout innings. After the bullpen coughs up the lead (Lee still winless), Tony Muser gets it back with a 2-out 2-run double in the 9th.
- G41: W 5-2 (Fidrych 5-3)
- Fidrych allows 2 runs in 7 innings, and Tekulve clinches win with a hitless 5-out save.
- G42: W 3-2
- Ron Jackson with 2 hits, including a home run; Terry Forster (6 IP, 1 run) with the win and Bill Campbell (3 IP, 1 run) with the save.
- G43: W 6-3
- Ed Kranepool hits a grand slam, and Tekulve pitches 2 perfect innings for the save.
- G44: W 11-5
- Kranepool with 5 RBI and a home run; Al Cowens with 4 hits.
- G45: W 5-4
- In the 9th, pinch-runner Rodney Scott steals second and third and scores the winning run on a sacrifice fly; Tekulve earns the win with 2.1 shutout innings.
Cardboard Gods 
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