Page 3 - Way Out to the Old Ballgame

World Series

leagues was as foreign to Bosconi as gladiatorial combat in the
Coliseum of Rome. The pomp and ceremony of opening day, the
rubber-chicken lunch meetings in airport hotels, the administration
of documents and their handlers—in these activities he excelled.
Among his academic colleagues he could wax poetic on the ancient
values and rituals of the game, while enjoying the cachet of
involvement in big-money professional sports.
And here he was, lost in a fantastic distorted dream of that
involvement. Somewhere, he perceived, deep in his buried childhood
memories, were the seeds of bitterness and envy which had later
sprouted in the fertile soil of his adult commitments and frustrations.
Yes, there it was, the primal scene: a public park, a gang of boys, a
bat and ball and mitts, and the dust of the playing field stinging his
nostrils. They had chosen up sides, and had not chosen him at all.
Couldn’t throw, couldn’t catch, couldn’t hit. He had run from the
park, from his friends, from the warm give-and-take of aggression
contained within time-honored rules and regulations.
He’d learned a lesson that hot summer afternoon. And had it not
been the turning point of his life, the moment when he veered off the
path of common struggle and partisanship to the chartless plains of
intellectual discourse? Did he not find greater satisfaction in looking
down upon the conflicts in his university than in getting caught up in
them? Were his own contributions to scholarship not models of
objectivity, of balanced views and judgments withheld? Yes, and as
flattering to his pride as being commissioner of baseball truly was, he
harbored a lurking suspicion that someday the piper would have to
be paid: an issue would erupt and he would have to choose sides; it
would be the wrong one, of course, and his fall would be prompt and
precipitate. Thus the dream, of course; it all made sense, a comfort in
itself.
“His mind is wandering, General Korok.” hissed the Writher.
“Then let us lighten the trance enough to keep his attention on the
problem at hand. What mush these earthlings have for brains! No
shielding, no fail-safe, no target-locking or auto-destruct. With your
permission, Admiral Lussessi, I will push our presence somewhat
more forcefully into his awareness.”

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