This here is a game of chances.
It can go any way I make it go.
I’m in the driver’s seat.
Every pitch is an opportunity.
The Opponents are big and strong,
racked with veiny muscles.
They flex in the trimmed outfield.
Jorge Fujinari is in the dugout.
He’s the best hitter of his generation,
even though he was caught juicing.
A hundred fans burned their jerseys that day.
They almost put him out to pasture,
but he was too good.
If you’re a winner,
your failures are easily forgotten.
I look like a stickman.
That’s what my teammates call me.
Stickman. Sticks. Sticky Joe.
I’m next on the chopping block.
This game is my last chance.
Coach Raleigh told me so.
Everything’s in a downturn.
But I can throw the ball hard.
I’ve got my head on right.
Nothing happens till I make it happen.
The future is my choice.
This game is a cage I can work my way out of.
I was once the rookie favorite.
The violent crowd of 50,000 screamed.
All wore t shirts of my young face.
Streamers and doohickeys were going off.
They called my name over stadium speakers.
I walked through a long concrete tunnel,
came out running on the bright diamond.
You could hear it three counties over.
That was years ago.
Today is another day in a string of days.
The crowd has discovered my greatness was a myth.
Now they settle into a murmuring quiet.
A group of ladies
sings the national anthem
An old man in a wheelchair
chucks the ceremonial first pitch.
I take the mound.
This is a place for memories.
I’ve always been alone,
my toe on the rubber.
Anyway, it’s time to play ball.
I set and throw a sinker to Ricardo Jones.
Tricky Ricky we call him.
The pitch trails outside.
Ricky sees it.
I spit.
My stuff’s not there.
He fouls off a two seamer.
Sees my cutter in.
Tips a sinker.
Gets a piece of a fast ball,
and another fast ball,
and another fast ball,
and another fast ball.
I started playing when I was five.
I was nothing special.
I’d cry when the ball hit me.
I kept going even when I wanted to quit.
My dad liked watching my games.
Nobody ever told me to stop.
Ricky crushes my changeup.
There it goes.
I know better than to turn and watch it.
The crowd groans.
Attaboy. There he is. Meatball.
Here comes what they call a pregnant silence.
My daughter’s name is Krystal
like the burger chain.
She is my special little burger.
She doesn’t come to my games
but today she’s up
in the box with her mother.
They are shadows watching me.
I have seen less of them in the past year
due to my enjoyment of cocaine
and all the things that come with it
such as drinking and fast vehicles.
I look home with a fresh ball in hand.
I work it between the heels of my palms.
It’s round like the planet and wears dirt like a human face.
It’s the perfect weapon for entertainment.
Silverhand Torkelson comes up.
He knows he’s pretty.
He flashes his pearly veneers.
He blows me a kiss.
He sets into a balanced stance.
They say anger is poison to your game.
But for me it’s like candy.
The ball barely misses Torkelson’s face.
I want to make it bleed.
I want to put fear in him.
I just want to kill someone sometimes.
I know I shouldn’t.
The next one smacks off his ribs.
His ab muscles flex around the impact,
and he rolls on the ground.
He is a wounded animal.
Trainers come and hold his hand.
The crowd cheers for him,
and he limps back to the dugout.
I stand proud for the audience.
Here comes Coach Raleigh.
Our conversation is a carbon copy
of all our conversations.
What’s going on, Sticks, he says.
That one got away from me, Coach.
Figure it out. Let’s go.
And I’m out there by myself again.
On an island surrounded by booing people.
The crowd gets angrier and louder.
All their hatred swelling.
Drinking and chanting and shoving.
This was once a game of geometry and balance.
But it’s going out the window.
I look up and see Krystal.
She recognizes me
out here in a weird situation.
She lifts her little hand
and waves.
I push my hat down over my eyes.
Now Greg Stuckle is up.
I’ve always liked Greg.
Not because I feel bad for him,
but because he’s a first baseman.
He’s nice and chatty.
Couldn’t hit a tee ball though.
Some folks get by on their qualities.
He smiles as he enters the box.
Just a stand-up guy.
I pitch around him.
Usually he’ll swing at anything.
He doesn’t swing once.
He walks.
I figure I’m close to getting pulled.
Then I’ll be through.
There’s someone younger and better warming up.
Always someone riding your ass.
I look up and see Krystal’s mother.
She’s on her cellphone.
She knows what’s bound to happen.
I’m a piece of failed amusement.
A toy run out of batteries.
I smear some dirt in my hands.
I remember swinging Krystal around in the yard.
I remember posing for photos at Christmas.
I remember jumping off a pier into the river.
I remember laying on a quilt in some open glade.
I remember playing catch with my dad.
Now here’s Jorge Fujinari.
The crowd is chanting his name.
Every stadium is his stadium.
Every blade of grass is his blade of grass.
He is heroic and colorful.
I heard the league invented
a jersey for his dimensions
because his biceps were tearing the sleeves.
I don’t know about that.
But he is pretty big.
It’s always like this
with bad becoming worse.
I know I’m a fuckup
and if you crash your car
and get violent at the drop
of a hat maybe you shouldn’t
be allowed to have good things.
I’m thinking too much.
Throw the ball.
It goes fast as I can
make it go, pulling out
all the stops. My shoulder pops
and it doesn’t matter
because Jorge is watching
the ball
all the way in
and he turns on it
and his swing is like a drunk
driver and the weight of the universe
held up by a toothpick
and the sound of it explodes
the eardrums behind home plate and the world
is silent for a moment
until the crowd erupts
screaming, crying,
pulling at their faces.
Purple fireworks go off
above the scoreboard.
A loud siren blares.
The ball goes farther than any ball ever.
It lands in a politician’s penthouse.
The politician sells it for two-million dollars.
Coach Raleigh comes out again.
He crosses a field of disappointment and rage.
He extends his open hand.
You’re done, he says.
Please, I say.
I can finish.
No you can’t.
I’ve seen this one
too many times.
You’re finished.
I give him the ball
still warm from my hands
and step off the mound.
Peanuts and tchotchkes and spit
rain down on my head
as I walk off the field
into the dugout.
My teammates are silent.
They refuse to look at me.
I’m an empty uniform.
The athletic trainer comes
from the clubhouse door.
He has a funny little mustache
and wears athletic glasses.
C’mon, Sticks, he says.
Time to go.
Can’t I just watch? I ask
feeling like a little league kid.
No, you can’t, he says.
We’re all told, each and every one of us.
I’ve seen guys go down
kicking and screaming
but I follow him out of the dugout
into the clubhouse
into a separate concrete room.
It’s cold and smelly
like a trash chute.
He has me sit in a plastic chair
and pushes his glasses up on his head.
He pulls out a long metal syringe,
dips it into a pool of dark fluid
and fills it up.
This is not my favorite part, he says.
But you won’t feel a thing.
Why do I have to go?
Because you aren’t good enough.
This is a game of money and feelings.
You know how people get.
He stabs the needle into my thigh
and plunges the dark stuff into me.
It leaves a gaping hole.
It is no longer my leg.
My veins feel sharp and cold.
I can’t stand on my own.
The trainer helps me into a wheelchair.
He pushes me down a long concrete tunnel.
The chair squeaks along the uneven floor.
There’s a pin of light at the far end.
The light grows until we reach a metal door.
He unlatches the door and dumps me out.
He leaves and locks the door behind him.
I can’t move.
I can’t feel anything.
I’m in a naturally lit courtyard
surrounded by concrete walls
lined with portraits of players.
I recognize some of them.
I’m one of them.
Overhead there’s a platform for spectators.
Krystal and her mother are watching,
their familiar shadows fixed in place.
A whistle blows.
A crowd of violent fans closes in.
They paid for VIP tickets.
Some cracking their knuckles.
Some varnishing bats.
Some just there to watch.
The fans pin me down.
They grab my hair.
There is sawing and resistance.
Then my scalp peels off
like it was pasted on.
My hair is thin and grey.
A fat man wearing a jersey
with my name and number
hoists it in the air and the skin drools
over his fist like red snot.
Then he wears it like a cap.
Hoot Hoot Hoot Hoot Hoot.
The crowd dances over me.
They pull off my fingers and the tendons
droop from the hands.
I am beaten by fists and souvenir bats.
Four hooligans in face paint
grab my arms and legs
and pull
and pull
and pull.
Something pops in my shoulder.
My pelvis sounds like a sneaker
stepping on broken glass.
I am torn apart
and dragged in four directions.
They rip open my stomach
and see the cereal I had for breakfast.
Fanatic preteens pry apart my ribs
and play keep-away with shards of bone.
My lungs slip out of their cage
and calloused hands squeeze
the breath out of them.
They’re crushed to a pulp
like fish lungs.
Dozens of grabbers claw
at my guts and tug
until everything runs out
in a wet coil.
I look up in the middle
of it all happening so fast
and see Krystal.
She waves her little hand
at what’s left of her daddy.
A woman with a foam finger
jabs her vibrant nails into my eyes
and plucks them out.
They’re left hanging for a moment.
Dizzy information is sent to my brain
before the nerves are snapped.
My teeth are kicked into my throat
by a working man’s heavy boot.
I am stomped into a fine paste
like a thousand busted ketchup packets.
The fans huddle together arm in arm
and sing for the seventh inning.
There’s nothing left.
I did nothing to deserve my body.
Remains are scraped off the floor.
Fans and collectors take it all away.
Pieces are sold on Ebay.
Scraps are displayed in the team store.
Vials of blood are available for purchase.
The ownership group keeps my heart in a jar.
Another plaque goes up in the Hall of Shame.
Somewhere down the line,
they’ll run the numbers
on my career and say,
He was nothing special.
-- Owen Paul Edwards lives in Maryland. His writing has appeared in HAD, BRUISER, Spectra Poets, and elsewhere. Find him on the internet @oweneds.