Brain Wreck

This is the story of why I often feel the need for some serious therapy. I did apply to appear on the Dr. Phil show, but his producers told me that my story didn’t fit their current needs. It seems that when I applied, they were looking for sets of twins who had started families with each other or murdered some immediate members of their family or close friends or neighbors while following the advice of therapists who were not named Dr. Phil. Dr. Phil, of course, would solve all their problems in his allotted one-hour time slot and sell a whole lot of advertising while advising them to just get over it. I was just looking for free therapy. I tried to just get over it, but I might be on that show one day for getting even with my brother Billy.

My brother Billy, who was 4 years older than me, was a much better baseball player than I was, and he helped me learn the finer points of the game. Unfortunately, Billy had no boundaries, nothing embarrassed him, and he was known to occasionally do some rather offensive things, both on and off the baseball field. My mother, who was a soft-hearted comforter, always overlooked Billy’s shortcomings and supported him in every way, as only a mother could.

When I was a young child, my original ambition in life was to become a singing cowboy. This was because I was easily influenced, and I watched a lot of old Gene Autry and Roy Rogers movies and TV shows. The requirements for this job were that you had to sing, no problem, learn to play the guitar, nothing for a guy like me, and become a good enough marksman with a pistol to shoot a gun out of a bad guy’s hand without injuring him from about a half mile away while you were both riding horses that were cranked up to full gallop mode. Again, no problem for a guy like me. I was a totally macho 5-year-old who was too stupid to know about fear. Sadly, my cowboy dream died the day that my parents took me to the Anheuser-Busch stables and I got to sit on the back of a real Clydesdale. That Clydesdale was the first live horse I’d ever seen, and the damn thing was bigger than a semi-truck. I was up so high that I couldn’t even see the ground. Needless to say, I was absolutely terrified. I knew right then and there that if cowboys rode Clydesdales, I wanted nothing to do with any of the rest of the cowboy life. An interesting fact about singing cowboys is that after the Roy Rogers Show went off the air, Bob Dylan and Dale Evans partnered up and went into the restaurant business. That’s how the Bob Evans chain got started.

I fell under the tutelage of my mischievous brother Billy after that unfortunate experience, and I soon changed my life’s ambition from singing cowboy to center fielder for the Great St. Louis Cardinals. That’s when I started playing baseball with Billy and the other neighborhood kids almost every day. Billy, who, as I said, was much better than me at baseball and everything else, was the star of his little league team at the time, and he became a sort of local legend as much for his antics on the field as his baseball prowess. He also got in a lot of trouble for many of his shenanigans. Of course, my poor mother was always there to console him every time he got into trouble, which he managed to do frequently.

We lived in a small town, and we were lucky to have organized baseball of any sort. Being a small town, there was not a great deal of financial prosperity. The local merchants, business folks, and civic organizations did support the local baseball teams, but all we got for uniforms was just a t-shirt with the name of the sponsor on the front. It was up to us to supply the rest of the uniform. This often resulted in some rather astounding combinations.

By the time I was old enough for organized baseball in the 9- to-12- year- old league, Billy had moved on to the next level for 13- to 16-year-old players. We had several children in my family, so there was a long tradition of hand-me-downs. In keeping with this family tradition, my parents gave me Billy’s old baseball pants and rubber cleats. This was Billy’s 12-year-old uniform. I was 9. The shoes were loose, and the pants were way too big for me. The good part was that I got to play center field. The bad part was that I did it with my left hand in my glove and my right hand holding up my pants. Well, I guess I don’t have to tell you what happened in the very first game of the season. A fly ball was hit to my right, and I started after it in my big brother’s floppy shoes, and then I had to let go of the waistband of my big brother’s pants in order to run after the ball. I had only managed to run about four steps when the greatest tragedy of my young life befell me. The pants went down around my ankles. I went down on my face. Then, adding insult to injury, I was also wearing my brother’s old jock strap, which was also way too big for me. I had it on because he had assured me that it was what all the Major League ballplayers wore. So, not only did I do a beautiful face plant, but I also became the first little leaguer in our town to flash and moon a crowd of parents, relatives, classmates, and small children. Not even my brother could claim that honor, at least not in a real game. Needless to say, I was mortified! That was the sudden and emotionally scarring end of my baseball career.

Later that day, as I was sitting with my head down on the kitchen table in a state of absolute despair, my soft hearted, comforting mother came and sat beside me and put her arm around my shoulders. She said, in her best comforting mom voice, “Honey, it’s not so bad. I’m sure that even Major League ballplayers sometimes shit their pants when they’re sliding across home plate.”
“Ah, Mom,” I said through my 9-year-old tears, “That was Billy, and he did it last year, and I had to wear his crappy old pants and fall down chasing a stupid fly ball and let everybody in town see my naked hiney and everything else, and now I can never go out of this house again!”
My mother very gently patted me on the head and said, “Oh Honey, it’s not so bad. I’m sure that even Major League ballplayers sometimes show their naked butts and things to the crowd while they’re trying to catch a fly ball. Would you like some chocolate chip cookies?”

I spent the rest of the summer hiding in my house and watching the neighborhood kids through the window while they played baseball. On the first day of school, I was pale as a ghost from spending the whole summer indoors. Then, to add more insult to injury, it seems like every kid in school had spent most of the summer dreaming up nicknames for me. I was called Shiny Hiney, Whitey Butt, Ball Butt, Moon Boy, Wilt Weenie, and a bunch of other stuff I’d rather not talk about. Two of my Hispanic classmates started calling me Grassy Ass. I thought they were thanking me for something, and I always said you’re welcome. My mother taught me to always be polite. They finally had to explain it to me. After that they just called me pindejo. I still don’t know what that means.

As an adult, I still have dreams about playing center field for the St. Louis Cardinals. In my dreams, the back of my jersey, which fits beautifully, only has my last name and number. It does not say Shiny Hiney or anything else. Anyway, when I’ve had a good day, the dream is that I am standing in center field at Busch Stadium on a beautiful afternoon under a clear blue sky. The batter hits a high fly ball and I never even have to move. The ball just comes down right into my glove. On special days, it’s the final out of the seventh game of the World Series. On the other hand, when I’ve had a really bad day, I am standing in center field at Busch Stadium on a beautiful afternoon under a clear blue sky. The batter hits a high fly ball and it’s coming right to me. I put my glove up for an easy catch and my pants fall down around my ankles and I’ve even forgotten to wear my jock strap. The game, of course, is being nationally televised, and several fans sustain serious injuries while falling out of the stands with uncontrollable laughter.

Yeah, I might need to contact Dr. Phil again. Maybe I’ll have better luck this time. My brother Billy grew up to be a lawyer. Gee, there’s a surprise

A great moment in Major League history occurred on this date in 1886. After a 22 to nothing beatdown by the New York Metropolitans, the Brooklyn Robins, who later became the Brooklyn Trolley Dodgers, the Brooklyn Dodgers, and finally the Los Angeles Dodgers, lined up on the third base line of the Metropolitans home field, and then every member of the Robins dropped their pants and mooned the New York City crowd. It was the highlight of the year for the Robins. This interesting historical fact makes me feel a little better about the whole thing. I would also like to remind Billy that revenge is a dish best served cold.