11,854. RUDIMENTS, pt. 724

RUDIMENTS, pt. 724

(far too many assumptions made, pt. 1)

Right off the bat here, a

few things. The first one -

I always had a thing about

timing, and it seemed my

own timing was always off.

I had a friend with worse

timing than me  -  he was

always late, off by a good

segment of time, etc., but

that's not exactly the sort

of time I mean. That's for

appointments and dates. I

think I'm meaning something

deeper than that, more cosmic,

perhaps, having to do with 

living an entire life 'out of

time.' (I wonder if baseball

players ever say 'right off

the bat.' Once you hit the

ball, 'right off the bat' is 

perfect, since first base is 

to the right of the batter's 

box, and that'd be where 

you're off to as the hitter). 

In fact, in reference to 

timing, the placement of 

that sort of 'joke' was 

ill-timed too; it should

have been up at the 

beginning, but it fits 

good where it is too,

because baseball players 

often go on about 'timing'

the ball and timing their

swing, etc. It gets a little

tedious. 

-

Baseball's a funny thing; 

always has been. When I 

was a kid, early on, it was

all about baseball  -  mostly

the only sport we kept to.

Back then, young boys were

always seen scrapping around

with a baseball glove on the

handlebars of their bicycle,

every other street had a ball

field triangle lined out in some

way, for pick-up ball games : 

a rise for the pitcher's mound,

even if it was nothing really,

a strategic tree here, or a rock

in the ground there, for bases, 

etc. Most anything would do,

and boys had their ways of

choosing and getting lost for

hours playing the sport. As is

said, it (was) a timeless game,

one without clocks, one about

wide-open space and grass and

the peculiar limits of strategy,

talent, and chance. Football,

about 1960, was just in its

ascendancy with the arrival of

TV. Johnny Unitas and those

football guys slowly worked

their ways into people's homes 

and minds; but it was never the

same as baseball. Baseball was

slow, and deliberate, back then.

Football was bash and scramble,

running out clocks, escaping time

and penalties,; an admirable

brute force, but a brute force

nonetheless. Both sports had

a lot to do with, and a lot of

problems over, race, back then.

Black was the color of issue.

Until Kirk Gibson powered

that one down a little later.

Football seemed to integrate

better. There were funny things

too, in both sports, over people's

names. Americanized, slang

names, weirdly pronounced and

Anglicized names, even the

Hispanic ones, when that began.

It was always funny for me,

with football and Johnny Unitas,

seeing how it, or hearing how 

it, was pronounced. You-Nite-Is.

Weird, because in essence it's

the same word-base as 'United'

and probably should have 

sounded more like U-Neet-Ahs. 

But it never did; what American 

was going to wrap his tongue 

round that, in 1958?

-

The first sport I ever saw on TV,

at about age 8, I guess, was in some

Bayonne guy's upstairs apartment.

My father had taken me along, I

guess we were visiting, to go up

and sit with this guy and a few

others, for some televised boxing

match. They were all gung-ho

over it; maybe some bets were

involved. I didn't know the guy,

nor any of them actually, but I

sensed I didn't much like him,

just by the feel of the place. One

big, sort of empty room, it seemed

like, lit too glaringly, and the TV,

simple as it was (they were really

little back then) was pretty high

up, like 6 or 7 feet I'd guess, on 

like a column or a pedestal thing,

all by itself. Temporary, for the

bout, or not, I didn't know. There

were 3 or 4 simple chairs around,

no order, nothing fancy. Some 

guys stood, and others had seats.

They had cans of Ballantine beer.

I noticed that because, in Avenel,

our neighbor, Ralph, from Brooklyn,

still worked as a beer-chemist or

whatever it is, at the Schaefer

Brewery in Brooklyn. He went

every day, and Schaefer and

Ballantine were head-to-head

beer rivals in the NJ area, our

part of it anyway. South Jersey

had Schmidt's, from Philadelphia.

But I didn't know anything about

that. This Schaefer guy, Ralph,

was even on TV himself once. I

watched. There was a 15 minute

documentary or story or something,

on the local Brooklyn brewery, and

there was Ralph himself, doing

his day's work, in a blue science

smock thing too, with a test-tube,

supposedly measuring the beer

content for something or other.

They made it all look it very 

scientific. I guess it was.

-

There were also some breweries 

in Newark, but they all fell away,

except for the corporate Budweiser

thing. That was always big, and

is still there, like corporate 

near-beer almost now. The rest

of them, Piels and Pabst and

all, they were scattered about.

Now, by contrast (my timing

here is way off) there are craft

breweries and small-beer houses

everywhere. But, back to this

guy's room in Bayonne.  The

men watched the boxing match.

They made noises, cheered, and

groaned. They had something to

say at each break, between rounds.

No one moved, not even to pee,

for the 12 rounds, or whatever it

was. I just saw battering-ram

figures, guys on the TV, little figures

in hunched black and white, beating

the smithereens out of each other.

They each had these things in their

mouths, to protect teeth, I guessed,

and occasionally one or the other 

of those would go flying out of a 

mouth. That's when the guys

would really cheer; or when 

someone went down, or 

got back up, and went down 

again. Neither guy ever stayed 

down, so it became a 'decision' 

fight  -  no knockout, no

'technical' knock-out, which

is what it's called when the

referee cuts the fight short when

one or the other guy is about

to get slaughtered beyond

acceptance. The other boxer

would then win by  a 'technical

knock out.' I always thought 

that was funny, like life, or 

even a baseball game, when,

say, in the fourth inning the

score's already 14-1. They 

could call a 'technical go-home' 

because your team is so 

miserable we don't want to 

see the real ending. But in

baseball that never happens. 

Nor do ties (even scores). 

They just play it out and there's

always the chance, all of a

sudden by some huge resurgence

and a few home-runs and men

on and all that, the score is 

suddenly 15-14 by the end, 

and the crummy team wins!

That too could be like life,

I guess; but I always figured

the bums and hobos I'd see,

all beat and useless, around

their barrel fires and drinking

their street booze, they were

'technical knock-outs' just

still living on, past their time,

and with really bad timing too.

All the wrong assumptions get

you nowhere in the end, and

ain't that a kicker and with

far too many made.
-
This night was, by the way, the
first time I saw or realized how
my father didn't really fit in. He had
little in common with these other 
men, and I'm not sure how he'd gotten
in the mix. Maybe work, or maybe
childhood, friends, or Navy guys.
Certainly, my father was never one
of those stand up and cheer kind of
guys; he maybe had interest in
things, but to no great extent. I
don't think he had bets down. He
did drink beer, but he drank it alone,
on our front stoop. It had no social
significance for him at all, and  -
the usual way he complained about
everyone  -  made me not see him
viewing any of these men as being
exemplary. Why he'd even brought
me along was a question. So, as
it went, the fight was over, they
started playing cards, and we left.
No dirty jokes ensued, nor any
women either. My father didn't
even speak about the night. There
was another time I can remember  -
same room, and same guy too  - we
entered too say hi and he was sitting
there all by himself, with a beer. It
was a Sunday, and he was watching
a baseball game. Sports again.
-
(pt. 2 follows)