The death of a pitcher

pitchers & poets (Blog post selected for 2010 Best American Sports Writing. Congrats):
I.

They ran the bases for Jaime Irogoyen. His family, his friends, and his teammates were all there at Estadio Carta Blanca in Juarez, Mexico at 11:00 AM on January 17. I like to imagine they were still dressed up from the funeral; that they came straight from church. I like to imagine that they filed out of the dugout in their suits and lined up behind home plate like Little Leaguers.

In my version they all stand silently for a while, unsure of what to do. There is no pitcher to get things started. No base coach to windmill them around the diamond. They stand silently in the quiet sanctuary of the empty stadium. They scratch their heads and ponder life and death and the way a baseball field can make everything outside its lines or walls or fences disappear. Finally an old man (maybe a grandparent or a coach) grumbles impatiently; he knows death well. Let’s do something, he says. Vamanos.

The first person to run is Jaime Irogoyen’s sister. She jogs with her eyes on the dry clay in front of her, rounding each base perfectly, so that her foot only barely touches the inside corners of the bags. The old man who grumbled before nods at her technique. The next mourner runs and the next one. Each waits for the person before to reach first base before taking off. Each runs with his or her head down so as not to offend the imagined pitcher. After all, Jaime Irogoyen was a pitcher.

-eddie

Homeless students

Michael Overall (Tulsa World): Her father had a phone message waiting for him when they got home.

Tapanga Wenrich never heard the message itself, but she remembers Daddy telling Momma not to worry; he would find another job.

He had been out of work before, once for several weeks after falling off a ladder and hurting his back. He always found another job.

"My daddy's good at building stuff or taking stuff apart," she explains, using an imaginary screwdriver to work on some imaginary project. "He can build anything, especially houses."

If Tapanga were poor, she didn't know it a year ago, when her father lost his construction job. Store-bought clothes filled her closet, dolls and toys littered the bedroom floor. Hot water came out of the bathroom faucets, and the lights always came on when she flipped a switch.

- eddie

In 300 words

Brady Dennis (St. Petersburg Times/Gangrey):

The end is the beginning: He's already cleared out his office, attended the farewell party, listened to the speeches, said his goodbyes.

His three kids have grown and moved on. His gray hairs keep multiplying.

And now, five decades of work are behind him. He's delivered newspapers, sold furs in a farmers market, manned a grocery store register, helped customers in a clothing store, taught middle school English, endured medical school, attended to the sick and dying.

Only a day ago, he was in charge of 200 employees at the Pasco County Health Department. Then he woke up as a 66-year-old man with no job, no obligations, no meetings, no more need for neckties.

What does a man do on the first day of the rest of his life?

After the sky fell: The few drivers on this dark, lonely stretch of the Suncoast Parkway in Pasco County pull up to the toll booth, hand their dollars to Lloyd Blair and then speed away. None of them knows why the old man sits here, night after night, working the graveyard shift.

Well, here's why:

Because years ago, on a freezing winter night at a party in Queens, N.Y., he met a woman named Millie.

The secret lies in summer nights: She can't know the secret just yet. Not at this age. Not now.

So don't tell her. Don't ruin it.

Just let her lie atop the car and wear her 3-D glasses and drink in the movie.

And much more . . .

-eddie

To die for

Lane DeGregory (St. Petersburg Times): LARGO — Rachel Wade stood before a crowded courtroom Friday afternoon biting her lip, blinking through tears, waiting to see if she would spend the rest of her life in prison.

In July, a jury convicted the 20-year-old Pinellas Park waitress of second-degree murder for stabbing her rival in a teenage love triangle.

Sarah Ludemann, 18, bled to death in the street on April 15, 2009, just two weeks before her senior prom.

-eddie

Spare your credit card, sir?

Jim Rankin (The Toronto Star): What would happen if, instead of spare change, you handed a person in need the means to shop for whatever they needed? What would they buy? Can you spare your credit card, sir?

In New York City, an advertising executive recently handed over her American Express Platinum Card to a homeless Manhattan man after he had asked her for change. The man, who had been without home after losing a job, used the card to buy $25 worth of deodorant, water and cigarettes. And then he returned the card.

Concerns over the wisdom of sharing of credits cards and credit card fraud aside, the unlikely encounter became a talking point — a feel-good story about, as the New York Post put it in a headline: “A bum you can trust — honest!”

Is that such a surprise?

-eddie