"Good try, but let's do another take" calls the photographer snapping a posed shot of the new catcher for the Manville Minutemen who's pretending to scoop a baseball out of the dirt with his mitt while throwing off his face mask with the other hand.
I'm in the training room behind the dugout stocking ace bandages and can't see their faces but do hear his ugly response and it takes me back to being nine-years-old in Brazil:
"Hey bitch, just shut the fuck up and get this baseball card bullshit over with!"
__________
"That'll be fifty centavos young man" said a pale bald guy behind the counter at a luncheonette that sold baseball cards just across the six-lane highway from our favela.
I just stared at the numbers stamped on his forearm and tried to count out the coins I'd just gotten by squeegeeing car windows at a nearby traffic light, all the while terrified that the creepy old man had seen me slip another pack into my pants pocket.
"Get any good ones?" whispered Jorge that night when he caught me sliding the shoe box of cards behind the gas stove in the corner of our one room house.The little boys were asleep on our mat and our Mom was at her job at Class Night Clube.
"An MUP candidate" I gushed, pulling the box back out and showing him Al McBean of the Pittsburgh Pirates.
"That's MVP for most valuable player, and relief pitchers don't have much of a shot" he reasoned, flipping the card back into the box after reading the back.
"Any card is eligible for my Most Ugly Player award" I countered, revealing the depth of my baseball card obsession in the summer of 1967.
"Hey little buddy" he cautioned, "some of our futebol friends might kick your white German ass for calling a black player the ugliest man in baseball."
"It's not that he's black, it's the funny way he's pretending to bend forward for the picture."
"Don't you have some other award for this Al McBean?"
"I know, he can be the first nominee for a Lookie of the Year award."
"Joao, you're too much" he laughed, giving my head a little push toward the unused stove.
"Great, that shot should do it" concludes the photographer after the tenth take at an action shot.
"Hey babe, how about a few more shots in my hotel room tonight?" winks the catcher as she stalks away without looking back.
"That's MVP for most valuable player, and relief pitchers don't have much of a shot" he reasoned, flipping the card back into the box after reading the back.
"Any card is eligible for my Most Ugly Player award" I countered, revealing the depth of my baseball card obsession in the summer of 1967.
"Hey little buddy" he cautioned, "some of our futebol friends might kick your white German ass for calling a black player the ugliest man in baseball."
"It's not that he's black, it's the funny way he's pretending to bend forward for the picture."
"Don't you have some other award for this Al McBean?"
"I know, he can be the first nominee for a Lookie of the Year award."
"Joao, you're too much" he laughed, giving my head a little push toward the unused stove.
__________
"Great, that shot should do it" concludes the photographer after the tenth take at an action shot.
"Hey babe, how about a few more shots in my hotel room tonight?" winks the catcher as she stalks away without looking back.
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