(or 2001 a Strat-O-Matic
Odyssey)
by Phil Trygar
In a way, I hate to keep relating stories of card destruction, but on the other hand, I find a lot of humor in the memories I have of those stories. Call it sadistic…call it what you will… Maybe I just find humor in the strangest places. Take for example, a league compatriot of mine that found it in his heart to name his team the Rocky Mountain Oysters. Apparently, I was one of the few who knew what they were, so I was probably one of the few in the league to find the team name as unique and interesting, so to speak, as he did. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this delicacy (I use that term loosely and I for one can’t bring myself to eat them), here’s a URL for you to check out http://www.funlinked.com/testicle/ If you’re not sure what they are yet by the URL, here are some other titles; Barnyard Jewels, Cow Fries, Crabby Bull Balls, Battered Balls, and Ranch Fries. It also reminded me of a little joke.
A Texan was travelling through
Mexico. Tired from his long trail ride and getting quite hungry, he stopped at
the nearest small town for some rest and a bite to eat. He walked into a
restaurant and was surrounded by a wonderful smell. He could hardly wait to try
the local cuisine.
He asked “What smells so good?”
The waiter said “Once a week we have a bull fight around here. What you smell
are Rocky Mountain Oysters from the bull. I am sorry sir, but you will have to
wait until next week to get some because only one person can be served, as
there is but one bull in the fight.”
The next week, travelling back the way he came, the man stops at the town, goes
into the same restaurant and orders the Rocky Mountain Oysters. He's in luck
because he's there first. They were frying and he smelled the wonderful smell
and could hardly wait.
When they were brought out however, he was disappointed in the size of them.
The ones he saw served the last week had been bigger. He ate them and before
leaving he commented that they had been small.
“Well I am sorry Senor, but sometimes the bull…he wins!”
But I digress…yet again. The topic of this chapter centers on the Lackawanna Strat League...yet again, since I spent many years of my misguided yute, playing FTF in that league. The Kirby family was fond of dogs and owned a black Lab type dog named Casey, and a Boxer named Kelly. Both dogs spent a good portion of their lives being pestered and tormented by the boys of the LSL, so it was only fitting when Kelly gave us back a little of our own medicine on occasion.
In the early days of the league, players such as Mike Schmidt, Cecil Cooper, George Brett, Robin Yount, Steve Carlton, J.R. Richard and Bruce Sutter were the dominating players. In the summer of 1981, most of them belonged to Bobby Carey. His team was dominating from nearly start to finish in the league, and he had considerable skill as a manager as well. It seems he was also not very fond of dogs.
Now Casey was harmless enough, not having enough brains in his head to bother anybody. He had been unknowingly locked in a room when he was a puppy, that had been freshly painted. When he was finally noticed missing and a search turned him up in the newly painted room, he emerged sky high on paint fumes and staggered around for the next 10 years of his life as high as a kite. Now Kelly on the other hand, was smarter than your average dog, although looking at her you’d never know it. Kelly had a face that only a boxer lover or her mother could love. Big square head…pointy ears…stubby tail…and best of all, a drooling mouth that stank of things best left unsaid. On top of it all, Kelly could pass gas with the best of ‘em.
It seemed Kelly had a fondness for us all when we came over to play, but none more than Bob. Bob did his best of fend her off, but she seemed to sense his distaste of her, which only made her drool and slobber on him all the more. No amount of pushing, shoving, smacking or yelling could pull her face away from him…and one day, when Bob could take no more of her garbage scow breath, he took her by the collar and banished her outside. Mr. Kirby came along and took the dogs for a walk and we continued to play Strat on the kitchen table. Finally deciding to take a break, we ran down to Maroni’s pizza for some lunch. While we returned and sat down to continue our series, we discovered the unthinkable…Cecil Cooper was missing!
Now the immediate thought was that either Frank or Jeff had hidden him as a prank. It was only when we noticed that the dogs were back in the house that both of us looked at one another and said “Nooooo…you don’t think?” A trail of slobber dangling off the edge of the table was the first clue as to what might have happened. Kelly lay in the corner on her dog bed, surrounded by an unseen, but certainly smelt cloud of doggy methane, one eye half opened, lazily staring at Bob and myself. When we crept closer to her, she closed her eye and we both thought it seemed like she was faking her sleeping. Can dogs do that? Anyway, upon closer inspection of Kelly’s face, there was the corner of a Strat card barely sticking out of her mouth.
Since neither one of us wanted any part of her mouth, we interrupted Frank who was playing downstairs, and he proceeded to straddle Kelly and attempt to force her mouth open. Looking back on it now, he looked like the Crocodile Hunter standing over her, a hand on top and bottom jaw trying to pry a surly croc’s mouth open. Finally he succeeded and sure enough, there was Cecil Cooper, still in one piece, but soaked and discolored by dog slobber almost beyond recognition. “I’m not using that card after it’s been in her mouth!” Bob exclaimed. It seemed though, that he had no choice. We were using the community set in those days, so there was only 1 Coop in the immediate vicinity. So he gingerly put the soggy card into a baggie and proceed to play out the season.
Kelly on the other hand, garnered a second helping of revenge later that year. In game 7 of the playoffs, Cooper came to bat in the bottom of the 9th with 1 out and a runner on third. The roll resulted in a flyball b? (rf), which Bob insisted was a straight sac fly to rf to win the game. Tony on the other hand insisted it was a b? and Frank White should have to try and tag up. After a delay involving many heated words, Frank as the commish decided a dice roll would determine the result. It came up an odd number, which was agreed beforehand to be the b? result, and ultimately White was thrown out trying to score on a 1-13 chance. Tony then won the game in extra innings to end Bob’s season. Probably to this day, he thinks Kelly robbed him of a championship.
Funny how those kinds of Strat stories can be equated with some real life occurrences or bad calls. Does it have any doggy similarities to the Derek Jeter home run that wasn’t vs the Orioles in 1998? The moral of the story…When playing Strat, try and keep the peace with everyone in your league…including their dogs…you just never know when some bad blood or bad vibes can come back to bite you, literally and figuratively!