The Theory of Games Read Online Free Page A

shortstop for the Chicago Cubs! Back in the ‘80s we were the single A affiliate for the Cubs and Shawon started off here. He had an arm like a rocket, very wild as a kid. They had to put an eighteen foot high chain link fence behind the first base bag because of him. It’s still there, I’ll show it to you.”
    Kate tried to act impressed. “Wow, I’m really impressed,” she said. “Are you sure it’s okay if I wear it?”
    “Yeah, it’ll be fine. Shawon won’t mind. He’s doing other stuff now anyway. He retired a couple of years ago.”
    Kate demurely turned her back to me, slipped off my dress shirt, put on Dunston’s old jersey and then made a graceful dancer’s pirouette. She looked drop-dead gorgeous in whatever she wore.
    “Okay, baseball time, Bill!” I announced. Bill loves a good ballgame; or maybe just the hotdogs and the people and the smell of cut grass. I don’t know; but he loves going to a ballgame.
    So, with a lot of help from Kate, I got Bill - who was now all antsy and hopping - into his shoulder harness, grabbed my faded blue River Rats cap from the hook by the door and we piled into the Olds and drove down the hill to the riverfront to Lou Weissman stadium.
    Andy Grudzalanek, the vice president of baseball operations (AKA head groundskeeper) for the River Rats was an old friend and would sneak us in behind the left field fence. We parked in the dusty free lot under the on-ramp of the bridge that crosses the Mississippi and made our way behind the outfield advertising signs to the shed where Andy parked the tractor. I had called ahead on my cell phone and Andy was waiting for us.
    “Hey, Doc, Bill c’mon in! You playing hooky from school today, Doc?” I was pretty embarrassed about having to explain why I wasn’t teaching today but it didn’t matter because Andy didn’t wait for my reply. “Don’t worry about the boss today, Doc, he’s out of town.”
    The owner of the River Rats and I didn’t exactly see eye-to-eye anymore ever since he tore down the old press box, put up a row of luxury suites and started charging for parking. In fact I may have made a few comments about how this behavior was un-American and contrary to the very egalitarian nature of baseball itself, which was the backbone of our republic. And, in all fairness, I admit that it was probably an exaggeration when I said that his actions were the primary factor in the collapse of modern day society and America’s loss of respect in the world’s eyes when, obviously, it was only a contributing factor; albeit a major contributing factor.
    I introduced Kate to Andy and the four of us walked over to the Rat’s bullpen which was far out along the left field line. Colt Brankowsky, who had pitched the day before (a nice little three-hitter for his tenth win of the season, waved to us. “I heard you on the radio yesterday. Do you really think I’m going up?”
    When I was a kid ballplayers were normal-sized people. They looked just like everybody else. That just isn’t the case anymore. I’m not going to get sucked into the whole steroid argument; I don’t know who’s doing it and who isn’t. Colt, however, was just a naturally damn big kid. He’s nineteen, six foot four, doesn’t have an ounce of body fat and can chuck a baseball ninety-five miles an hour more times than not right over the outside corner of the plate. Technically, he was once clocked at 102 miles per hour, but nobody had thought to calibrate the radar gun with a tuning fork in about a month so the speed was more than a little suspect. “Well, Bill’s pretty sure you’re going up,” I answered.
    Colt looked at Bill and Bill wagged his tail. Bill had sat out in the bullpen during plenty of games and they were old friends. “Are they going to take out Bill’s pacemaker and give it to the Vice President?” Colt asked and you could see he was really worried.
    “Naw, Colt, it’s Bill’s forever. Don’t you worry.” I motioned to Kate.