Stinkmitt • July 17th, 2015
BROOKLYN – It comes to nobody's cock-wise surprise - especially those of us who have peeled a razor-sharp tin of Penns amidst a BQE wall awash in rains of neon fuzz - that the ever-knowing Albert Einstein, when asked about the future of our society, would make a clear and direct reference to stickball. In a 1949 interview with Alfred Werner and in the still-hanging radioactive mists of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the great theoretical physicist proclaimed that he knew "not with what weapons World War III would be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones." And so it is, as all of us YFSers know - a future unconditional fact - that any future is best left to stickball, just as it was for the first annual York Field Stickball Futures Game that featured sticks-a-swing and just enough embryonic stones for a game beyond bed-wetting drudgery.
Friday, July 17th couldn't have been a more romantic and enchanting evening for the exhibition of the YFS's seventh season zygotes. Despite the looming darkness and throat-crumbling fear of an impending Bambino-esque curse after the recent trade of YFS founder, godhead, and atom-splitter The Mechanic to the ministerial confines of Seattle, the unprecedented move birthed a fresh crop of seven soft-skulled rookies who took to the field with butterflies aflutter in their cloth diapers. Batting practice was nervy, an almost somber affair strongly contrasted with the confidence and swagger that marked the legendary Hendrix national anthem that seasoned the field with the "you ain't swung shit youngins" confidence that the evening's festivities were at seemingly impossible odds to live up to. YFS co-Commissioner Soy Peligroso captured the moment straight-away, announcing to the greenies that he'd seen "more boldness and bravery in his own late-night back-spackle."
Still, with an NYC skyline-view reflected in the East River at Donnie’s Dome, the cards and lines were drawn and the lineups fell into place for the one-game rite of passage with afterbirth glory at stake. Rookie Lenny, Rookie Andrew, Rookie Joey, and Rookie Rick made up the BLACKS while the REDS filled their lineup with Ryan S., Red-Shirt Rookie Marc and Rookie Dylan - a lineup featuring players with Fall Classic experience and ponytail-bloodline power that teetered them toward seed- and sack-advantage. The first inning, then, came as no surprise as the REDS quickly followed the BLACKS' top of the first slash effort with a three-run opening frame. YFS co-Commissioner The Surgeon lent the sullen Blacks some encouragement, reminding the "girls" that they'd "be women soon."
And soon enough, so it would be. But not for any of the blush-cheek boys wielding a borrowed YFS rod with fish-eyed hopes for fences. In a straight sucker punch shock, all rights to the future were handed out to center field in the top of the fifth to a sticky-handed boy in center. Just when the BLACKS were drooling on their bibs, Rookie Joey hit a frozen-rope line shot to center field that would surely get him off the schneid and to full-sail the BLACKS' half-hards. However, as the ball tore through the Donnie sunset-air and the BLACKS' suds were about to taste that much sweeter, a ten-year-old hand reached up from the throng of a center field basketball game to torch a one-handed catch - lady liberty-style - without skipping a beat, simply returning to his drive to the hoop after an “I can’t be bothered” Penn-toss back to the mound. The call, as should always be the case in the face of any such sack-puckering miracles, was "OUT" as all of us were gifted with a fresh twilight image of a snare to stroke and curl to.
But the glory of the day hadn’t all yet been swallowed as stickball’s most coveted rookie prize of the MVP Award was still in the balance, and, that artificial mam was no treat to be tricked from the stick of Rookie Lenny. After a game of back-and-forth lead-changes and equalizers in underwear-brunch head-bobbing fashion, the San Francisco import stoned up and moon-shotted a postcard-arc over the right field fence in the top of the ninth - putting a glint into every darkening window of the skyline and every empty beer can and syringe adrift in the East River - ultimately summoning the BLACKS to victory for the first-ever York Field Stickball Futures Game. Said YFS co-Commissioner The Surgeon while chef-ing and chaperoning the after-game BBQ as he was mobbed by SAS flight attendants pouring out for autographs, "the back-and-forth nature of the game almost made the diaper-shit smell disappear, but it's only these Kobe beef burgers and Grandma's secret-recipe pasta salad that can distract us, even if momentarily, from the dank and frightening prospect of this future."
The annals and entrails will reflect the image of a dazed Rookie Lenny with a prized Futures MVP award held shakily to his own chest, but the spotlight is spun toward the stick and stone Futures of the myriad of breasts yet nursed. Your move my children.
Blacks: 12, Reds: 11
Future's MVP: ROOKIE LENNY
HRs: Rookie Lenny 3, Ryan S. 2, Red Shirt Rookie Marc 1, Rookie Andrew 1, Rookie Dylan 1
Blacks: Rookie Lenny, Rookie Andrew, Rookie Joey, Rookie Rick
Reds: Ryan S., Red-Shirt Rookie Marc, Rookie Dylan