Friends, I didn't always write these novels. For the better part of thirty-five years, I was known for eighteen-inch stories in newspapers, and for the final twenty, they generally consisted of tales of race cars running wide-ass open around and around. I still rely on such tales for spending money. If journalism still ran on …
Tag: baseball
Inside the Park
It was the bottom of the sixth inning on a Tuesday afternoon, and Johnny Shelburn stepped to the plate with the bases empty and two men out. Sacks, his teammates called him. He played first base. He took a strike. A little high for his taste. The Larranega Heights pitcher was a lefty. He …
And Away We Goooooo!
Sigh. I have so much to do. It's a matter of chipping away at all of them until, at some point in the distant future, I'll get a vague feeling that something has been accomplished. This is how I lost my way. On Monday, I spent the morning producing a weekly NASCAR column for Bleacher …
The Crazy World Is Just Getting Older
It's a lovely Saturday morning, not that I have so much as cracked a door to sniff the chill wind. My confidence relies on the sunlight flickering through the blinds behind me. The outside world flickers, also, affected by the various blinds of the programming I happen to be using. I read Sarah Palin's Facebook …
The Inestimable Benefit of Sport
"Remember that time we almost lost to Hugheyville?" "Yeah," Dan Dimmelmeier replied. "Us playing against a school so small that they barely had enough boys in the student body to field a team." "Went into the seventh inning trailing by a run," his best friend, Brandin Porcher, recalled. "Then we tied it on a single …
Not Just Another Baseball Novel, and Not Just Another Sports Writer
I've read Philip Roth's The Great American Novel, about a ragtag baseball team during wartime. I've read fiction about Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. I've read novels with a supernatural element. What I haven't read is a novel like Matt Caldwell's The Lost Tribe, which combines the themes above with a few more subplots thrown …
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The Inside Dope from Halford
This is kind of a writing exercise. I decided I'd exercise my dialogue muscles by writing a short story that tells the entire story in the form of conversation. In this case, most of it's on the air. "It's Springfield Dynamos baseball, live on Oldies Ninety-Seven from Auckland Mosaics Ballpark in Halford. I'm Lamar Bridgman, and …
The Inevitable Descent
Here's the full short story previously posted in four segments. I hope you enjoy it. 1.THE FEELING BOTTOMS OUT The first observation of Clyde Barns on his birthday was that his Facebook timeline was crammed. Some just cut and pasted “Happy birthday,” some took the time to add his name, some attached cartoons with rabbits …
Various Absurdities of the Televised Sporting Life
Between episodes of an irreverent short story, I’ve decided today to write about sports in this space, rationalizing it on the basis that what will be written forthwith is fictitious and exaggerated. ORCHESTRAL INTRO “Live from Grand Canyon Arena in Teaneck, New Jersey, it’s the finals of the Rust Belt Conference Men’s Basketball Tournament, matching …
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A Matter of Trust
This is the final episode of a short story. The first two, in order, were “A Bit Sketchy on the Details” and “The Wrong Girl.” Barney Parmenter was mildly surprised when the Sheriff was still at his office, and a little disappointed, but he’d said he’d drop by, and it wasn’t wise not to live …
Nightrider's Lament 