O.J. Simpson is an inspiration to all of us. Poor guy. First he loses his wife, then he has to go on trial for the crime, and since his acquittal he has spent 12 years desperately scouring every golf course in America in search of the elusive twat who killed his dear, departed soulmate. His heroic persistence is already legendary, but now, in attempt to help authorities identify and apprehend the brutal killer, he has written a book detailing how, if he were the killer, which he is not, he would have gone about nearly decapitating his beloved and the horny piece of ass accompanying her.
I find his creative sleuthing quite intriguing, if not altogether a breakthrough in creative nonfiction. And since imitation is flattery’s bitch, I’ve decided to mimic his tactic and apply it to a preposterous fable about me – the one where I (allegedly) got kicked out of a Major League Baseball locker room by a Hall of Fame manager wearing nothing but underpants, knee-high tube socks and a scowl on his face.
If this incident had in fact transpired, which it most certainly did now, it probably would have happened when I was 18. I would probably have been a stringer (newspaper industry term for “scrub”) for a community newspaper called The Enterprise. Since the newspaper would have worked me like a slave and paid me absolutely nothing, they probably made one of my greatest dreams come true by handing me a small, credit-card-sized press credential for big league team that played in or around Los Angeles, probably close to something called Dodger Stadium.
Again, this experience never actually occurred, but if it had I probably would have swallowed my Chiclets when I walked into the press box and saw the stadium at which I’d grown up from the best vantage point in the place. And I probably would have pretended to be an actual journalist despite the fact that I was just a kid whose previous manifestos for the newspaper were so small as to not even warrant a byline.
When the game was over and the alleged team from LA had beaten an alleged team from San Francisco, it’s feasible that I may have urinated down my leg when I showed the security guard my press pass, slid it into my shirt pocket and walked into the first Major League locker room I’d ever seen. I was probably in awe, trying with my limited intellectual power to commit every sight, every sound, every bare Major League ass to memory so I could someday write about it on a blog that’s supposed to be about fatherhood but usually isn’t.
After I’d walked through the locker room and seen irrefutable visual proof that a player on the team who I thought was Jewish was clearly not, I probably would have followed the rest of the local press corps into the office of the manager. His name may or may not have started with a T, as in Tommy Lasorda. There’s a chance that I would have followed the flock of reporters by sticking my little tape recorder thing as close to the manager’s mouth as I could without taking a throat culture so I could record his voice and play it back later for my asshole friends who thought I was lying about the following experience.
After the man who could have been named Tommy finished his comments, the flock of newspapermen and talking heads probably dispersed back into the locker room to interview players who played a key role in the game. After doing the same for a while, I might have decided to take advantage of the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity before me and gone walkabout around the clubhouse. I might have walked down the tunnel and into the dugout, my top-siders crunching on sunflower seed shells and slipping on discarded chewing tobacco that covered the concrete floor. And as I walked back down the tunnel toward the locker room, a security guard may have stopped me.
“Can I see your press pass please?” he might have asked.
I probably answered, “Sure,” and reached into my shirt pocket where’d put it.
And it probably wasn’t there. Which may have caused me to lose all control of my sphinctorial orifice.
It’s possible that I then began to blubber and fumble my words and try to explain to the guard dude that I swear to Sandy fucking Koufax that I was there legitimately on a credential from The Enterprise and perhaps you read my article last week about the local high school’s water polo team and its streak of near-drownings.
If this had happened, the security guard might have put the Vulcan death grip on my left bicep (or at least the part where a normal person would have a bicep) (whereas all I had was a humerus bone and some pasty-ass white skin) and began to firmly escort me out of the clubhouse, but not before he dragged me through the locker room so that every player and media member in the room could see my face and remember to stick a Louisville Slugger somewhere on me if I ever showed my face there again.
Having heard the ruckus, the aforementioned manager may have stirred from his three-cheese lasagna lunch and run down the long concrete hallway to see what was happening. He may not have been wearing much. And the site may have been like seeing one’s great-grandmother feverishly running at you in her granny panties and a “Liquor Up Front, Poker In The Rear” t-shirt.
“Hey!” he may have shouted. “What the fuck’s going on down here?!”
At this point the security guard may have informed the manager, who is now an inductee in the Hall of Fame, that this skinny little twerp snuck into the clubhouse and could not produce a press pass despite his claims of legitimacy.
The manager, whose ass I could totally have kicked, may have looked me up and down, snarled at me and said, “Get the fuck out of my clubhouse, you lowlife piece of shit!”
The security guard may then have escorted me the rest of the way down the dark hallway while the manager went back to his lasagna. As we neared the exit, the security guard may have confided in me that there had been a rash of thefts from the clubhouse recently and that had made the manager especially sensitive to trespassers. He then may have opened the door for me and said, “Have a nice evening,” which no security guard would say unless he knew you were totally fucking innocent, none of which really mattered because you were still entangled in the post-traumatic stress into which people fall when they see a 65-year-old man running at you with his frumpy old wanker swinging to and from in his size XXL underwear.
But none of this really happened.
Well, thank god it never happened, because that would be extremely traumatic and could possibly scar you for life. Also I am horrified at the idea of a large man eating lasagna wearing nothing but a jock.
So what a relief to know that it's a fiction.
I was doing okay until you got to the part about my great-grandmother in her panties and T-shirt. Then I lost it. Danny, you are a funny man.
Get to the part where you didn't cut his throat and the throat of an innocent bystander.
Or am I mixing up stories again?
What ever made you think that Fernando Valenzuela was a member of your tribe? Or was there another anteater in the locker room?
LoL...it all makes sense to me now! You poor thing...
Thank you. You and OJ have finally cleared up for me what exactly "creative non-fiction" is... I like it!
I grew up absolutely worshipping the Dodgers. My ultimate dream was to be a "bat girl" but since there didn't seem to be any chicks allowed, the dreams of a ten year old girl were crushed.
Love your story although I am a bit disappointed in our Skipper. But seriously, all I really want to know is did you see Steve Sax in his itty bitty towel? Cmon..share the details! I have been in love with the guy since I was ten and I am-cough, cough- thirty something now. Although my love faded a bit when I discovered he had never voted in his life, was a registered Republican AND he actually listened to Rush Limbaugh...no offense to those of that persuasion but that just ain't my gig.
wow, what an interesting/traumatic thing to not have happened to you! did you not get any pictures while you weren't there?
did the crop dusting incident with said manager that starts with a T happen or was that also fiction?
Hey, you and Tommy Lasorda. That's great.
I hate Tommy Lasorda.
i stopped reading after you said: poor guy
That's a great 'non-story'. Now I have a real one for you:
This past Saturday, after my husband and I closed our restaurant, we went to a nearby bar for a quick drink. This very young man (twenty-three)sits down next to me and within 2 minutes I find out he lives in Simi Valley and within 4 minutes he tells me that one of his roommates is Dave Cruser (he graduated SVHS in 1987) - water polo Dave Cruser! Dave is currently in China competing for Survivor:China. Watch for him.
I thought it was strange, but I'm strange, so maybe it's not that strange and only I think it's strange. Right?
Tracey
I am apart of a message board trying to find out the names of contestants on the new Survivor. Do you have any more information on this Dave Cruser guy?