The great Willie Mays on The dugout steps at the Polo Grounds

I just wanted to tell you that we just had our first Thursday baseball yesterday and it was wonderful. Electrotech is a completely new brigade and these guys can play. Also, watch out for the Builders. They play a very serious game.

I also wanted to say something about our stadium. It really does look fantastic as a baseball park. Not many people talk about it anymore but it was somebody’s crazy idea about 60 years ago that we should dig a low spot and pile all the dirt we can find from the center all around the outside until we had dug ourselves a running track and a football field. They really liked soccer. We do too.

So you can imagine the dimensions. We’ve got a high wall in left and then in right and guys like to slap the ball off those walls so that they carrom out into the outfield and set the running game in motion.

Deep into the game with the score tight and a runner on third, Sam connected with a slider that just didn’t slide and sent the ball out to center what had to be easily 450 ft. The thing is that we have this center fielder named Felix and he has some kind of magic about him.

With reflexes infinitely sharper than a woman with a newborn baby, he read the direction and distance of the ball almost from the moment it made contact with the bat and broke back towards the barrier at full speed. I have no idea what the geometry or trigonometry was that was being played out before my eyes, I don’t know how he could have possibly known, but at full sprint he somehow managed to put his glove up and pull the ball out of the air.

The runners, believing it was at least a triple, all trotted their obligatory bases only to be woken by the deafening roar of the crowd when that ball was caught. All the runners had to scurry back in reverse to get to their bases. But amazingly, I don’t know any other way to say it, absolutely and magnificently amazingly, Felix had the balance and strength to plant his right leg in the grass and going completely against his momentum, brought his body to a full stop and then reversed its energy in an explosion violent enough to fire the ball on a line directly to the catcher who did not need to move his body or his glove.

One sharp peg from the catcher got Oleg at second and that was the end of everything. Glassworks took it and everyone who was there got to see Felix play baseball. I tell you, it was like he was born for it.

Shabbat shalom. Don’t forget to check out the Utopian while you are eating and sleeping tomorrow. Holy cow! 4 hours of content! How about that?

Okay, just one more thing. Here’s Duane Kiper’s call:

He hits it far, he hits it deep it is… caught! I can’t believe he caught it. But wait here comes the throw, they’ve got Oleg at second. Double play and it’s over. The inning’s over. What did we just see? How did he catch it? On a dead run straight to the deepest part of the park and he somehow pulled it out of the air stopped and threw a strike to the catcher 450 ft away! I’ve never seen anything like it. I have never seen anything like it.

Yeah man. Just sit on the grass and watch the ball game. That’s living. That’s really living. Cheers,