The House on Mango Street

The House on Mango Street

[A Dan Shaughnessy column as imagined by Hart Brachen of The Soxaholix.]

—-

Some 1700 miles from the lush summer evergreen of your asymmetrical civic jewel, your charming, priceless antique, Fenway Park, is a world of dirt streets, bare feet, and mango trees.

It’s the kind of place Angelie Jolie might dub the next earthly womb to pluck another round faced kid from a life of destitution. Because here there are only two ways to rise above the dust – a deus ex machina intervention or you make the big leagues, the Show.

Well-versed baseball fans know I’m referring to the Dominican Republic. Island incubator of some of the greatest hitters and pitchers ever to play the game.

Somewhere in a tiny village in the D.R., right now, as Boston fans squeeze their overindulgent, lobster rolled rear ends into the luxury boxes at Fenway, cell phone on the hip, a skinny kid, a Dominican, is tossing rocks at a line of dented, weather-beaten Coke cans he has meticulously set up along what was once the tin roof of the where he was born and his mother was born in and his mother’s mother was born.

The place they called home for generations, however, is no more. Hurricane Beta took care of that, leaving this small village in rubble when she plowed through late, last October with wind speeds clocking in the same range as a fastball thrown by one of the island’s most famous sons.

But life goes on for these resilient island people, these dreamers. There are no curses here, no time for self-indulgent cries of cosmic foul play. No, here, there is hope and there are black beans and rice. (Sometimes the two are one in the same.)

And the roof line of the now broken down shack, about waist high makes the ideal spot to line up a half dozen cans and then turn around a pace off about 60 feet or so.

Clink! Clink! Clink! One after another, with relentless precision, the skinny man-child with the short afro (worn just like his hero) delivers a perfectly pitched stone dead center on the cans.

Clink! Clink! Clink! They tumble over and fall majestically, almost musically, back on the tin roof from the force of the throw, making a second sound as they hit the roof and slide down the grooved tin. And if you’re a dreamer, like this skinny kid with a fire-breathing arm, it’s easy to imagine the second sound of the cans falling on the rusted tin roof is the “Ugh!” from the hapless hitter who can’t catch up to your fastball and swings through with all his power only to miss and look hopeless in the process.

Over and over the tropical phenom in training knocks over the cans, resets them, walks back to his “mound” and repeats the process.

He never tires of throwing. He never tires of dreaming of one day wearing the crisp white uniform of Major League starting pitcher under the bright lights of his home turf, cheers of his adoring home fans echoing off the outfield fences.

But this island boy with the big arm and big dreams never imagines himself in a Red Sox uniform. And why should he?

When the forefathers of New Englanders stepped off the Mayflower at Plymouth Rock, they brought with them avarice, hate, disease, and in a very short time destroyed or drove off the very people who could help them, the Native Americans.

Some 400 years later little has changed in these parts.

History, it is said, never repeats. Whomever said that, though, has never spent anytime among the self-proclaimed “most sophisticated fans in baseball.”

Sadly this so-called “sophistication” is really a ruinous aberration that knows no bounds. Never has one city been so reckless with baseball pitchers. Had so much yet given so little.

In 1920 the sophisticates drove Babe Ruth out of town. He was lazy. Greedy. A prima dona. (Sound familiar? It should.) You were blessed again in the late 80s and early 90s with Roger Clemens, the Bambino progeny, beefy and powerful, and sure Hall of Famer. But he was in the “twilight of his career” so you dumped him, like a syphilis laden blanket in an Abenaki longhouse.

And then there is Pedro Martinez. Petey, the greatest pitcher to ever don the red stockings. Younger and more personable than Clemens (some even joked that he spoke English better than the Rocketman), but he, too, was deemed damaged goods, a spoiled prima dona, not worth a few extra million to keep around (the kind of throw away money, mind you, a billionaire like Red Sox owner John Henry spends on re-decking his yacht every couple seasons.) Pedro didn’t know when to keep his mouth shut, when to humble himself in front of your “sophistication.”

Now Pedro Martinez, future Hall of Famer, rubber toer of the greatest game ever hurled at the Yankees (the 3-1, one hit, 17 strikeout affair on Sept 10, 1999), is scheduled to pitch in Fenway Park Wednesday night for his new team, the rejuvenated (thanks to Martinez), best record in the National League New York Mets, in the middle game of a three-game series between the star-crossed clubs.

Pedro’s recent words suggest he holds no grudge. I don’t blame him. He’s winning and respected by the Mets’ fans.

Back on the island, back on Mango Street, a future pitching phenom, future star throws rocks at cans with draw dropping precision, and he dreams of one day wearing a ball cap adorned with an “NY” or an “LA” but never, not ever a “B.”

You may pile into your little bandbox thinking of yourselves as sophisticates, but the rest of the world has a different adjective to describe Boston Red Sox fans — shameless.

Comments