March 4 2009
Well, gang, last Wednesday was the first baseball game of spring training.
Gordon Goldleaf, the antique dealer, called up his old friend Ferdinand Geezer and said that he’d found his baseball glove and why didn’t they have a game of catch before going to the watering hole that afternoon.
"Sure thing," said Ferd "Five o’clock. We’ll use the vacant lot next door to my place."
When Goldleaf showed up, Ferd said, "This is a great idea, we should do this a couple of times a week."
Goldleaf agreed.
They went to the lot, backed off about forty feet, and Goldleaf uncorked a sizzling thirty mile an hour fast ball.
Ferd misjudged it, and it popped him on the nose. Didn’t break it, but it bled a little into his seventy year old white mustache.
His eyes watered a little, but he wiped his nose on his t-shirt , and threw the ball smartly back to Goldleaf.
The ball came in about ankle high and Goldleaf, a tall guy, had to put on a ballet move just to put leather on it.
"We haven’t done this in about two years, have we?" He said.
"No," said Ferd, "and we called it off that year because I had to get a new eyeglass prescription."
"And did you get one ?" asked Goldleaf
"Yep, the very next day. But I think I might need a new one by now." said Ferd.
"Can you see the ball?"
"Sure, bring it on."
Well, Goldleaf was pushing sixty years old himself, and sort of slang one a little high and to Ferd’s left.
Now the vacant lot was utilized by neighborhood dogs and their owners as a relief point, and as Ferd in his mind’s eye, raced back to catch the errant throw, his left foot found a freshly deposited token of such canine activity.
He skid about four or five inches, and felt his back go out as his muscles all tightened up in order to maintain his balance. And that extra little zip, as it were, put his glove just under the ball, which he caught. But then he proceeded to run into the cyclone fence, where his glove had went just over the fence top and became impaled on those little ends of wire that kind-of stick up there.
Angry, as anybody would be, Ferd unleashed a vicious kick at the offending fence. That was when he sprained his right ankle.
Goldleaf drove him over to the watering hole, and when everybody saw Ferd favoring his right foot, with a bloody mustache, a bloody left hand and apparently with a bad back, they wanted to know what had happened.
"Rhubarb!" snapped Ferd. "No big deal. It’s a part of baseball."
Goldleaf looked the other way, and didn’t say anything.
What happens on the field, stays on the field.

Till next week
Helga Biermeister
Secretary