Congratz to all on last weekend's truly sublime 18-17 display of nail-biting recreational rapture. That a disheveled clique of nine deeply introspective but utterly confused and lonely souls could so courageously battle back from a 10 point deficit in order to take a brittle two point lead in the penultimate inning ---only to end up losing!---is clearly a telling display of the sheer volatility of human intercourse within the context of complex athletic systems. It sort of makes you wonder how many embedded chips will stop functioning come January, but I suppose that's not my problem. The point is that such a compelling denouement has emotional costs, and even though I was able to savor my first win since the winter frosts, I can tell you in all candor that the sight of those people coming up just short nearly broke my heart.
And speaking of spellbinding episodes in sport, it turns out that this Sunday, August 8th, is the 55th anniversary of the day that Joe "the kid" Nuxell became the youngest pitcher in baseball history, making his major league debut for the Cincinnati Reds at age 15 years and 10 months (a record that stands to this day!). The kid must have had many things on his mind that sultry summer afternoon, what with the nazis resorting to v2-rockets, his coital innocence still stubbornly in tact, and of course the threat of an opposing St. Louis Cardinal batter knocking out his braces. Despite it all, Joe held fast for a full two-thirds of an inning, and while the 18-0 loss was officially his, the significance of that event is found in the raw courage of pubescence itself, and not in the admittedly elevated E.R.A. of another rookie's somewhat less-than-auspicious debut.
Sometimes I wonder if Joe Noxell is still with us. I know I could scour the net, but I don't want to risk finding out saddening news. For Joe was a guiding athletic inspiration throughout my own adolescence, and although its now nearly a full decade later, I still prefer to think of the kid as with us today, eternally green, spry and 15 and 5/6th years old. Therefore, there will be a game this Sunday at Codornices at 3PM, IF I get enough players by this Friday morning. So make that commit; Do it for Joe "the kid" Nuxell, whose precocious talents on the mound would directly pave the way for most of the great American youth cultures to follow, from rock'n'roll to Goth.