Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

THE OPENING LINE:

Of baseball and heartbreak

Summer road trips mean searching unfamiliar radio stations, hoping to find baseball amid the hip-hop and country that crowd the airwaves.

You dial in that telltale dead air and wait ... Maybe you’ll strike gold with the voice of Vin Scully or Jon Miller, Bob Uecker or Howie Rose, Ken Korach or Joe Castiglione. But you’ll settle for a crackly broadcast of the High Desert Mavericks, Lansing Lugnuts or Delmarva Shorebirds to speed the journey.

Here’s a backup plan for rainouts and late, late nights: Pick up a copy of “Selected Shorts: Baseball.” It’s a live recording of a performance of baseball-related pieces at the Peter Norton Symphony Space in New York. The show was put together by author Roger Angell and former Baseball Commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti. (This was recorded when Giamatti was alive — he died in 1989 — and broadcast on public radio. A box of three CDs wasn’t released until 2006; you can find it at

www.symphonyspace.org.)

Angell reads his classic “Game Six” about the 1975 World Series with Bernie Carbo and Carlton Fisk.

Giamatti, who also was the president of Yale and a lifelong Red Sox fan, speaks of the eternal essence of baseball — “it breaks your heart, it is designed to break your heart” — in “The Green Fields of the Mind.”

Actors read the other short stories and poems. Even if you are too young to remember Ted Williams, you’ll be transported by John Updike’s “Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu.” Fans can relate to the strike-starved crew who populate W.P. Kinsella’s “The Thrill of the Grass.”

But my favorite is “The Hector Quesadilla Story.”

For one thing, I love T.C. Boyle’s writing. He’s one of those love ’em or hate ’em authors, controversial because of the scathing shots at modern life he takes in novels such as “Tortilla Curtain” and “Talk Talk.” But this story is gentle, hilarious and beautifully observed.

Or maybe I just identify with the story’s hero: an aging utility infielder with shin splints, corns, ingrown toenails, hemorrhoids and a pot belly.

“He was no Joltin’ Joe, no Sultan of Swat, no Iron Man. For one thing, his feet hurt.”

Quesadilla, a pinch-hitting specialist with a lifetime .296 batting average, basks in the adoration of a Chavez Ravine crowd that chants “Cheese, Cheese, Cheez-us.”

He can’t come to grips with time, and he’s hanging on for one more season. Even his wife tells him to hang up his spikes. But Quesadilla asks:

“How can (I) get old? The grass is always green, the lights always shining. No clocks or periods or halves or quarters. No punch in or punch out. This is the game that never ends.”

His story unfurls during a marathon game between the Dodgers and Braves as Quesadilla sits on the bench and waits his chance at glory.

Who needs satellite radio?

THIS WEEK’S BEST BET

USG Night and Military Appreciation Night, 5 p.m. Saturday, The Bullring at Las Vegas Motor Speedway

Short-track racing is back at The Bullring with a full schedule of Late Model, Legends, Modifieds, Thunder Roadsters, Bombers and Bandoleros. Show your military ID and get in free.

TICKETS: $10

ON THE WEB: lvms.com

ALSO WORTH A LOOK

Tuff-n-uff Fighting Championship, 7 p.m. Friday, Orleans’ Mardi Gras Room

See tomorrow’s MMA stars today.

TICKETS: $25-$50

ON THE WEB: orleanscasino.com

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