The Pecan Park Eagle

THE BASEBALL GODS
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CURLY, LARRY, & MOE

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About The Baseball Gods: The Three Baseball Gods originated in mortal form during the Era of William Shakespeare from Stratford Upon Avon and his highly acclaimed London theatrical productions. As young aspiring playwrights themselves, the trio of merry young Englishmen had signed on as apprentices to Shakespeare in what each hoped would be their own first steps into the realm of literary and stage production acclaim.

Shakespeare called these men his “entourage” and he used their specific and variable talents to prototype the structural form and flow of energy for almost everything he wrote. Larry excelled as the story-line plot developer; Curly added the unexpected kinks, curves, and twists to the story-line plot that were intended to simultaneously drive half the audience to heaven and the other half to hell; and Moe did exactly what you suspect from his name that he did. Moe could take any event and shift the momentum of things so quickly – and so largely – that even the Red Sea could not have resisted his urging to part and stay parted, pending further instructions.

The boys were doing great until Shakespeare realized that he was beginning to share credit he had not intended to give away at all. Word got around that some people were even beginning to say that the entourage was writing all of Shakespeare’s plays and that he was only showing up to take credit.

That last presumption led to a non-published one-act play that Big Willie wrote on his own. Shakespeare had the boys quietly assassinated and buried in unhallowed ground with this curse upon their creative souls: “Let these genius younger brothers remain here, body and soul, as the gods of some as-yet-to-be-invented sport that makes abundant future use of some of my favorite words; words like “strike” and “ball” and “base” and “walk” shall never again be neglected until the crack of doom. And let there be only two conditions placed upon the delivery of the emotional gifts that shall surely result from the works of this new deity: (1) Let their audience joy be yanked back before it reaches all the way to heaven; and (2) Let their audience despair be pulled up before it falls all the spare distance to the deepest floor of hell.

A Post 2017 ALDS Game 3 Perspective on What Happened with the Baseball Gods in Boston on Sunday: We just happen to have intercepted a tape recording of The Baseball Gods in conversation with each other after the Red Sox’s 10-3 win in Game 3 re-ignited their slim hopes of catching the Astros, who still lead the series, 2-1, with the final game, if necessary, in Houston on Wednesday:

Curly: “Gotta hand it you, Larry. Your scheme for starting off the series with two big 8-2 wins by Houston at home really set the tone for our first quiet return to Fenway today.”

Larry: “Thanks, Curly, but you did a lot of the work too, my friend. Setting up Altuve with a 3-homer game on top of Verlander pitching the opener was a big part of it all in Game One.”

Moe: “Sure made my work easy. Until today, all I had to do was shout ‘timber’ and watch the Boston bodies fall. Curly, I gotta admit, once you helped Correa hit the first inning bomb to put the Astros up, 3-0, in Game Two, I thought for sure you were going for a ‘double ugly’ when Reddick launched that long bomb to right in the second inning. – Then – when Betts runs all the way over there and puts his glove over the low fence – and catches the damn thing – I suddenly realized that you had just handed the game to me, old man Mo, and that bloody Red Sox team and fan base. – Had that ball fallen in as a homer, it would have been, 6-0, Astros, and rest-in-peace, Boston. – Not now. – We had done the big 180 degree turn with the Betts catch. Now it was Big Momentum comeback time for the red-legged ones.”

Curly: “I gotta admit. I kept trying to fan the Red Sox comeback flames. Shortly after the Betts catch, I whispered in AJ Hinch’s ear, ‘Hey, AJ! – If Peacock gets a little shaky any time soon, why don’t you think about putting Liriano out there?’ – And I’ll be damned if he didn’t do that not long after. With the Astros lead shrunken to 3-2 and a man on in the bottom of the 3rd, he puts in Liriano to face Devers – and Devers unloads on him to right – to give the Sox their first lead in the Series – and one they would not surrender for the rest of the day.”

Larry: “I’d like to give shared credit to both of you for what happened next. Once we got David Price in there pitching for the Red Sox, that move proved to be the Curly-cut cutie and all the Moe-momentum mash that Boston would need to capture the game.”

Curly: “How did you like the finishing touch – in the 6-run Red Sox 7th? The last 3 Red Sox runs scored on a homer by Bradley that Astros right fielder Reddick, unlike Betts earlier, could not catch!”

Larry: “That was cruel!”

Moe:  “So what? We’re The Baseball Gods! We’re supposed to be cruel to everybody – and ultimately – in favor of nobody!”

Curly: “By taking baseball clubs to places that are not quite heaven – and not quite hell?”

Larry: “Yeah, but that’s OK. We may not be able to get anybody to heaven, but we still may inadvertently help get some of them to the World Series. – Win there – and you get to keep that good feeling for a lifetime.

Moe: “Yeah. – And if there’s anything better than winning the World Series in the next world, you’ll just have to have faith – or else – wait and see – to know for sure. That one’s the longest roll of momentum that we all share in life – from here to eternity.

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Tags: Baseball Gods Pull Off Perfect ALDS Game 3

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