“Because everyone else is busy and it wouldn’t hurt you to broaden yourself with something besides sports.”

“Well, they’re having Red Stepper tryouts at Assembly Hall tomorrow. Couldn’t you broaden me with that assignment?”

“You’re not covering a dance squad tryout.”

“What do you have against the Red Steppers? Do you hate them because they’re taller than you?”

“I don’t hate the Red Steppers.”

“Then let me go to the tryouts.”

“No, you’re covering the DWARVES. That’s final.”

“OK, but dancers sell papers, Ira. DWARVES don’t.”

I left him to ponder the financial implications of a front page cover photo devoid of Red Steppers and retreated to my office. After a quick check of my messages, I called the DWARVES to get more information.

“Thank you for calling the DWARVES,” said a familiar voice.

It was Maple, leader of both the DWARVES and the Bloomington Vegans. She loved trees and animals–unless, of course, you viewed humans as animals. Maple assaulted me in college when I was writing for the student newspaper. During an interview, I asked how someone who loved trees so much could eat salad with such reckless abandon. I then asked her if she heard the cry of the soybean as it was grotesquely slaughtered and converted into soymilk and other bland tasting products. The question that got me cold-cocked with a cafeteria tray, though, was how could she yank a defenseless, naked carrot from his home, skin him with a grater, and eat him raw without so much compassion as to numb him first?

That was also when I was kicked off the student newspaper even though I was the one who was assaulted. Vegan sympathy had infiltrated the decision-making offices of the Indiana Daily Student. I was an outsider, a hated meat-eater. I had dared expose the plight of defenseless farm produce. For my crime I was banished from the student press.

“Would you like to volunteer for our concert to save the Jordan River?” Maple continued.

“The Jordan River?” I asked.

“Yes, we want to put an end to illegal dumping in one of our most treasured local waterways.”

“The Jordan River? The one that cuts through campus. That’s what you’re talking about?” I was starting to lose focus because of the absurdity of what she was saying. You see, the Jordan River is one of the most inaptly named “waterways” in North America. It is not a river. It’s barely a stream. The only illegal dumping being done in the Jordan River is the occasional frat guy relieving himself on the way home from a party.

“Yes, that Jordan River,” she answered.

“Well, the concert sounds like one heck of a good time. And the cause is certainly worthy of your organization’s efforts. However, I’ve called about a more immediate situation. I’m calling from the Daily News. Could you tell me more about the protest you have scheduled this week?”

“Which one were you inquiring about?”

“Why don’t you run down all of them and I’ll pick the one I’m interested in.”

“OK, tonight we’re protesting the use of federal land for logging operations. That will be held in Dunn Meadow. Tomorrow we are holding a sit-in at the home of an attorney
who is cutting down all the trees in his yard. On Friday we’re marching down Kirkwood in support of—”

I cut her off, “What was that second one again?”

“We’re holding a sit-in at an attorney’s home.”

“Which attorney?” I asked.

“Frank Wolf.”

This was too good to be true. It might even be as fun to watch as the Red Steppers, for entirely different reasons of course. “Why is he cutting down the trees in his yard?”

“We learned he is putting in a pool. This will be the first in a string of protests we are planning to keep people from installing backyard pools at the expense of the environment.”

“So when is the Arborcide scheduled to take place?” I asked.

“Tomorrow afternoon at one-thirty,” she answered.

The next day, I pulled into The Wolf’s neighborhood and parked across the street from his house. A minute later, a photographer from the newspaper arrived. I got out of my car and told him to be ready to shoot a lot of film.

Minutes later, the DWARVES started to arrive in a parade of vintage Volkswagen vans, each complete with rust and dents and tie-dyed curtains in the windows. Some had as many as fifteen people crammed inside. They covered The Wolf’s yard like ants. To the untrained eye, the DWARVES appeared to be disorganized. However, there were three distinct groups, each with their own responsibilities. The Tree DWARVES chained themselves to his trees.

The Vandal DWARVES spray-painted graffiti on his house and driveway, then formed a circle in his driveway, sat down lit some candles and began chanting. Maple emerged from one of the vans, wearing a dingy white tunic and carrying a tambourine. Barefoot with a crown of flowers adorning her hair, she skipped and frolicked around the circle while singing and pounding her tambourine. Just as that particular song ended, the men from Truelove Tree Service arrived.

The DWARVES began a Gregorian chant that nearly caused the tree foreman to wet himself. The photographer moved in closer. The fl ash from his camera caused the DWARVES to stop chanting and start yelping. The yelping scared me. The third component of the group, the Marching DWARVES, proceeded to carry signs into the street to block traffic. As the servicemen tried to unload their equipment, the Vandal DWARVES circled their trucks. With their arms locked together, they began to alternate the yelping and chanting. Three tree servicemen considered the possibility of new careers that afternoon.

The foreman was able to compose himself long enough to call The Wolf’s office. That’s when the real circus began. It took The Wolf only seven minutes to make it from his office to his house. Arriving with him were several Bloomington police cars and a county sheriff. The police were there because The Wolf called them en route. The sheriff was there because The Wolf was doing eighty miles per hour in a school zone. The Wolf barreled out of his van screaming at everybody in sight. Veins in his neck bulged as he shoved DWARVES, a tree service guy, and even the photographer. When he saw me taking notes, he really lost his temper. He demanded an explanation while the deputy sheriff demanded his license and registration. The deputy threatened to cuff The Wolf, so he handed him his license and stomped back to the van for his registration.

The Bloomington police didn’t act immediately; the yelping threw them off. After a brief huddle, they decided to start with the Marching DWARVES. Surprisingly, they didn’t put up too much of a fight. The marchers moved from the street, onto the sidewalk, and on through the neighborhood. Unfortunately for them, countless years of marijuana smoking had left them directionally impaired. The subdivision, being rather large and having many streets and cul-de-sacs, swallowed them alive.

Meanwhile, the sheriff issued The Wolf a ticket. He could have given him a warning, inasmuch as his house was under siege. But The Wolf had many enemies. Years of burning bridges, bullying prosecutors, and frivolous lawsuits had eroded his fan base to blood relatives and the acquitted.

With a vein on his neck visibly ready to rupture, The Wolf turned his attention back to the tree foreman who refused to begin cutting. The Wolf threatened to sue Truelove Tree
Service. The foreman threatened to sue The Wolf. The Vandal DWARVES began to realize that there might be safer environmental battles to fight and began to flee. The Tree
DWARVES, by default, were left to answer to the police. The Wolf screamed at the Bloomington police to arrest as many of them as possible.

In all, seven DWARVES went to jail that afternoon, including Maple, who failed to fl ee with the Vandals. I called the police later that afternoon and was told that it took them all of about twenty minutes to make bail. A deputy told me that most of them called their parents and told them they needed money for books. I also went back to the neighborhood to look for the ten Marching DWARVES. Nobody I talked to could remember seeing them.

I took what I had and wrote a story that made the front page accompanied by many wonderful pictures of the Wolf and the DWARVES. I think the headline speaks volumes
about the seriousness of the event: WOLF CALLED HOME TO REMOVE DWARVES FROM TREES. I didn’t stop to think that this might make the Wolf an even bigger enemy.

“What are you teaching fall semester?”

“Apathy,” Darryl replied, with little regard for my question.

“Seriously, what are you teaching?”

“Speech.”

“Speech?”

“Yeah, speech.”

“Morning class?”

“Yes.”

“Those kids are screwed.”

I was driving my Beirut-inspired Chevy Malibu north on Walnut Street. It was maroon with what I like to refer to as custom sport ripples down one side. Sport ripples sound more exotic than telling people I had hit a post, scraping and denting most of the passenger side of the car. It was a wonderful car if you didn’t go in for things like air conditioning, stereo systems, and working windshield wipers.

Gracing the faded red cloth interior next to me was Darryl. In the back seat were my friends Klondike and Pete. Pete had arranged this trip to Ladyman’s Diner the night before. He owned a movie theatre and a restaurant in town. Ten years older than Darryl and me, he had invented a special type of heart catheter when he was in his early thirties. Then he sold the company and the patents for millions of dollars. But like so many Southern Indiana millionaires, it was hard to tell him from the average Freddys.

The Four Freddys were what we called each other. A Freddy is a catch-all word for us, sometimes used as an insult and sometimes as a term of belonging. At any rate, the Four Freddys were hungry for breakfast. And a couple of the Freddys wanted to talk business.

We turned right onto Fourth Street and made a quick left into a parking lot. The lot was bordered on the north and west by the backs of several hundred-year-old buildings. Alleys divided the rows of buildings to give access to the storefront sides of the shops and restaurants. To the east and south were Lincoln and Fourth streets, respectively. The southeast corner of the parking lot doubled as a mini-hub for the city bus lines.

We parked in a space close to the buses and the north side row of buildings. On the storefront side of the buildings was Kirkwood Avenue. Kirkwood was the heart and soul of Bloomington; six blocks that run east-west from Indiana University’s campus to the downtown square. It continued west of the Square for another couple of miles, but those
six blocks were where everything happened in town. That’s where the freaks came out to play. Business deals were done at The Uptown or the Diner. Protest marches, Fourth of July parades, funerals, weddings, all were threaded together in the fabric of Kirkwood. When Indiana University won national championships in basketball, this was where people came to party. It was the hub of the city. It was where we hatched the scheme.

From the parking lot behind the buildings, it was difficult to tell which business was which, except for the Diner. Noxious gases emitted from its dumpster. Refuse blended with grease to form an impenetrable wall to the left. However, you had to go left to get to the alley. To the right, bus fumes from Lincoln Street and the city bus terminal were mixing with fresh brewed coffee aroma from the Diner. Our options were mochamonoxide or greasy bio-funk. I chose mocha-monoxide. It got me out in the sun and on the dry sidewalk.

Darryl walked ahead of me on the Lincoln Street sidewalk. We passed by a line of fifteen people waiting for the plasma clinic to open. Next to the clinic on the Lincoln Street side of the building was a shoe repair store that wrapped around to the Kirkwood Avenue side.

Pete followed Klondike towards the alley, finding it still damp from an overnight rain. The tall brick buildings kept the alley cool and wet, wet enough to cause Klondike to slip and fall only inches from the bio-funk dumpster.

I, on the other hand, fared worse. Just as I came around the corner, a maroon custom van barreled down Lincoln Avenue. The driver, a Neanderthal I call The Wolf, drove through a puddle doing forty miles per hour. The mud hit me doing eighty-five miles per hour. I saw The Wolf laughing in the reflection of his side mirror. I hated The Wolf.

The Wolf was a self-important blow-hard of a man. He was an attorney—reason enough for loathing—with a stranglehold on nastiness. I once reported that his son went hitless in a Little League All-Star game. He tried to sue the paper for libel. Apparently, I had failed to mention that he made a “spectacular catch in the outfield.” The only thing spectacular
about it was that he never stopped picking his nose when he raised his glove for the catch. His poor mother didn’t know whether to be embarrassed about the nose-picking or proud
that he could multitask.

He was also mad that I didn’t mention that his son scored the winning run. Technically he was right. I did fail to mention it—on purpose. I was trying to save the kid some long-term teasing and embarrassment by not detailing how the run was scored. With the game tied, he was hit by a pitch in the groin. The next batter hit a home run. In the history of baseball, no runner has ever taken longer to get from first base to home plate than The Wolf’s son. He did this sort of painful looking waddle that took an eternity to complete. I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. The kid could have been scarred for life. Then again, he was The Wolf’s son. Where would his psyche squeeze in another scar? Anyway, that started a long-running feud between The Wolf and me. Today’s well-aimed mud bath had given The Wolf the lead.

Klondike and I met at the door of the Diner, looked each other over and shook our heads. Someone once said, “Each man must find his own path.” I’m pretty sure this is not what
they had in mind, but still, here we were—two wet, smelly men who took different paths to the same destination.

As we entered the diner, my worst fear was realized. Penny was working. She was in her late twenties, cute, with a pretty smile. I always made eye contact when she was working. Now, I wanted to crawl back through the mail slot. I stood behind Klondike and Darryl. She smiled and waved us over towards a booth on the right.

Klondike, of course, bolted for the booth, without as much as a warning. There I stood with mud from my neck to my thighs. She looked me up and down, and then suppressed a giggle, causing her to snort. “I’ll be right back.”

She returned with a towel and tossed it at me. “I heard you on the radio,” she said.

“Thanks,” I said. “What did you think?”

“I think you’re crazy. But I have to admit you have the town stirred up. There isn’t a table in here that isn’t talking about it.”

“Maybe they’re stirred up because it’s a good idea.”

“No, it’s crazy. You’re just lucky to be living at the epicenter of crazy. It sort of clouds their judgment.”

Penny took our orders and scurried off to the kitchen. I’ll just eat my last meal and die, I thought. She thinks I’m a loser. A steak knife. Yeah, that’s it. I’ll take a steak knife and cut my wrists. No good. Klondike would pass out. I can’t have that on my conscience. I’ll do it in private later on tonight. Sitting around me were my three best friends and the
three best reasons I could offer for not going into business and certainly not trying to buy a baseball team. Darryl and I had no business background. Pete and Klondike were
both businessmen, but they were from opposite ends of the spectrum. Everything Pete touched seemed to turn to gold.

Klondike, on the other hand, often made money in spite of himself. Klondike, a.k.a. Frank Lopilato, ran a small hotel in town, pitched for our softball team, and originally was from the East Coast. A short, funny-looking man, Klondike was a cross between Barney Fife and Michael Corleone. He was loyal, generous, and always coming up with a crazy marketing idea. That’s how he got his nickname: Klondike. One day he had
the kind of idea that you wish his wife had been around to talk him out of—or at least convince him to get counseling.

“Every hotel is putting mints on the pillows at night,” he said. “It’s been done to death. I’m going to make people remember the Bloomington Oaks Hotel. My guests are going to come home to ice cream bars on their pillows.”
So Frank put Klondike bars on all the guests’ pillows. Somewhere around nine-thirty that night, the calls started to flood the front desk. One lady slid into bed without turning on the light. She still sees a therapist. Another guest’s dog had been loose in his room. The otherwise docile collie vomited in seven places. Although the man’s open suitcase saw most of the action, hotel workers to this day can’t explain the splatters on the window. It was as if the dog was somehow trying to signal the wedding reception down by the pool.

Anyway, that’s how he earned the moniker. For the most part, he was a successful businessman. Now and then, though, he went off on one of those wild tangents, and you wondered how he ever made a nickel.

Penny returned with our breakfast. “Now, judging by the amount of mud you guys tracked in here, do you want me to bring you extra napkins?”

“No, but could you take away all the silverware?” I shot back. “We’d prefer to eat with our hands.”

Penny laughed and walked away. Then Pete threw out the first pitch. “I’m ready to do it,” he said. “I’m throwing in a million bucks of my own money to get the ball rolling.”

“What ball rolling?” I asked.

“The baseball rolling. As in the Dodgers. Hello, I’m talking about us buying the Dodgers. I figured I would be the president; Klondike can be vice president or marketing director—”

In unison everyone turned to Klondike and said, “No ice cream.”

Pete continued, “Andy, you could be the media relations director.”

“Why do you get to be president?” Klondike asked.

Before he got the chance to answer, Chris Moeller, the deputy mayor, interrupted us. It wasn’t until he did that I noticed the other people in the diner. They were all looking at us. Some were whispering. Some waved their arms and talked loudly, pointing at us like
animals at the zoo. Penny was right. Every table and booth was talking about the Dodgers and looking at us. In that moment, I realized this thing was alive. It was bigger than us. People had actually read the column and tuned in to the radio show. They might really want to do this. A crazy idea, born out of a need to fill my weekly requirement of nouns colliding with verbs, was about to change this town forever.

Was I reluctantly going along with this idea? Or was there a place deep inside me that wanted this more than anything? The twelve-year-old was still unsure.

“Mr. Moeller, what can we do for you?”

“What can you do for me? What can I do for you? By the way, call me Chris.”

He said it in a way that made me think I was about to be sold a timeshare in Myrtle Beach. “The mayor is behind you guys one hundred percent. He got the letter from Pete this morning and he loves the idea.”

All heads turned to Pete. “What? I just sort of greased the pump a little!”

“And what sort of grease did you use on the pump?” I asked.

“The mayor is hardly a pump,” Chris said.

“Butt out, Deputy Pump,” I said. What did you do, Pete?”

“I told the mayor we really would name the stadium after him.”

“What?” I said.

“And I told him that the four of us were forming a corporation and would start selling shares.”

“What?” Klondike and I, in unison.

“And I said we could raise the money by the end of September.”

“What?” Klondike, Darryl, and I.

“Are you crazy?” I said. “This community can’t raise that sort of cash.”

“We’ll get outside investors. We’ll sell shares to anyone who wants to invest.”

“We don’t know how to run a baseball team.”

“We’ll get somebody to help us. Look, for as long as I’ve known you, your dream was to bring a minor league baseball team to Bloomington. Now we’re going to help you go one
step better. We’re going to bring the Dodgers to Bloomington. The Dodgers, man. Doesn’t that get you excited?”

Pete was right. Since I was twelve, I had the dream. Since I had gone to work for the Bloomington Daily News, I’d been trying to sell the idea of minor league baseball in B-town to anyone who would listen. It was my dream. But there’s something safe about having your dream stay a dream. Keeping it a dream keeps it in a box. People think that dreams are where the possibilities are limitless. Maybe it’s the other way around. Maybe reality is where things are limitless. Reality is surprising. Reality is an adventure. Reality is the intersection of everybody’s dreams. Now my dream was about to become a reality, and I was scared.
The deputy mayor was staring at me. Klondike and Pete were staring at me. Darryl was staring at Pete (and stealing his hash browns). Then I realized the whole room was staring at me.

Pete lowered his voice and looked me in the eye. “We can’t do this without you. And that means you, buying into this one hundred percent. You are the voice of baseball in Bloomington. You’ve got the attention of the community. They are ready to go. They just need a cheerleader. We know how to talk business. You know how to talk baseball. We’ll sell people on the investment opportunity. You sell them on visions of pennants and World Series games. Say yes, and we’ll go buy a baseball team. Say no, and it’s another quiet summer in B-town.”

“Another quiet summer in B-town.” Pete’s words echoed in my mind. Every summer since I graduated from Indiana University had been quiet. They all seemed to blend into each other. I didn’t have much to show for the past eight years. I had worked my way up from beat reporter to a weekly column, but there was nothing distinguishing about my career, or my life, for that matter. It was time to do something. Something big. Something that people would remember. That televangelist was back in my head.

“I’m in,” I shouted. “Let’s buy the Dodgers.”

The entire restaurant roared with applause. Darryl stole Pete’s bacon.

I Was Kidding

“When I was a small boy in Kansas, a friend of mine and
I went fishing . . . I told him I wanted to be a real Major
League Baseball Player, a genuine professional like Honus
Wagner. My friend said that he’d like to be President of the
United States. Neither of us got our wish.”
~ Dwight D. Eisenhower

I spit Coke all over the microphone. As it shot through my nose, I slammed my cup down, gasped for breath and feebly attempted to compose myself. Jesse held up his left arm, twisting it frantically towards Darryl, the signal to take a commercial break. To me, he made a neck-slashing gesture using his right hand. I quickly tried to wipe the fizzling brown liquid off the wooden console. All the while, I was still snorting, choking, and coughing.

“Hold that thought, caller, and we’ll answer your question after the commercial break. Stay tuned for more of today’s controversial topic: Bringing Major League Baseball to Bloomington, Indiana. Our in-studio guest is Bloomington Daily News reporter Andy Bennett. Kristy will update the news and weather after the break.”

Darryl took off his headset and started laughing. “What’s the matter? You know you’ve opened a can of worms now. These people are ready to do it.”

Jesse glared at both of us. Jesse may have been only an intern, but this was definitely his sound booth.

“Well, it doesn’t help that you’re encouraging these wackos,” I said. “And why do you keep calling it a ‘controversial effort’ to bring the Dodgers to Bloomington? There’s no effort underway, you tool. I just wrote an article. I was kidding.”

“You weren’t kidding,” Darryl shot back. “You’ve wanted this all your life. You’re just too much of a coward to admit it.”

Was Darryl right? The previous caller uttered the one sentence that I never expected to hear. I thought some people would call in and say the article made them laugh. I thought others would say that I wasted seventeen inches of newsprint on a pipe dream. I wasn’t prepared for someone to actually call in and say, “I want to invest. Where do I send the money?” That was the question that launched the carbonated shower onto the console. Why was this caller ready to shell out his life savings?

Well, just a week earlier, I was approaching my weekly deadline, and as always, I had no idea how I was going to fill my quota of newsprint for the Bloomington Daily News. When I was stumped, I would track down my good buddy Michael Turner. Michael was a chat machine who knew everything about sports. I need only ask one sports question, and three hours, six beers, and four debates later—usually Michael debating himself—I would have a story idea.

On this particular occasion, Michael was ranting and raving because the Los Angeles Dodgers were up for sale. Michael, being an East Coast transplant, was constantly lamenting the Dodgers’ move from Brooklyn to Los Angeles in the fifties. He was already talking (to himself) about the Dodgers when I sat down at the bar. Like most Dodger fans, he couldn’t bear the thought of his beloved team falling into the hands of some giant corporation. I took a pitcher off the bar, filled his glass with topic juice, and motioned for the waitress, Jenny, to bring me a glass.

Michael was an MIT graduate who had devised a computer ratings system for sports teams. His system was so successful that all the major sports networks paid him royalties. Despite his inherent genius and financial success, he always had a couple of days’ worth of facial hair and a raggedy set of clothes. His salt and pepper hair hadn’t been combed since the early nineties. On the bar was a faded bag that he carried everywhere he went. I remember having to carry a bag like that when I was in middle school.

He looked me in the eye and whispered, “I think we could do it. I know we could do it. Let me figure this out.” He squinted, tilted his head and started mumbling to himself. He mumbled between sips of beer for about ten minutes. I didn’t disturb him. When Michael went off on one of these tangents, it was best to let him be. Most of his words were impossible to make out. Sometimes I could understand a phrase or two. “Twenty thousand dollars . . . all the adults . . . the commissioner would have to cave . . . sell shares . . .”

Then he spoke directly to me. As I look back now, I realize that a light should have been shining down on the two of us at the time. It was Moses coming down from the mountain, or Martin Luther King delivering the “I have a dream” speech, or Gilligan figuring out how to get off the island. The next sentence to come out of his mouth would change an entire town. “If everybody in this county age eighteen or older would borrow $20,000, we could buy the Dodgers.”

“Right.” I paused, waiting for the punch line. “The Dodgers? The L.A. Dodgers?”

“Absolutely!”

“Jenny, how many pitchers has he had?”

“That’s the first one,” she called down from the end of the bar.

“Is this topic juice or liquid peyote? Michael’s talking gibberish!”

“I am not. We could do it. Jenny, how would you like to own a baseball team?”

“Would the players tip better than you two deadbeats?”

“Sure,” we said in unison.

“I’m in,” she replied.

“See how easy that was?” Michael said.

“You didn’t mention the money,” I added.

“What money?” Her enthusiasm halted abruptly.

“You’d need to come up with a rather large investment,” Michael said. “But the payoff could be enormous.”

“I’ll settle for a tip. No more topic juice.” She grabbed the pitcher and walked away laughing.

“OK, explain this whole thing to me. How are we going to do this?” I asked.

“We form a publicly owned company, sell shares, you know, a public offering, and use the money to buy the team. Like the Packers are owned by the people of Green Bay. The cost of the team is $250 million. We get everyone in the county to borrow from their local bank and we’re set.”

“We don’t have a stadium,” I pointed out.

“We’ll build one. We’ll leave the team in L.A. while we build a stadium. Hey, you’re the one who’s always talking about bringing baseball to Bloomington. You should be behind this all the way.”

“That was minor league baseball.”

“This is the Dodgers!”

“OK, you’ve got me there.”

“Jenny, it wouldn’t have to be that much,” Michael yelled.

Jenny brought back the pitcher and we fortified our juice reserves. “It wouldn’t?” she asked.

“No, it wouldn’t,” I answered. I didn’t have that kind of money either. “We could have shares for small time investors, too.”

“I like the sound of that,” she said.

“Me, too,” I replied.

“It’s almost happy hour, which means the tipping customers are on their way,” she said. “You’ve got a deadline coming. You’re not seriously going to write about buying a baseball team are you?”

Was Jenny daring or warning me? I took it as a dare. Deep in my heart I wanted a baseball team in Bloomington. However, I always envisioned a minor league team with a small stadium. Michael was talking about the Dodgers—the L.A. Dodgers! Were we crazy?

We tossed some cash on the bar and headed outside. Michael said his usual goodbye, which is no goodbye at all. He just wandered off muttering to himself. He left me standing outside on Kirkwood Avenue with a head full of questions. The next day, I wrote my column. I called the mayor and got a quote from him. I included diagrams of possible stadium locations. I even included a picture of Ebbets Field—where the Dodgers played in Brooklyn—with the mayor’s name superimposed on the front of the stadium. I think he really liked the ring of “Gomez Park.”

The story was completely tongue-in-cheek, and devoid of facts and research. I hoped it would get a few laughs and maybe get people to one day think about minor league baseball in Bloomington. Instead, a large and quite scary segment of the population thought I was serious and wrote letters to the newspaper. It seems there were plenty of crazy baseball fans in town who were braver than I. Darryl was right. I was too much of a coward to admit I was serious.

At any rate, I gave Darryl a lively topic for his afternoon radio show. WGCL is an AM station with an all-talk format. My friend, Darryl Robinson, hosted the afternoon show.
Although he was in his thirties, he could easily pass for a grad student. Radio was a part-time gig for him. His real job was teaching speech communications at Indiana University. He looked the young professor part, sporting a shaved head and wearing glasses with round wire rims.

I had perfected the small-town reporter look: short blonde hair, average build, with a pencil usually tucked behind my right ear. A golf shirt and khakis were my summer uniform of choice.

Darryl and I had been friends since the second grade. That was when my parents had moved from Indianapolis to Bloomington. My father was born there and wanted me to grow up near my grandparents. Darryl and I had gone to Indiana University and took jobs locally when we graduated. He was the responsible one: married with two kids. I was the irresponsible one: single with a dead goldfish.

Jesse signaled to us that the commercial break was ending. In a separate booth, Kristy Parker finished reading the news and weather. Darryl thanked her and returned to the previous caller’s question. “We’re talking right now to Dan from Bloomington. Before the break, Dan said he would invest in a team if this was a serious effort. Dan, do you have any more to add?”

“Thanks for taking my call, Darryl. I just want to know, if this effort is for real, how can I get involved? It’s always been my dream to be the owner of a pro sports franchise.”

“Well, Dan, I’m going to let our in-studio guest answer that.” What a goon. He knew I had no idea how to answer that question. “Dan, I think it’s premature to start sending in money. We would need to form a corporation, set up a board of directors, and do a lot of other things to convince Major League Baseball that we are a serious competitor for the Dodgers franchise.”

Darryl thanked him for his question and moved on to the next caller. All the while he was laughing at me. “We’re now talking to Ray on line two. What’s your question, Ray?”

“Well, Darryl, I just think you need to stop having these marijuana-smoking, left-wing nuts on your show. Only a fool would think the city of Bloomington could buy a Major League Baseball team. Indianapolis only has a Triple-A franchise and they have a population of about eight hundred thousand. We have only about sixty thousand.”

“Well, Ray, I’ve never heard Andy Bennett espouse any political leanings, so I wouldn’t be inclined to label him a right-wing or a left-wing nut,” Darryl said. Apparently I was an independent nut.

Darryl made the L-shaped loser sign towards me and grinned. I grabbed a small ice cube and tossed it at him, just missing his head. Jesse scowled at both of us.

Darryl continued. “He is, however, convinced that we can pool our cash and buy the Dodgers. Next caller.”

I mouthed, “No, I’m not,” and threw another ice cube.

Jesse took my glass. It’s a sad state of affairs when two men in their thirties need to be chastised by an eighteen-year-old with acne and social studies homework.

I wrote “Darryl is a ‘mic’ monkey” on a piece of paper and held it up to the news booth window. Kristy, the news reporter, rolled her pretty brown eyes and kept on working. She was too serious, I thought.

“Jesse, who is on line three?”

“That would be Cecil from Smithville.”

“Cecil, what do you think about today’s topic?”

“Hello?” Cecil said in a slow, plodding, I-just-got-a-mechanized- plow-last-week sort of drawl.

“Cecil, are you there?”

“Darryl?”

“Yes?”

I took my headphone cable and started to strangle myself with it, prompting Jesse to smile for the first time in weeks. Kristy didn’t smile.

“Darryl, I’d just like to say that the farmers of this community are not going to stand by and let this Bennett fellow chew up twenty acres of good farmland just so he can . . .”

Darryl cut him off in mid-sentence, “The stadium would be built downtown.”

“Oh-umm—well, how much are tickets?” he replied after about five seconds of dead air.

“Again, let me reiterate that I was merely having fun with the idea. There would be a lot of issues that would have to be worked out to make this work.” I was really backpedaling.

“Next we have David from Bloomington. What’s your question, David?”

“Isn’t Roland Green, the guy who owns the Mega Media Network, negotiating to buy the team? How are you going to outbid Roland Green? You can’t be serious. This has to be a joke.”

Moments. Life is a series of moments which punctuate the mundane, the common, and the routine. This was a moment. It was absurd. A small town of sixty thousand mostly middle-class people couldn’t possibly outbid a billionaire media mogul. However, never underestimate a college town. College towns have liberal, radical thinkers. College towns have entrepreneurs and rich alumni. College towns have lots of crazy people with copious amounts of free time. It was because of this eclectic mix of people that this crazy ride got started. The anti-corporate people wanted to fight Roland Green. The entrepreneurs thought there was a dollar to be made. The crazy people just wanted something to do. The baseball fans wanted to chase a dream. And the twelve-year old boys masquerading as adults wanted to see if you could really wish upon a star.

Bloomington is a community of ultraliberals and ultraconservatives and everything in between. So when Dave from Bloomington asked “How are you going to outbid Roland Green?” he was really challenging a community. I started to say again that it was a joke. But the air in my throat lingered for a moment. Adrenaline made me sit up straight. Why not? Why shouldn’t we try? The skeptic in my brain took a leave of absence.

“We’ll find a way, Dave! We’ll raise the money. We’ll start a massive campaign. If we have to, we’ll recruit investors from all over the state of Indiana. Baseball is America’s game, and what town is more American than Bloomington, Indiana? We’ll galvanize this city and we’ll buy the Dodgers.”

When did the televangelist get here? Who was in my headphones preaching the gospel of baseball to the unwashed masses? Sweet Moses, it was me. I was possessed. Darryl was laughing out loud, on the air. Jesse, being the only one resembling an adult in the room, cut to commercial. Darryl flipped a piece of ice at me, hitting the news booth window. Kristy jumped and spilled her coffee. She began dropping four-letter bombs from the shelter of her news booth. Due to the soundproof properties of the room, Jesse was spared the expletive chorus. Realizing that he had failed to disarm both of us, Jesse took Darryl’s glass.

The phone lines lit up and reflected off the studio ceiling. Clouds that kept the station in shadow throughout the day suddenly parted. Light poured into the small windows that overlooked the street below and lit up the octagon-shaped console. That afternoon a moment of illumination occurred in the downtown AM radio station. There just might be enough people in Bloomington who believed in this idea. There might be enough people willing to put their own money on the line to chase this dream. There might be a lot of people angry at me if this didn’t work. One thing was certain—it wasn’t going to be just another boring summer in Bloomington.

Poor Klondike. He was probably the best husband and father at the meeting. He was faithful, loving, and gentle. However, he was the beleaguered father of five girls. No man can hold up under all that estrogen. It?s just not possible! So when ?guy things? come along (like this) he seemed to lose himself in them.

In her zeal to enact revenge on her husband, Bonnie Lopilato nearly collided with one of the Vegans. This particular Vegan went by the name Maple. Maple loved trees ?and animals unless of course you view humans as animals. Maple once assaulted me when I was writing for the student newspaper. During and interview, I asked how someone who loved trees so much could eat salad with such reckless abandon. I then asked her if she heard the cry of the soybean as it was grotesquely slaughtered and converted into soymilk and other bland tasting products. The one that got me cold-cocked with a cafeteria tray, though, was how could she yank a defenseless, naked carrot from his home, skin him with a grater, and eat him raw without so much human compassion as to numb him first?

That was also when I was kicked off the student newspaper. I was the one who was assaulted! However, vegan sympathy had infiltrated the decision making offices of the Indiana Daily Student. I was an outsider ?a hated meat eater. I had dared expose the plight of the soybean. For my crime I was banished from the student press. To this day, I still here the cry of the soybean.

Anyway, Bonnie inadvertently got up close and personal with Maple. Maple had not been intentionally hygienic for about a week and a half. Bonnie had not been able to keep food down for nearly the same amount of time. (Daughter number six was about to be discovered.) So, the combination of Maple?s aroma and Bonnie?s pregnancy left an unpleasant walking hazard on the sidewalk leading into the Convention Center.

I walked over to Bonnie to see if I could help her. She took my arm and I slowly walked her into the lobby. Every couple of steps, I looked back to see if Maple was following me. I didn?t want to get hit in the head again.

–Trolley Dodgers–

?Maybe you?re aiming too high.?

?From the looks of your bathroom, I?d say you?re not aiming at anything.?

?Sorry, I meant to clean the place before you got here.?

?Next time I?ll give you a week?s notice.?

?Why a week??

?There are bacteria in there picketing for better working conditions!?

?I know –they?re never satisfied. Last week it was for longer breaks and holiday pay.?

–Trolley Dodgers—