From: Stephen MILES Lewis <elfis@io.com>
Date: Wed, 12 May 1999 20:50:36 -0500
Fwd Date: Thu, 13 May 1999 07:09:10 -0400
Subject: Re: Konformist: ET Play Ball


FYI EBK, Listers and All,

smiles

"have you seen the new ELFIS yet?"
http://www.elfis.net

----------
From: Robalini@aol.com
To: undisclosed-recipients:;
Subject: Konformist: ET Play Ball
Date: Wed, May 12, 1999, 5:56 PM


Please send as far and wide as possible.

Thanks,

Robert Sterling
Editor, The Konformist
http://www.konformist.com
http://www.konformist.com/1999/etplayball.htm

ET Play Ball
Greg Bishop (exclmid@primenet.com)

Psychologist Edward DeBono
once proposed a novel method for producing new ideas and
juxtapositions. List anything that interests you in two columns.
Take something from each row and put them together with the
neutral and meaningless word "po" in between. "Einstein po
toast" for instance, might make you wonder about what the great
scienist might have had for breakfast to get his brain going, or
contemplate the ultimate outcome of the human race when faced
with nuclear weapons aimed at every city. If the writers of last
week's episode of "The X-Files" used this method, they may have
come up with the unlikely phrase "Roswell po baseball." Some
background may be in order before we go on.

If Joe Bauman had been at bat on the night of July 2, 1947, he
might have knocked something out of the sky that later crashed
northwest of Roswell, New Mexico. Bauman was first baseman for
the minor league C-class Roswell Rockets in 1954 when he set a
home run record that would put Babe Ruth, Roger Maris, and Mark
McGwire to shame. During that season, he smacked 72 homers over
the right field fence, a feat that has yet to be equalled.

The Rockets team logo could not have been more perfect if the
X-Files art department had thought it up. Twinkling stars and
baseballs float on a dark blue field and a flying saucer hovers
in the backgound while a space alien winds up for a pitch. Their
team name derived from the fact rocket pioneer Robert Goddard
located his test base there in the 1930s, or perhaps that the
White Sands missile test range was located not far away. It is
nearly certain that some defense workers and soldiers who
experienced the events of July, 1947 in Roswell also attended
Rockets games.

In a 1995 interview at the age of 73, Bauman held his big hands
together around an imaginary cantaloupe and said that all the
pitches that summer looked as big. "I was on fire" he said. In
1954 only about 800 fans saw each game, and the west Texas/
southern New Mexico Longhorn League was quite small, as minor
league organizations went. Bauman is still proud of that season,
and admits he never really cared to step up to the majors
anyway. With every home run, fans would stick one- and
five-dollar bills in the backstop fence to congratulate him. He
averaged about $40.00 per grand slam.

This sort of legendary hitting was also found in the Negro
League baseball teams of the 1920s, '30s, and '40s. Josh Gibson
was called "the black Babe Ruth" and although no one ever
bothered to keep statistics for Negro League players, anecdotes
of his hitting power survive in legend and lore. Gibson is said
to have hit a line drive so powerful that it split the flesh
between the thumb and forefinger of an unlucky third baseman,
right through his fielder's glove. He is said to have beat
Bauman's record with a comfortable margin, although this can
never be proven of course. Gibson died at age 35 in January,
1947 without ever getting a chance in the major leagues.

>From these stories and others like them, "The X-Files" (on
Sunday, April 25, 1999) fashioned a whimsical tale of Roswell
aliens and black baseball. Gibson had some of his best seasons
playing for the Negro National League Homestead Grays team of
Pennsylvania. The X-Files used this as a clever plot twist,
naming the fictional Roswell team the "Greys" and their parent
organization the "Cactus Negro League." The star player is an
alien so fascinated with the game that he shape-shifts into
human form just to play. He sets a season home-run record as
well. One character, a local policeman, mentions that "all the
great players were aliens" --but that they didn't want to reveal
their identities.

This could be a commentary on the plight of the negro players
before 1946, who didn't have the luxury of shape-shifting to
suit the times. One of the first black players to try and break
the color barrier played for the Ohio Wesleyan University team
under crusading manager Branch Rickey in 1903. Star first
baseman Tommy Thomas often took to the field with the protests
and taunts of the opposing team ringing in his ears. Many teams
refused to play until Ohio got "that nigger off the field."
Games went ahead as scheduled only after Rickey loudly protested
"You play Thomas or you don't play OWU!" After a pitiful scene
in a hotel that nearly refused entrance to his best player,
Rickey vowed to do something to see that it wouldn't happen
again. He kept this promise to himself at age 54 when he moved
former negro leaguer Jackie Robinson up from Brooklyn's minor
league Toronto Royals to play for the Dodgers in 1947.

Wait a second, isn't 1947 the same year that something fell out
of the
sky near Roswell, New Mexico?

"Aliens po Prejudice"

Greg Bishop is the editor of The Excluded Middle :
http://www.primenet.com/~exclmid/


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