Sometimes, in baseball, a manager will intentionally get himself ejected from a game for the sole reason of lighting a fire under his team's lazy arse. He'll charge out of the dugout, arms flailing and eyes red with fury. Sometimes he'll kick drt. Sometimes he'll go nose to nose with the umpire and - while barking and spitting in his face - insult the smell of his breath. Other times he will run around the base path with his hat on backwards, pulling each base from its holder and heaving them towards the outfield grass.
As his team watches this scene unfold - this performance art of sport - they almost always feel a flame begin to flicker and burn in their bellies. Sometimes they know not even why. But they feel the roar of the crowd build to a frenzied pace, they see their leader laying his passion on the line, and then they hear the umpire - with an exaggerated wave of his arm towards the heavens - point to him yell: "YOU'RE OUTTA HERE!"
More often than not, the team will look upon their coach's wild shenanigans with misguided pride, and ride the wave of adrenaline to a victory.
On Monday night at the Mousetrap, such was the case for Furious George. Tied 1-1 and about to go down 2-1 to the Mailman and his evil henchmen, Urquhart sensed an opportunity to unleash his fury and spark his band of useful idiots into action. With Mixa rattled and down, the Henchmen called a timeout. Then, in blatant disregard for the rules, they sent not one, not two, but THREE people to the table to consult their player. Urquhart unloaded like a bull in a china shop. His visceral hatred for the Mailman did not help the situation, nor did the 9 whiskeys he had injected into his blood stream.
"He showed up at about 7:15 and already had 7 in him," commented Veto. "It didn't take a rocket scientist or forensic engineer to know how things were going to end."
Urquhart lunged from his bar stool and showered profanities upon the Mousetrap like napalm over the Mekong Delta. Old ladies gasped and choked for air. Their ears rang, and their lungs burned. It was a quick, powerful burst of anger like nothing anyone had seen before. Creepy sat stunned, unable to speak. Uno - scared for his life - looked to him for guidance. He was, after all, the acting coach for the night. But Creepy just sat frozen in terror like a deer in the headlights. One witness compared his empty, disconnected eyes to Dustin Hoffman in Rainman. "Mmm, Bacon good," he muttered, "I like bacon."
Veto and Weighlum were locked in an epic battle of wits on the middle table, and missed the incident that triggered the commotion. "One minute I'm eying down a thin cut on the three ball," commented Weighlum, scratching his head, "and then next minute its like Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome in here."
Urquhart cursed the Mailman and his henchmen, and then turned his wrath upon his own team. How dare Veto and Creepy not back him in his fight? How DARE they sit back and allow such injustices to occur before their very eyes? The Captain, needless to say, was furious.
"It all happened so fast," said Veto. "All I heard was 'F*&K YOU VETO!' and then he was gone."
Indeed, like a manager ejected in the 7th inning of a close game, the George's fearless leader was headed for the showers. Or at least one could only hope.
"He stank like whiskey and urine, with a hint of nicotine," stated Mixa, holding her nose and choking back small bits of vomit that had shot up to the roof of her mouth. Urquhart hadn't showered in days, and his beard had grown long and greasy. "Oh God, I don't think I will ever forget that smell. It was like decaying road kill in the summer sun."
"This is getting to be an ugly trend," said the pregnant bartender from the Trap, "Urquhart shows up, gets drunk, starts a fight with The Mailman, and then stumbles off into the night."
But, in the end, Urquhart's wild antics served their purpose. Down 2-1 (Weighlum had secured the George's only win to this point, extending his impressive winning streak and inching himself one step closer to complete APA domination), the team responded to their leader's call with fear, confusion, and intensity.
Blackbeard got all he could handle from Old Lady Flabbybelly in match 4, but our favorite swashbuckling pirate stayed strong, found his touch, and outsmarted her for a victory in the crucial hill-hill duel.
"Blackbeard may be the MVP tonight," commented Veto. "He found a way to win a tough match and keep us in it when our backs were pinned square up against the wall."
The stage was now set, and the Georges were poised to take home the victory. Tied 2-2, Creepywhite brought down the pain on yet another unsuspecting victim. The old timer looked eerily like a Civil War vet. In all possibility, he may indeed be the last surviving one. He was a walking skeleton, nothing but skin on bones, with a beard like General Lee's. His hands shook and his arms quivered as he gingerly bent over each shot, but the battle tested veteran had over a 100 years of fighting experience. This would be no easy kill for our hero Creepywhite.
Creepy won the first two games of the 4-3 race before dropping the third. Then, in the pivotal game 4, he turned to Veto during a key time out. Two lonely balls remained on the table: his one ball and the eight, which hung easily in the corner pocket. A bank shot was his only option on the one. The two decided that defense was not an option, so Creepy went for the jugular.
"Veto told me to go after it with a little bit of low right english to shorten the angle," said Creepy afterwards, "and it did just the trick."
The acting Captain nailed the bank, and the crowd roared in applause. Even the Mailman had to extend his appreciation. He murmured praise, begrudgingly, and showed off his best golf clap. "Hooo-weee!," someone else yelled, "the banks are open for business!"
"Creepy drilled that bad boy," beamed Veto afterwards. "That was a big time money shot right there."
The rest of the match was a mere formality, as Creepywhite did what Creepywhite does best: he closed the deal in slow, methodical, calculated fashion.
Urquhart's fury had done the job once again. While not often conventional - and never pretty - the team responded to their Captain's tactics much like a Marine platoon responds to a mad dog drill Sergeant. They roared back with poise and dignity, locking up another 3-2 victory and sending the Mailman and his henchmen home broken, and dejected.
Somewhere, passed out in a shower - most likely in a pool of his own vomit and feces, with a whiskey bottle still gripped firmly in hand - Urquhart must have smiled; at least for a second or two.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment