This epic story is built on the mystical magic of childhood wisdom, coming of age, and the sharing of a grand quest with best friends.
It's a fast-paced, science-based fantasy-tale appealing to sports enthusiasts, artists, young and old adventurers, and readers ready for an uncommon, charming adventure.
"It's like déjà vu all over again!"
Yogi-isms
Yogi Berra is perhaps the most famous figure in baseball. Born, Lawrence Peter ‘Yogi' Berra, he was an American professional baseball catcher who later took on the roles of manager and coach. He played nineteen seasons in the Majors, from 1946 to 1965, and was an eighteen-time All-Star. He won ten World Series championships as a player, more than any other baseball player in history.
And as a funny compliment to the man, the cartoon character, Yogi Bear, was named for, and carried the care-free, smart-talking attitude of Yogi Berra.
Yogi had a career batting average of .285, hit 358 homeruns and brought 1,430 runners home.
Yogi Berra is best known for his hilarious statements, which came to be known as ‘Yogi-isms’:
“Baseball is 90% mental, and the other half is physical.”
‘The future ain't what it used to be.”
“It’s déjà-vu all over again!”
And often his sayings had a deep philosophical meaning:
“If the world were perfect, it wouldn’t be.”
* * *
"As in Baseball, So Too in One's Life"
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The 'pillars'of baseball are: throw the ball, catch the ball, and hit the ball. The most basic skills are needed to play lifr as a winner.
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Batters strike out more than they get a hit. If a player gets a hit three times out of ten, he or she would be a top player. We strike-out alot in life, don't worry about it. We also get a few hits and an occasional homerun.
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Baseball is a team sport, as is life. By being a team-player and working with others you will succeed more often, especially when it seems impossible.
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The Umpire is lord master on the playing field. It's his way or the ejection-highway. Don't complain about bad calls, all umpires make them, though we never would admit it. Say 'Hi' and make the umpire your friend. Ask him questions. Friendliness makes the game much more fun.
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You will only play baseball for a short time. Enjoy playng the game in the moment, win or lose, and then remember the memories for the rest of your life. So too in your life, enjoy it all.
* * *
Love Your Umpire
Insider Tips and Tricks
It’s true, umpires are people too. Usually a dad who loves baseball though his son has retired from playing. Umpiring is a way to stay in the game, and have the time of your life conducting baseball games.
Greet your umpire as so as you see him. Welcome him or her to your park and answer any questions. Have your rooster ready and at the ‘plate talk’ ask all the questions you have.
Never question an umpire’s call. Right or wrong in your judgement does not matter. Accept the bad calls with grace and servitude. He’s working hard and doing the best he can.
Try umpiring for yourself! It’s an easy job—but extremely hard to do well. Get yelled at by the people in the stands you thought were your friends! Be Lord Master of the Baseball Park and command your subjects to do their game: “Play ball!”
* * *
Gender Fluid Identity
Who are you? Your name? Your actions? Your body and mind? Soul and spirit? Your sex, or whether you are skinny or fat?
To find out who each of us really is, our true self, we must honor our feelings. The truth that speaks inside of us, quietly and constantly. What we know in our hearts to be correct and natural. If you feel it, it’s true.
Gender, like all differences in a person, are measured on a spectrum. I’m a little bit a historian but very much an artist. A baseballer may usually play 2nd-base but when needed, plays another position, maybe 3rd or Shortstop. The player is position-fluid, able to shape-shift from one position to another as needed for the situation.
Imagine if the infield players weren't allowed to play the catcher position. The fans believe a catcher is special, anointed, and only a qualified player or priest can play that position.
So when the 2nd baseman puts on the catcher's gear , the fans boo him and maybe throw tomatoes! "Not allowed!" they shout with anger and fear.
So a person can be a little bit gay as a 2nd-baseman or a flamingly queer at 3rd-base. If he plays 1st-base he or she'a obviously straight. It just depends on that person’s place on the spectrum, her or his playing-position on the field.
The drama of a person coming-out as gender-fluid is much the same as any drama surrounding a person’s attempt to come-out as just themselves; to live their life freely, in their own unique way.
Other people are naturally afraid of anything different, especially different from themselves. They think, to be a true man or woman one must follow a specific, well-known path. And so each person should, must, identify with the same norms as me.
But to be one’s self, one must follow their own path. Must.
In my story, Tommy and Gary are gay, as is Mr. Dale the Art teacher and his friend the Tech teacher. Riane the star athlete is fluid, and maybe Bully Brad is fluid too. He is certainly handsome and always dresses well. And Mrs. Sherman is no Missus. She often played in men's roles and did six weeks as Hamlet when she played outdoors in Balboa Park. The review were excellent and one reviewer wasn't even aware the lead male role was being played by a woman.
Bill is clearly straight but his relationship with April is unique. It’s subtle, as is all good storytelling. They are not romantic, never kiss, hug, or even hold hands. They never speak to each other in a classroom. I’m not sure why they’re that way but they sure know!
Melody is a straight-girl but she has followed society’s rules and doesn’t know who she truly is. She is trying to find out but has no friends.
12-year old Rosie is the most fluid character. She accepts and loves her body, so around others she sees herself as a girl but not feminine or masculine. Rosie just acts the way she normally acts, whatever that means. She explains it like this, “I’m just being Rosie.”
Jewel, the Code, is the ultimate fluid being. She doesn't even have a body! She doesn't have a gender. He friends label her as female only because of the feminine-tone of her voice.
As queer as a being can get!
* * *
"Keep Your Eye on the Ball!"
Coaches yell it but the player doesn’t know what to do. Something with his body and he or she needs to pay more attention to the ball. But the player is doing that. He is paying attention to everything else, especially his coach’s unneeded encouragement.
Unfortunately coaches do that a lot, yell out common, encouraging phrases. Players have heard them all but their wisdom is lost is the business of a baseball game.
It is perhaps the most important action a player needs to master — keeping your eye, your total focus, on the baseball. The ball is where the action is taking place, where the play is being made.
Keeping your eye on the ball will naturally teach you to pay attention to everything happening on the field. When you bat, see where all the players are positioned. Where are the holes in their defense? Where should you hit the ball? Who’s not paying attention, talking, or just messing around.
And, of course, throwing and catching the ball is paramount. So always throw accurately and with power, and catch the ball with grace and clear intention.
Most all the errors committed in a professional baseball game are made by a bad throw or catch. Watch and learn!
In your life, the baseball represents everything. The big-picture of all you do, and think and feel. Like in a baseball game, life is busy with little tasks. So you must remember the key tasks of your job-of-life. And the most important is watching that ball.
When you’ve got your ’eye on the ball’ it’s easy to guess where the ball will go next. Watch the batter and he or she will show you where they plan to hit the ball. Are you in the best position to catch the it if it come to you? Watch the ball pop off the bat as the batter makes contact. In that moment you will know where the ball is headed. And if it’s to you, you now have a jump on the ball and can make the play well ahead of the runner.
When you’re batting, watch the ball go to the pitcher, watch him hold it in his glove. When the pitcher throws his pitch, watch the ball come out of his hand. Watch the ball move through space and see where it ends up.
Then on the next pitch, keep that eye on the flying spheroid and whack it hard, to wherever you want the ball to go.
Baseballers strike out a lot. Many more times than they hit the ball and get on base. Putting the ball into play is the key to winning games; get players on base and then get them home.
In your daily life, pay attention to your ball.
Don’t drop it! Throw it, catch it, hit homeruns with it, and get yourself home.
Maintaining a positive, active attitude will guarantee your success on the field of baseball and the field of your life.
* * *
"It ain't over 'til it's over!"
Yogi Berra’s words are especially true for young baseballers. How easy it is for a 12-year old to give up on the game because of one or two errors or because his team is behind by just a couple runs.
The truth is that many, many, baseball games are won or lost in the very last play of the game.
Your team needs to rally and encourage each other. To play with heightened enthusiasm and focus because they are behind. It truly is not over until the last out has been called.
And then, when your team comes from behind and wins the game, that’s great baseball play, which is the sure sign of good coaching.
* * *
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Baseball's Power Play
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Run on 2nd-Base
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Spy on the Defence
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Analyze the Batter
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Backing-Up Saves Runs
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Coaching For Success
"Baseball, like life, is 90% mental and the other half is physical."
Teachings About Baseball and Life
"It ain't over 'til it's over!"
The book itself is a secret code! Solve the clues, learn the lessons, and discover the secrets to living a rich, exciting life, and hitting homeruns all the time. As Rosie says, "It's easy when you know how."
Chapters and Vignettes
Book Chapters
1. Casey At the Bat
2. Quiet In the Library
3. Decoding In Tech Class
4. Buying Dance Tickets
5. Telling a Grown-Up
6. His Dark Associate
7. Meeting the Team
8. Like a Rolling Stone
9. But You Get What You Need
10. First Try
11. Oh, What a Game
12. Devil Rhythms
13. We Got Rhythm
14. Bobby Goes Bugging
15. The Crazy Public
16. Yes and No
17. Codes Of Color
18. Rebooting the World
19. Finding Bugs
20. Quantum Carnival
21. On Stage In Drama Club
22. Bending the Truth
23. Meeting the Dad
24. Baby’s Bugle
25. Her Name Is Jewel
26. Thank Goodness For Evil
27. Church Of Baseball
28. A White House Visit
29. Meeting Billy Bob
30. Lighting Strikes Twice
31. It Ain’t Over ‘Till It’s Over
32. April In Paris
33. Living Without a Body
34. Two Sides To Every Pastor
35. The Championship Game
36. Shenanigans At the
School Dance
37. The Long Limo Ride
38. On the Phone
39. Kill Us Or Save Us
40. End Of Days
41. From a French Point Of View
42. So Long, It’s Been Good To
Know You
43. Looking Into the Abyss
44. Solstice, Point Of Change
45. Over the Rainbow
46. How To Hit a Homerun
47. Opening Game Of the Season
48. Eating Pizza
49. Epilogue
(Click on title to go to the chapter page)
On the baseball field, so too on the playing field of your life. This chapter is the heart of my story.
We all use codes to communicate. But some of our communications we want to keep a secret. The book is a cypher, a secret code with th answers to all the reader's questions.
Turning a triple-play, quipping the umpire, and falling in love. Oh, what a game!
”That's okay ump, your seeing-eye dog is on its way.”
“That’s running? My grandma could beat you.”
“Great swing but you missed the bus.”
“That’s your best? The world’s in trouble.”
And celebrating the hilarious wisdom of Yogi Berra.
Evil is a raging storm that destroys, but also provides fresh drinking water and nourishment for all. Evil is manure, and good things grow well in the manure of evil.
Evil is your friend. It never lies to you. It never misleads you. It will tell you always what it is doing. Evil is in us, not outside or around us. It doesn't make us do evil, it just makes us want to.
"Evil works like the rain,” Jaxon explained. ”It just pours down the water, knowing the water knows where to go and what to do. And what the water really does is just follow its prime directive: flow with gravity.”
“And so it goes, we’re driving the ‘car of truth’ with Evil in the backseat giving directions.”
Everyone seems to have body-issues nowadays. Our body allows us to exist in a physical world.
But what if you didn't have a body? No bodily needs or comparisons with other bodies?
Jewel, the Code doesn't have a body, She can travel thrpugh space in a quantum moment.
Dr. Corser, the Science teacher, takes his students to a brand-new world—the one they live in! There is no solid matter. Everything physical, including me and you, are created with frequencies of fast moving electrical energy. It's our brain that tells us to perceive things as physical matter.
The Art classroom, like in many high schools, was a sanctuary for the student who thinks differently, who is walking her or his own unique path, not following a fad, culture, or religion.
In the Chapter, 'Two Sids To Every Pastor, Pastor. Mike share a simple heartfelt story about Jesus teaching Ibrahim and Amir the personal value, the selfish value, of living a life of truly loving your neighbors.
“If you want to be on stage then you have to get out of your seat and climb a few stairs," Mrs. Sherman says, "Physically getting here is not difficult.
"What is very difficult is to commit yourself to climbing up the stairs and being on stage.”
It all sounded true to April. She understood the metaphor right away.
The stage was her life and she had to live her life. Being on stage and interacting with others was life.
She had to gain the courage to act, to live, truthfully. Watching your own life from a cheap balcony seat was losing your life.
Coyote Talks
Traveling to all 30 Major League stadiums.
Starting in the West: Southern California, Northern California, Seattle, Denver, then to Philadelphia for the All-Star game, and on to Baseball's Hall of Fame in Akron, Ohio.
Baseball Talks
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How to Play Winning Baseball
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How to Coach For Success
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Love Your Umpire — Insider Tips and Tricks
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Why Baseball Is America’s Favorite Pastime
Life Talks
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Becoming Yourself — Self, Social, and Gender Identity
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Fine Art — Beauty Throughout History
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In the Footsteps of Vincent van Gogh
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Exploring the Quantum World Inside You
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Writer's Workshop: Developing your writer's voice, building dramatic structure, and command of your words.
There is no fee for any of the presentations. Each is my gift to you and your team. Expenses (food, lodging, travel) need to be covered. There are no travel expenses if the Roadshow is in your area. Donations are accepted.
I am joined by a talented group of musicians. They love to play dance music, country tunes, and audience sing-alongs.
My endlessly-cheerful support staff can cook up a barbecue, some infamous Coyote Chili, and tasty veggies to create a friendly picnic for socializing.
We’re all about making new friends and living life to its fullest.
Consulting services also available.
Coyote Mike's
Resume of
Adventures
Coyote Mike is the nom de plume for Michael Saint James.
Michael is a world historian and the author of 'Bridges of Paris', a large-format photography and history book.
He is an Educator of the visual, musical, and dramatic arts. He has taught high school and middle school students as well as primary students and adult students.
Just as his character Mr. Dale did, Michael has walked in the footsteps of painter Vincent van Gogh. From where Van Gogh was born to where he died, and everyplace inbetween that he painted. Michael has personally viewed more than half of Vincent’s 812 masterpieces and has uncovered the true cause of Van Gogh’s controversial death. The story of this adventure is Michael’s most popular public presentation.
Michael has worked professionally as a Baseball Umpire. For high school, college, and hundreds of Little League baseball games. He also taught the skills of umpiring to students and coaches at the Little League Western Campus.
Michael is a Public Speaker. He has presented, “In the Footsteps of Vincent van Gogh,” “Women of the Impressionist Era,” and “The History of Paris,” to patrons of the De Young Art Museum in San Francisco and schools and libraries in the California Bay Area. He also did presentations in Paris, France.
He has worked as a Tour Guide for Viking River Cruises on their “World of the Impressionists Cruise” down the Seine River through the Normandy region of France.
Michael is a World Traveler. having visited more than 50 countries and Antarctica. He lived in Paris, France; Tokyo, Japan; Galway, Ireland; and the Dominican Republic. He also rode his bicycle across the United States, from Las Vegas to Washington DC.
Michael lived in a tent on public land in Colorado and Arizona for two years. The inspiration for this story came from living with Nature.
* * *
How Is a Novel Story Created?
Through the Fire and with the Leap of Faith I ended up on the rim of the Grand Canyon. Searching for a motel, I discovered the nearest to be 50 miles away, in a small country town called Williams, at an altitude of nearly 7,000 feet. Williams is on famed Route 66 and I was dazzled the first time I drove down the historic main drag.
It seemed like a dream town, with the residents still living in the 1940s and 50s. And it is! The dreamiest part is everyone’s friendliness. People here want to get along and help others out. They want to chat and hear a good story. And they don’t care how you look or where you came from. In small town life, everyone is family.
I learned about camping on national BLM land from the ‘nomads’ I met. They were living in their van, trailer, truck or in a tent. No rent to pay, living in nature every day. Outside of Williams, 15 minutes from town, I found Dogwood Lake BLM forest and joined the 10-15 campers staying there.
I lived there for six months, until the cold of November. It was amazing—every day. Up with and down with the sun, no technology, no nothing except the moon and nature.
A heard of sheep came by everyday for a couple months, grazing on the high pastures of my campsite. For 10,000 years, at least, herders have guided their sheep here from the south and then back again in an endless loop. I imagined being on this land 5,000 years ago. And figured it would look and be pretty much the same, actually identical.
Nothing to do—and the days flew by.
After wintering in Quartsite, a nomad gathering spot near the Colorado River basin, I traveled to Moab, then Cortez, Colorado. Perfect weather, just right.
I camped on Navajo Nation BLM land in an area that was an ancient gathering spot for native tribes from all over. A place to meet new people and learn new ideas. I camped about an hour outside of Cortez in a wooded area with no one else around for ten miles. Occasionally I would hear a truck drive by on the main dirt road a mile away.
Wow, this was truly ‘living in God’s country’. Just me and nature. No goals, challenges, or desirers needing to be met. My bucket list was empty.
The most profound experience was the silence. For hours, all day, all the time, no sounds, except those I made myself. The sounds of silence, the roar of quiet, empty, ears not needed.
“Can you hear it?” I challenged myself one day, “Can you hear the music? the rhythm? the tones? The silence is alive with frequencies, all singing to you. Can you hear it?”
* * *
I’m always thinking of stories, it’s my nature. So when does a story start and where does it come from? I don’t know, but it does.
So how about a story for middle and high school kids. A story that would teach them, excite them, and challenge them to discover their own life, not just to observe it.
So what’s fun? How about ‘codes’, a secret code? Sounds cool. What can I write about with authority? Baseball. Good. So its titled… well, Baseball Code. A bit obvious, so, The Baseball Code, no, The Homerun Code, yes. No one cares about baseball but everyone cares about hitting homeruns in their own life.
The metaphor was set: As in baseball, so too in the reader’s life. George Carlin’s famous routine on Baseball vs. Football was inspiring and I came up with the Church of Baseball.
Characters tend to follow a standard, ‘hero’s journey’ formula: So, all are 17-year old Juniors at Coyote High. Bill is the baseball pitcher, the story happens to and around him. Mikie is the catcher, a leader, sidekick, and most importantly, the observer of truth.
April is the female protagonist. The reader sees the story through her. The hero of the story is Bill’s younger sister, 12-year old Rosie. She will be in high school next year. Rosie is a savant, an artist, with wise common sense and a simple way of explaining complicated ideas.
They are supported by their archetype friends and teachers: the players on the baseball team, Coach and Coach Jake, Riane the athlete, Alysha the traveler, Brad the Bully, free-spirited Tom and Gary, lovely but lost Melody, Dr. Tech, Mr. Art, Dr. Science, and Miss Drama.
Then toss in some Bad Guys, who at first are ‘pure evil’ but will recognize their goodness and change their ways. How about business man Mr. Meaney and Assistant School Principal Bobby Brewer.
I started writing in my tent with just a few pencils and a notebook of paper. The computer was no good without power and I couldn’t write upside-down with a pen.
I imagined it, and the story came. So we’re standing in line to buy tickets to the Prom Dance. Common scene at a high school, but what are all those students really talking about? Well, let’s just stand in the line and listen in.
The Science teacher has a lesson on quantum physics, and delivers it as a carnival game. The Drama teacher shows students how their lives are just like characters on stage, “so be your character!” The Tech teacher tells the history of codes, quite fascinating, and Bill gets his first clues as to where the story was going.
My job was truly that of just a writer. I didn’t make this stuff up. I just imagined the scene and then wrote down what I saw and heard.
Like most novel writers I was concerned about word-count. A novel is somewhere between 60,000 and 120,000 words. Seems like a lot of words to write, a deal killer to a wannabe novelist, but it was actually easy. I had lots to write about. I set a goal of at least hitting 60,000. And when I hit that goal, I still had lots more to write down. My final manuscript has 129,000 words! Easy-peasy.
Oops! Too long? So I cut every scene that didn’t have a direct connection to the plot or storyline: 32,000 words! My novel stands proudly now at a word-count of 98,000.
Thee hardest part of creating fiction is making up good, realistic characters. Knowing their backstory, good and bad, needs and desires, and on and on, for six main characters and 10–20 supporting characters. Whao! Time to give-up!
So with each character, I started with someone I knew, from my past or the present. So, April and DJ, the players on the baseball team, Coach Jake, and the students asking questions in class all have familiar names. It was so easy then. To give each character strong traits, skills, faults, desires, dreams, fears. Some from the real person and then others to fit the character into the story. I never describe a character’s physical looks. Looks don’t matter in my story. So it was wonderful to write with my own very clear physical image of each character.
Most supporting characters have a small specific part that adds to the plot. But a few of these imagined characters took charge and started writing their own scenes. They started creating their own storyline! (Or did I just imagine that?)
It was so amazing writing the character of Coach Jake. At first, the head baseball coach was going to be the only lead baseball character. He would mystically be called ‘Coach’. So Coach Jake was just Coach’s sidekick, with funny lines and doing things in a dopey way that always seemed to work out.
Good character, that will work, got it, let’s go! What? “Let’s go!” Who said that? Who wrote that down? Then Coach Jake spoke in my head again, “Let’s go!”
And the opening scene was written. Coach Jake told me the writer, that he could hit homeruns on command. He knew the secret and if the reader persisted to the end, Coach Jake (never just ‘Jake’) would teach him or her to hit homeruns in their own lives too, all the time. The Lightening Strikes Twice chapter was all Coach Jake’s idea. He always cries at the last scene.
What did he say? Tommy tells his friends he wants to wear a dress to school. Not for fashion but because boys are not allowed to wear skirts even though girls are allowed to wear pants. “It’s all about my personal choice. I just want to be me,” Tommy proclaims and his best friend Gary just grumbles.
April once talked about taking self-defense classes, and in high school I took a Karate class for a summer. So the character April told me she did take those classes and that she was going kick some butt in this story. And she does.
It’s actually the only violence in the novel: a 17-year old girl takes down three high school bad-boys with ease, and later disables an oversized security guard with a skilled kick to his groin and then one to his head, knocking him unconscious. Go April!
Dr. Corser is the too-smart, wild science teacher with the wonderful subtle humor of Diana’s brother Brian. All his students love Dr. Corser, he’s the best teacher in the world.
Aunt Diana is the librarian who is reading A Wrinkle In Time, her favorite book. The school secretary is Pam (Diana’s cousin) Seabird. Bill hates her for wearing baseball caps as fashion, not as a fan. But Pam does love birds: cardinals, ravens, blue jays, eagles, and even seahawks which don’t actually exist.
The Art teacher is my high school art teacher and friends appear as students.
My big-sis Jewel is the mystical Code, knower of all things, as any older sister should be. I have two relatives named Mary Sherman, the drama teacher, and are friends with two couples named Steve and Mary, characterized as students.
I labeled a lot more bit characters with familiar names but they all got cut as part of the 32,000 word purge.
It only took a few months to get the entire story on paper, about 80,000 words, written in pencil on paper. Then the fun began. I didn’t know what I was getting into, because I had never gotten this far in my previous novel-writing attempts. I assumed that my novel was mostly done and just needed the usual polishing and copy-editing.
But the story in that form was more like a structure or a skeleton, or a map on which details needed to be added.
A novel is not a singular thing, it is thousands of words, and each word, like each piece of a jigsaw puzzle, is needed and must be in its correct spot. For the last three months I examined and considered every word in the manuscript.
Some adjectives and phrases I intensionally repeated, others I just used once. An answer is always ‘correct’ or ‘exactly correct’, never ‘right’. Things are always just ‘good’ and sometimes ‘very good’, nothing is ever ‘great’. Everyone agrees, ’It felt natural’. Some words are only used once: binged, booby-trap, bamboozled, bazooka.
Quotes inside of quotes? I have the Pastor preaching about Jesus talking to Ibrahim, and telling him what Ahem had said. So how do I write the quotation marks?
Pastor said, “And Jesus said to Ibrahim, ‘Low my brother, be well. As Ahem told you, “Do not worry.”’”
I just rewrote it, but would the quotes really do that?
The word ‘said’ is clearly over used and mostly not needed. So, when possible, I didn’t identify the speaker and just used their words. Also, ‘said’ is a waste of a word because another, more emotional descriptor could be used: replied, questioned, added, agreed, challenged, yipped, giggled, yelled, mumbled, etc.
I was always thinking “short sentences, say it directly and be brief,” like Master Hemingway teaches. So I did, but reading it now, I see I have many very long sentences. So they’re now really just short ideas all neatly packaged between a capital letter and the period.
The rhythm of the writing became key to its readability. I read the text to myself as if rapping or singing, checking the flow and tempo of each sentence and paragraph.
* * *
The experience of pitching my novel to agents has been, as losers say, disappointing but educational. Winners say, “Dang, this is a major, time-consuming, challenge! Let’s go!”
I queried over 100 literary agents and a few publishers directly, used a few different pitches, and have learned much about the publishing world. Most importantly, no agent, publisher, or assistant ever reads the full novel. They are only interested in a proposals, a synopsis, the genre, and word count.
I think Ernest Hemingway and Kurt Vonnegut’s book-proposals would have been quickly rejected.
In a fog of confusion and disappointment, by chance, I called the number on my computer screen and connected with a foreign-sounding man who called himself Publisher Matt. I told him I needed to be published and he said, “Okay.”
He explained their cutting-edge process for publishing new books and how it would work perfectly with my strategy of selling through the book’s website.
We made a deal and now my book now debuts in about two months. Getting published was so easy once I found someone who really wanted to publish my book. My two-year journey in Nature blossomed has blossomed into artistic success.
* * * *
Casey At the Bat
by
Ernest Thayer
1880
The outlook wasn't brilliant for the Mudville nine that day.
The score stood four to two, with but one inning left to play.
And so when Cooney died at first, and Burrows did the same,
A sickly silence fell upon the patrons of the game.
A struggling few got up to go in deep despair. The rest, clung to
the hope which springs eternal in the human breast. They thought, "If only Casey could but get a wack at that”—they’d put up even money now with Casey at the bat.
But Flynn proceeded Casey, as did also Jimmy Blake.
And the former was a who-do, while the latter was a cake.
So upon that stricken multitude grim melancholy sat,
For there seemed but little chance of Casey getting to the bat.
But Flynn let drive a single to the wonderment of all,
And Blake, the much despised, tore the cover off the ball.
And when the dust had settled, and they saw what had occurred,
There was Jimmy safe at second and Flynn a-huggin’ third.
Then from five-thousand throats and more there rose a lusty yell.
It rumbled through the valley, and rattled in the dell.
It pounded on the mountain and recoiled upon the flat,
For Casey, mighty Casey, was advancing to the bat.
There was ease in Casey's manner as he stepped into his place,
There was pride in Casey's bearing and a smile on Casey's face.
And when, responding to the cheers, he's likely doffed his hat,
No stranger in the crowd could doubt, ‘twas Casey at the bat.
Ten thousand eyes were on him as he rubbed his hands with dirt,
Five thousand tongues applauded when he wiped them on his shirt.
Then while the writhing pitcher ground of the ball into his hip,
Defiance gleaned in Casey's eyes, a sneer curled Casey's lip.
And now the leather-covered sphere came hurtling through the air,
And Casey stood a-watching it, in lusty grandeur there.
Close by the sturdy batsman, the ball unheeded sped.
"That ain't my style," said Casey. "Strike one!" the umpire said.
From the benches black with people, there went up on muffled roar.
Like the beating of the storm waves on a stern and distant shore.
"Kill him! Kill the umpire!" shouted someone in the stands.
And it's likely they'd have killed him, had not Casey raised his hand.
With a smile of Christian charity, great Casey's visage shown,
He stilled the rising tumult, he bade the game go on.
He signal to the pitcher and once more the spheroid flew.
But Casey still ignored it and the umpire cried, "Strike two!”
"Fraud!" cried the madden thousands, and the echo answered, "fraud!"
But one scornful look from Casey and the audience was awed.
They saw his face grow stern and cold, they saw his muscles strain,
And they knew, that Casey wouldn't let that ball go by again.
The sneer is gone from Casey's lip, his teeth are clinched in hate.
He pounds with cruel violence his bat upon the plate.
And now the pitcher holds the ball, and now he lets it go.
And now the air is shattered by the force of Casey’s blow.
Oh, somewhere in this favored land, the sun is shining bright.
A band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light.
And somewhere men are laughing and somewhere children shout.
But there is no joy in Mudville, mighty Casey had struck out.
* * *
"Love is the most important thing in the world, but baseball is pretty good too."
Contact Information
For speaking engagements, music performances, roadshow parties, questions and answers, or to just play a game of baseball: Contact Michael Saint James at:
m (dot) saintjames17 (at) gmail (dot) com.