“All right, time for bed.”
“Tell me a story!”
“You want a story, huh?”
“Yeah, but make it a good one this time.”
“What’s wrong with the stories I’ve been telling you?”
“They’re always so sad.”
“Not always.”
“Yes always. There’s always somebody getting hurt and somebody going on a list where they stay hurt and everybody winding up sad in the end.”
“That’s not always.”
“It is most of the time lately. And I don’t want to hear the one about the prospect who keeps getting another chance. That one got old a long time ago.”
“OK, you want a happier story…well, let’s see…there was once a prince.”
“What kind of prince?”
“He was a prince with very long hair.”
“Like Rapunzel?”
“Longer.”
“Does the prince let down his hair like Rapunzel?”
“Every five days.”
“Is that very often?”
“It’s as often as the rules let him. Also, the rules say he can let it down for only so long.”
“I thought you said it was very long.”
“This is a different kind of long. The man in charge of the prince’s hair doesn’t want the prince’s hair to get all tangled up in the prince’s right arm, so he keeps track very closely of how much he lets his arm and hair stay on the mound.”
“The mound? What’s the mound for?”
“The mound is where the prince is allowed to show off his arm and his hair and make all the people in the kingdom happy every five days.”
“That’s sounds good.”
“It does, but the man in charge of the prince’s hair and arm worries a great deal about leaving the prince on the mound for too long, so he has developed this habit of snatching the prince away before it’s necessarily time for him to go.”
“Oh no!”
“Yes, it’s a big problem for all the people in the kingdom, because once the prince and the hair and the right arm are gone, the mound becomes a very, very dangerous place.”
“What happens on the mound when the prince is gone?”
“All sorts of terrible arms take the prince’s place and the monsters the prince was keeping from attacking the kingdom…”
“There are monsters?”
“Yes, monsters with big wooden sticks, and the monsters can’t be stopped by the terrible arms that take the prince’s place.”
“Where do these terrible arms come from?”
“They’re dredged up from under rocks, mostly, and are usually kept in a pen. When they stay in the pen, they can’t do any damage, but when they get out…”
“What? What happens?”
“Oh, the monsters and their big wooden sticks get loose and they swing the sticks or, sometimes, they just stand there and are allowed to walk.”
“Walk? Walking doesn’t sound so scary.”
“Have you ever seen one monster after another go for a walk? They just keep walking around until one of the other monsters swings the big wooden stick and it hurts the kingdom very badly.”
“Oh no!”
“So what do you suppose the man in charge had to do?”
“Um, find a way to keep the prince on the mound?”
“That’s right, the prince had to be allowed to stay on the mound. And how do you suppose that happened?”
“I don’t know — how?”
“With help.”
“What kind of help?”
“He got help from a very powerful dude, someone whose powers are very strong, but they only appear in very short bursts a few times a year.”
“Where are they the rest of the time?”
“Nobody knows. He also got help from the hometown boy.”
“The hometown boy?”
“Yes, the hometown boy is usually far from home, but once a year he gets to go home and it is commented upon endlessly that he is back home and he grabs one of those big, wooden sticks and wields it mightily…twice!”
“And how does this help the prince with the long hair and the right arm?”
“Because the very powerful dude and the hometown boy and some of their friends do what they do with the sticks, they make a big cushion for the prince, and he can stay on the mound, all comfy with that cushion for longer than the man in charge usually lets him.”
“Is it a magic cushion?”
“It feels like it to the prince, and even the man in charge can see that, and he lets the prince stay and stay and stay some more, almost to the end.”
“Almost?”
“Yes. The prince can stay almost to the end, but never exactly to the end.”
“Why not?”
“It’s the rule.”
“What’s the rule say?”
“OK, it’s not actually a rule. More of an unwritten rule.”
“How is it a rule if it’s not written down?”
“It just is. The man in charge has to rescue the prince with the long hair and the right arm before the prince uses the arm too much.”
“How does he know when it’s too much?”
“He doesn’t. He just thinks he does.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Nobody does. But just before the end, the prince has to leave the mound.”
“Oh no!”
“No, it’s all right, because the prince leaves behind the magic cushion, magical enough to withstand the worst damage any of the terrible arms might accidentally inflict on the people of the kingdom.”
“So it’s a happy ending?”
“Yes, it’s a very happy ending.”
“I guess that’s good.”
“Of course it’s good. What’s better than a happy ending?”
“Nothing…but why not just leave the prince on the mound to get to the finish?”
“I told you, there are rules.”
“But you said they’re not written down anywhere.”
“They’re not. But the man in charge has to keep count anyway.”
“Count? Like a royal count?”
“No, more like the way you count your fingers and toes.”
“I have ten fingers and ten toes.”
“The prince has ten fingers and ten toes, but the man in charge counts how many times the prince uses his right arm.”
“Does that help the prince?”
“Maybe. Maybe not. Nobody knows. But that’s the rule.”
“The rule is he has to count how much the prince uses his right arm?”
“The rule is the prince can’t use it to get to the end.”
“But it’s not written down anywhere.”
“That’s right.”
“But if the prince with the long hair makes everybody so happy, why would the man take him off the mound so close to the end?”
“Because the prince will be back on the mound in five days and nobody knows what his right arm will be like then, so you can’t be too careful.”
“Why not?”
“Because you can’t.”
“Does the man in charge have some kind of hard evidence that it matters one way or the other if the prince stays on the mound to the end or only almost to the end?”
“No. And that’s enough questions. You got your story. You got a happy ending. Now you have to get to sleep.”
“OK, I guess. Will you tell me another story tomorrow?”
“We’ll see. Maybe I’ll tell you about the special Pill.”
“The special Pill? What’s that?”
“Nobody knows yet. It could make everybody in the kingdom very happy or it could just unleash more monsters.”
“How come these stories don’t all just have happy endings?”
“It’s part of what happens when you decide you’re going to be one of the people in the kingdom.”
“Oh. Oh yeah. I forgot.”
Say Greg! Lately it seems you get to write about the fairy tales (like Hans Christian Andersen).
And it seems Jason gets to write about the horror stories (like H.P. Lovecraft).
Or maybe you two are the Brothers Grimm.
A little less grim(m) after last night, though.
Very clever, Greg. In my mind I envision Peter Falk telling this story to his grandson. Beware the dread pirate McCutchen.
I still count Cutch as one of the dangerous monsters, despite the trance he’s been put into for several years.
And the sluggers of unusual size.
I think with a little change in POV, Greg could replace Homer as the author of the greatest epic poem ever written.
Style more Anglo-Saxon than Greek though.
Kudos to TPB refs.
Last night was a good night.
deGrom the ace is back on the job.
The juxtaposition of deGrom and Pill is hopeful because, of course, deGrom was also a late bloomer at the major league level (set back due to TJ surgery in deGrom’s case) who came up as a relatively unheralded prospect. I’d rather give the next man up in the Mets system a shot, even if he isn’t a hotshot prospect, than recycling another Tommy Milone anyway.
Amazin’ Greg – An instant classic!
Love the part about the big slugger. Hopefully, this short burst will help win some games before he disappears again.
I’m glad that the man in charge of the prince’s hair let him stay on the mound as long as he did. Because sometimes he lets those other young men who want to be princes onto the mound, and they don’t have magic arms.
And how many times have we seen deGrom pitch to someone with longer hair? While Jake looks like a guitar player for a southern rock band, this guy Jaso looks like a Hampshire College student who follows Phish around the country, his favorite sport being Ultimate Frisbee.
Well done, Sir Storyteller!
I wanted to point out that there had to be *some* reason for Montero still being on the roster, and that it was something for which the Mets brass could never put forth the real, actual reason for him sticking to the roster like hair to wet soap. Probably, most likely, he had compromising photos of somebody. Like, I don’t now, Jeffy Wilpon lying on the bed in his underwear and gently running his finger over the tits of a lady badger…
Hold that image for a moment.
But then I just read that they had sent him to AAA after all, approximately eight weeks too late, so maybe the old explanation is still valid. Mets are a terrible organization, run like a third-rate Romanian orphanage.
I realize this is not the same thing; but I’ve been playing OOTP baseball for many, many, many hours (in the thousands), and I have a long-term save going where I am in the 43rd season of GM’ing and managing every single inning of ever game. There have been ups, there have been downs. There have been good times, there have been bad times. There have been second-to-last-round draft picks ending up with over 3,000 strikeouts for me, and there have been first-rounders never showing up in a big league game. There have been comebacks and crashes, and I have seen a lot of terrible things. Three wild pitches in one at-bat? I have seen that. Dropped pop fly to shallow right to lose Game 6 of the World Series, and the World Series as a whole, in the bottom of the 14th inning? Been there! Ten straight losing seasons? Survived those, too.
But never, NEVER… have I held on to the dried-up carcass of a useless, skillless pitcher for as long as the Mets have done with Montero. Not even close to that, at least on the major league roster. Just this week I dumped a 26-year old starting pitcher, former first-rounder, whose 47 big league innings had yielded 32 walks and 11 strikeouts. Had him toiling in AAA. And then AA. There was no point anymore.
I do realize it’s not the same thing, because even when my guys go 65-97, I will still have food on the table tomorrow, while – … no, I’m pretty sure Sandy’s slimed up to the Wilpons well enough to survive this trainwreck of a season.
Not any old train wreck though. Mismanagement from top to bottom, careless procedures of how to handle (and thus neglect) basic tasks, including communication deficits at the most basic level? Heck, the ’17 Mets look a lot like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ladbroke_Grove_rail_crash
Done muttering crazy stuff. Promise.
A fabulous fairy tale. Wouldn’t it be cool if you could write one 3 or 4 nights in a row?
Terry pulled Jake several times this year, in close games, after 91 or 98 or 102 pitches. Last night, in an 8-1, he sends him out there in 9th inning with an 8-1 lead–to throw 118! I guess he didn’t have Familia to put in that spot as he has so many times in past. We’ll see how Jake does in his next start and going forward.
[…] an out, and it didn’t get much better. To point out that this is the same deGrom who was the hero of the realm in his last start is to underscore the point. In all likelihood (caveat because you never know […]