MFS62

A few years ago I wrote about the first regular season game the Mets played at Fenway Park, as seen through the eyes of Anne Rice.
Enjoy.
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Anne Rice Reports the Ballgame

The Mets approached the old building with fear. It was secluded in the center of town, amid the cheap bars and crowded streets. But, as night began to fall, it emitted an eerie glow into the New England sky. The crowd seemed drawn inexorably toward the light, like moths to their doom. And as their team bus drew up to the gate, the word friendly was the farthest from the minds of the Met players. They had heard all the stories, but few of them had ever dared to enter.

They changed into their uniforms solemnly, and slowly ventured out from the bowels of the building into the artificial light that was beginning to win its battle with encroaching darkness. They blinked in disbelief. There it was. All the stories were true. The Green Monster did exist To paraphrase Edward Albee, it was the malevolence of an erection. It had obviously been created by an architect with a deep hatred for pitchers. And they wondered to a man what impact that expanse of tin with mesh above would have on their immediate futures.

The pitchers felt fear rising in their bellies; the hitters a false sense of bravado. Soon night would fall, darkness would envelop the rest of the world outside, and the dreaded Boston bats would emerge. Only one of their hurlers, Martinez, was able to nullify bats in this place, and without a necklace of garlic. By contrast, to the Met starter Al Leiter it had been a house of horrors for his entire career.

Even the lights that started to dot the face of the Monster did not begin to allay their fears. It was a perfect home for a team that seemed to resurrect itself every decade. The locals spoke of the Curse which has lasted three quarters of a Century. Over that span, their fans have followed them to the brink of ecstasy, only to be plunged into the depths of despair. Yet the frenzy of their maniacal following has never waned, even to the point of destroying the lives of those players who may have disappointed them by making one small error or one bad pitch.

The blood red words on the chests of the home team blazed in juxtaposition with the Halloween orange trim on the uniforms of the visitors. But whose blood would be spilled that night? The first battle was about to begin.

The man expected to lead the Mets that night was Mike Piazza. But he was hit by a pitch from Martinez. Yet the man who replaced him, light hitting Alberto Castillo drove the first stake through Martinez’ heart. It was a home run that was gobbled up by the Green Monster. The life began to drain from the local fans. To the Mets, the smell of blood was heady and they began to revel in the carnage that was about to unfold.

The bats; the bats; the timber-nabulation of the bats was to continue all night. The Mets hit three more home runs and Boston’s own semi-mortal monster, Mo Vaughn hit two of his own. But the inevitable was never in question.

Slowly the fans began to leave the old building, to drown their sorrows one more time in the seedy pubs that lined the neighboring streets. The Green Monster had consumed one of their own that night. Soon the bats would be asleep; artificial light replaced by the coming dawn. But in the darkness of the old arena, the bats would remain, waiting for their next victims.

 

James Bond Visits the Mets
From Flushia, With Love
M had called James Bond into his office on a bright summer day. "James," he started, "we’d like you to get involved with that Yank game called Baseball. It seems the game is taking over the world. They even have it in the Olympics now, and Her Majesty is a little curious about the amount of money to be made. Based on Cricket, you know."
M continued, "The best part is that there are no bloody WOGs involved in it yet. They’re too busy testing nuclear weapons. Hope they blow themselves up. We’ve assigned 008 and 009 to make sure that happens. That will teach them for leaving the Empire. Israel could probably kick our butt, so we’re leaving them alone. And Jamaica still provides us with great ganja, so we’re not messing with them, either. Want one?" Bond accepted one, and carefully placed it in his solid gold case next to the special Turkish blend cigarettes he had specially made for him. "For later use," he explained.
"You mean I’ll have to visit the States again?" Bond asked, remembering his adventures with that American agent Felix Leiter.
"Yes," replied M. "Your cover will be as a sports agent for one of our spies, that female golfer Muffin Spencer-Devlin. That will give you the liberty to travel around, meet some players, watch games, then report back to us." "I don’t have to remind you," he continued, "this will not be an easy assignment. The Yanks are very protective of their superiority in this sport, and won’t look kindly at us trying to make some revenue from it. They were smart the way they brought their blasted Football over here. Only sent their less than best players. Then they compounded the insult by putting the best teams in Germany."
On his way out the door, James stopped at the desk of Moneypenny. "James" she gushed, "you look positively dashing today. Where are you off to, now?"
"The colonies," he replied. "I’m supposed to learn about Baseball. I have a few stops to make before I leave. Is Q still running the special weapons lab?" When she replied that he was, James gave her a businesslike kiss on the cheek and took the lift to the basement. When he had gone, Moneypenny could not forget her memories of that moonlit night on the Thames.
"Q, you old buzzard!" bellowed Bond as he entered the lab, "I’m surprised you haven’t blown yourself up yet." Startled, Q looked up. "We’ve been waiting for you , James. Heard about your new mission. Been preparing something special for your trip. Its a pneumatic baseball bat; looks like a normal one, but POW!"
Bond thanked him and dashed off to Carnaby Street. There he was fitted for a tailored 60% wool/ 40% Dacron baseball tunic, with a special pocket to hold his trusty Walther PPK pistol. It was a basic white, with a set of letters and numbers with which he could replicate any baseball uniform he would encounter. He then left for the airport. He couldn’t wait to meet Muffin Spencer-Devlin. That name was fraught with promise. "Would her muffin turn out to be corn or bran?" he wondered.
When she met him at the airport in New York, she was as beautiful as he had imagined; tall, sun tanned and athletic. "Hello, James," she began, "would you like to play a few holes?" He knew this was going to be the start of a very pleasurable mission.
Several hours later, Bond was certain that he had played every hole imaginable. And he had guessed right. It was corn. They dressed more slowly than they had undressed and prepared to leave for the ballpark. He made sure that the ganja was fully extinguished and hid the roach from any prying eyes. She told him that they were going to Shea Stadium, in a place which sounded like Flushia, New York. He carefully affixed the letters METS to the front of his uniform jersey. Muffin told him that the Mets were playing their heated rivals- the Yankees- that night, and James was anxious to get on with the mission.
They were going to stand at the players’ entrance before the game. She would introduce him to some of the players as her agent, so that they might be given good tickets. As the players started arriving, James saw a familiar face. "Felix" he yelled out. Slowly the player turned, and recognition beamed in his smile. "James, you old Tory. How have you been?"
He put his arm around Bond and ushered him aside. "You can’t call me by that name anymore, James. It will blow my cover. Since I lost my arm in that last escapade of ours, the boys in our Special Branch replaced it with a nuclear powered one. I’m a pitcher for this team now, but they know me as Al Leiter. And, Damn isn’t the new arm working well! Hurt my knee the other night, but the boys are still working on that one."
"I’ve got a little present for you Felix, er, Al," Bond whispered, "its this special bat Q and his boys cooked up. Put it with the others and use it to your advantage tonight." Leiter promised that he would, handed James and Muffin passes to the player’s seats and continued into the stadium.
He had read about the game while on the flight and he felt he understood the rules. The playing field was called a diamond, and under the lights it shone just as brilliantly. As the crowd started pouring in, Muffin told Bond that the average fan pays about L10 per ticket and spends another L10 in concessions and souvenirs per game. "Also," she continued, "each team plays 81 home games. And there are thirty teams in the major leagues alone." Bond started to mentally calculate both the night’s gate receipts as well as the total value of this strange game.
"With that amount of money to be made by the owners, how much do the players make?" he asked. She replied that some of them make upwards of L10 million per year. He quickly began calculating what an agent must make at ten percent. This might be an appropriate time to consider retirement from Her Majesty’s Secret Service. His salary plus Naval pension only totaled a few thousand quid per year. The gate from this game alone could easily pay for the next Royal wedding, if only The Family would stop playing around with those commoners. His reverie was interrupted by the sound of "Play ball!" from the PA system.
The game itself wasn’t too unlike Cricket, with a bowler (called a "pitcher") trying to throw a ball past a batsman. Unless the batted ball was caught in the air, the batter had to run to a base before the ball was retrieved by one of the pitcher’s team mates and thrown to the base ahead of the batter. A batter reaching all four bases represented a "run." He could earn a "run" by hitting the ball over the outer fence. The team with the most runs at the end of the game wins. How simple.
In his career, Bond had met and conquered the evil forces of SMERSH and SPECTRE. But this night he was going to encounter an even more sinister and horrible foe. It was called OBF, which stood for Obnoxious Baseball Fan. For the next several hours, every time the OBF operative behind him stood up to cheer, a steady torrent of beer and peanut shells rained down on Muffin and him.
The game turned out to be a close contest. James noticed that one of the players, Baerga, used the special bat, and it was effective. He used it to hit the ball far enough to drive in a teammate with a score. This caused the OBF sitting behind him to throw even more garbage down on Bond.
James had had enough. As all of the fans in the stadium rose to cheer, Bond quickly drew his PPK from its secret pocket, wheeled around and shot the OBF agent between the eyes. "Missed my aim point by 2.4 millimetres" he said to himself, and made a mental note to spend some time at the range when he returned to London. Luckily, it was Handgun Giveaway Night at Shea, and the sound of Bond’s shot was lost in the cacophony of volleys fired by other celebrants.
His shot was not, however, missed by the Fan’s companion. "Hey!" he growled, "Who do you think you are?"
James turned to face the man, placed his hand over the Walther and coolly replied, "Bond. James Bond."
Nervously eyeing his slumping friend, the man stammered, "Well, as long as you’re no relation to BARRY Bonds, I guess it’ll be OK to sit there." Bond returned to watching the game. Someone named Lopez now used the bat. He hit the ball almost 100 metres, which everyone agreed is three times further than usual. The winning run scored.
As the game ended, Muffin asked whether James would like to return to her hotel room. Like all women who had ever met him, she was madly in love with him. "James," she begged, "stay here with me. Not only am I a famous athlete and agent for Her Majesty, I am related to the Spencer family. We, too, have been touched by Royalty." But he knew that duty called. With the Royal coffers draining rapidly, he would have to give his report to M as soon as possible. However, the next plane to London wouldn’t leave for another few hours.......
Bond sat upright in his favourite old leather chair in M’s office. "I have a sad report for you, sir," he began. "First, I am resigning my commission in the Service to become a sports agent. I’ve been earning money honestly all my life, but now I want to earn it dishonestly." Bond continued, "And it looks like this baseball game is too entrenched to go away. Her Majesty will have to get involved. Its not just a passing fad. In fact," he continued, "it appears that diamonds are forever."