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The madcap adventures; the uproarious hijinks; the wholesome schoolyard violence; the uncannily articulate young men continue! — in the second installment of “Baseball Joe.” Published in 1912, Baseball Joe on the School Nine, or, Pitching for the Blue Banner is summarized thusly by determined chronicler Tim Morris: “Suspenseful scenes include the smuggling of pies and soda pop into dorm rooms late at night, a snowball fight, a rescue from a burning building, and the unjust suspension of Joe, right before the big game, under suspicion of his complicity in toppling the school’s sacred Statue of the Founder.” Here I include an excerpt; it is, in fact, the first excerpt:

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From The Miami Herald (via Baseball Think Factory):

In popularity poll, Miami Marlins’ Jeffrey Loria ekes out a win over Fidel Castro

Only 23 of the respondents (6 percent) had a “favorable’’ opinion of Loria, and a third of those were people who said they personally know him. The only public figure who might lose a popularity contest to Loria in South Florida right now is Fidel Castro (who has a favorability rating of rating of about 1 percent, says pollster Fernand Amandi).

A majority of the season-ticket holders surveyed said they would favor a boycott if it led to Loria selling the team.

Full rankings from the poll:

1. Ozzie Guillen
2. Heath Bell
3. Jill Kelley
4. Bernie Madoff
5. OJ Simpson
6. Casey Anthony
7. Jeffrey Loria
8. Fidel Castro

Brad Lincoln is hunched in the waiting room of a doctor’s office, world-weary and rain-soaked. Outside, rain falls steadily. Lincoln is approached by two children who, to his surprise, know who he is. They begin to recite his high school and college statistics, his multiple awards won at those levels. Lincoln takes it in with an embarrassed smile, signs their baseball cards that bear his likeness, tells them how smart and generous they are.

After the children depart, summoned by their mother, an older gentleman, whom we know (thanks to convenient subtitles) to be Dr. James Andrews, approaches, his shadow in the shape of a crooked elbow preceding him.

“It’s time now, Mr. Lincoln,” Dr. Andrews says. Lincoln rises from his seat follows behind Andrews, putting one foot down fully before picking up the other. The gap between them grows until Dr. Andrews passes through a door and Lincoln is left alone in a hallway, a dim light directly above him. Lincoln hesitates for a moment and looks to his left, almost over his shoulder, at us.

***

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An experiment.

Chapter One: Odd Man Out

It had been a long week for Alex Anthopoulos, the 35-year-old general manager of the Toronto Blue Jays and native Canadian, accustomed to cold winters and french fries topped with gravy and cheese curds. Not only had Alex pulled off a mega-trade with the Miami Marlins, turning offensive eye-black wearer Yunel Escobar, strikeout-shy Henderson Alvarez, decent relief pitcher Jeff Mathis, and four prospects into a potential superstar core of the next championship Blue Jays team, but he’d also begun to feel, well, “a little strange,” or at least that’s how he put it to his wife, Cristina, over a plate of her homemade caribou stew drowned in maple syrup.

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“Baseball Joe” was the star of a series of novels written by “Lester Chadwick.” “Lester Chadwick” wasn’t his real name, but when he wasn’t writing “Baseball Joe” books he was writing “Bobbsey Twins” books, so a little differentiation was needed. Then again, the “Baseball Joe” writer and the “Bobbsey Twins” writer might not have been one and the same, and for that matter the purported “Baseball Joe” writer might not have written “Baseball Joe” at all, so I’m not sure where that leaves us, except with a dawning appreciation of the fluid nature of authorship, and perhaps personhood, in early twentieth century popular culture.

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Something happened to me today.

First I woke up and went into my kitchen. My kitchen, usually it is a happy place for me. Yes, haha, you are thinking, “Miggy likes to eat! Sometimes his jeans make him look so pudgy! Of course he loves the kitchen.”

Well, yes, I love to eat, but my kitchen has only good things for me to eat now. To play third base for the Detroit Tigers I need to be fit and so I eat good things. Lean meats, raw vegetables or steamed ones, mango smoothies, many fruit smoothies — sometimes one cookie at night if I hit a homerun. A cookie per homerun, Miguel, I tell myself. Uncle Burgos says that is why I hit so many homeruns this year.

It was very sad to me when I decided to not eat arepas, which are delicious fried pouches of fatty meats and cheese. My jeans do not like them, but I like them, but I like playing for the Tigers, third base, very much, and so I chose to stop arepas. At first I thought, Maybe I will just cook them to smell them; surely, that will satisfy me and then I can eat plants. I told myself I would cook the arepas, smell them, then feed them to Fuffenduke (he is my dog).

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As the World Baseball Classic qualifiers continue, I wonder about a few countries outside the field of 28 teams. Sure, everyone knows that Australia, Japan, or Cuba can field excellent teams, but what about places like Belize or Bhutan?

Some Internet investigation has led me to Afghanistan and Denmark, two countries that have each produced just one major league ballplayer. Jeff Bronkey, who pitched for the Rangers and Brewers in the mid-90s, is, according to Baseball-Reference, the only player born in Afghanistan. Olaf Henriksen, who played for the Red Sox from 1911-1917, is the only player born in Denmark.

Henriksen did not have any plate appearances against Bronkey, but if he had, looking at their stats, I think he very well might have earned a walk.

Victor Cole may have played in only eight games in the 1992 season, but he maintains the distinction of being one of Russia’s         natives to play in the MLB. And though many people                     love the USSR,                                                           he was not the only former Soviet to play the game.                                                                                                           

The 1992 season marked                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                terrible year                                                                                                                                                                                                    For Russia,                                                                                                                                                                               still great for Cole.

                                                                                                                                                                                          certainly not                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              , a former KGB agent. Just                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    a solid win                                                                                                                                                                               for communism                                                                                                                                                                           

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      platitudes?

I was a white boy in Jamaica first, and then a Jamaican in Germany. Then I was a Euro in the south.

Even as a nerd in prep school, I was out of place. I flew to Boston with a Colorado Rockies starter jacket for some reason, and very little experience with snow. That jacket, cinched tightly to reveal one eye most days that first winter, was often the object of scorn. Labelled a Jamaican on some paperwork somewhere, I again found myself as a white person at social events full of minorities.

And I was bad at sports. I arrived at Milton Academy a full five-foot-three, 100 pounds. I grew three inches every summer, but left school six-foot-two, hitting a buck fifty soaking wet. My motor cortex thought my limbs were shorter than they were, and so I was uncoordinated and small most years. That resulted in some ridicule, but it also created a problem for me, since I somehow had to satisfy the sports requirement every season. I resisted the wrestling team’s advances to be their super lightweight. Then a couple small bones broke and made me seem brittle. So I turned to other sports. Intramural (hack) skiing. Hack ultimate. Hack squash. I coached the field hockey team. I tried soccer until my ankles begged for mercy.

The only sport I kept trying all four years was baseball.

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