Sports writer and legendary freak Hunter S. Thompson covers my little league baseball game, 1979
By the time we got to the little league field, my attorney had begun raving about the concession stand. “As your attorney,” he said, “I advise you to buy some hot dogs and Swedish fish.” The mescaline now clearly had a grip on him. At the sound of a foul ball, he swung around to the right, nearly elbowing a plump-faced housewife with a purple sailboat knitted pattern on her sweater.
“These people are vultures,” my attorney said, wheeling back to face me. “They’re filth. They probably eat babies.” A bead of spittle stuck to his bottom lip. The lady with the sailboat sweater took a step back. Her eyes had become wild with fear. With a head swimming with mescaline, her head looked like a slab of bread dough stuck atop a headless body.
Standing between a 300 pound mescaline-crazed Samoan and this terrified woman, who for all I knew was the wife of the police commissioner, I felt the need to explain the importance of our task. To put her terrified, doughy mind at ease.
“Ma’am,” I said. “I am a doctor of Journalism and this is my attorney. We were sent here on a secret mission from San Francisco. Something of importance is going to happen here, according to my editor, Charlie Chan. Do you understand?”
She took another step backwards, nervously biting her bottom lip. I was now visualizing her husband—no doubt a squared jawed ex-Marine as well as a cop—clotting my head with a nightstick. This was getting dangerous. She needed to be neutralized.
“There are infiltrators here. In the bleachers, umpiring the games. CIA. KGB. IBM. We’re here to protect you—”
She stumbled backward and ran away—no doubt to gather a posse of insurance adjusters to bash the skulls of the acid-chomping degenerates hanging around the little league concessionaire.
“Suppose we get our hot dog and repair to greener pastures?” I said to my attorney. He was transfixed by a game winning hit by one of the players for the Allegheny All-Stars.
“Did you see that?” he said. “I’d swear that little kid over there just closed his eyes and stuck his bat out, knocking the ball all the way to the center field fence. Now the other kids are literally hoisting him on their shoulders.”
“And I’d swear your face is being eaten by rabid wolverines.”
“Son of a bitch that kid got lucky.”
"That happens sometimes. Let's get some hot dogs. And Swedish Fish. They're two cents a piece here. We can charge 10,000 of them to Sports Illustrated."
"Last out in the game, down by one, full count and a man on first and third, and the kid just stuck his goddamn bat out there. Won the game."
"Amazing. Now let's go before the vultures peck out our eyes. Got any amyls left?"
"Luckiest damn kid in the whole world," my attorney said over the sounds of frenzied, victorious little leaguers.
Zen batter and sports hero.
Ah, good old Hunter S. (Dr.!) Some of the time, when he wasn't being self-indulgent, he was brilliant. His editor said that fact-checking him was impossible because he made so much up or made things happen. So, Rob, you're in good company.
ReplyDeleteAs a writer, he was stunning. As a human being, he was loathsome. Very hard to parody because, well, who would think of the damn things he thought-- and who had the experiences. Not me.
ReplyDeleteApparently Trina's clued in on something I've got no idea about.
ReplyDeleteFear and Loathing in little league baseball??
ReplyDeleteI love his line, "It never got weird enough for me."
Ms. Media... Hunter S. Thompson was a writer for Rolling Stone (and Sports Illustrated!). Complete maniac. This book got made into Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, with Johnny Depp. Thompson ended up killing himself, having his remains blown out of canyon according to his will:
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Johnny Depp paid for the arrangements...
When the going get's weird, the weird go pro.
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