The Umpire Has No Clothes Read online

  The Umpire Has No Clothes

  Diary of a Sports Atheist

  By Walter Witty

  Digital Edition published by Crossroad Press

  Copyright 2013 / Jonathan Lowe

  Copy-edited by: Darren Pulsford

  Cover images provided by: Jonathan Lowe

  LICENSE NOTES

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to the vendor of your choice and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Meet the Author

  Jonathan Lowe has published in dozens of magazines, including Omni, Los Angeles, Arizona Highways, Readers Digest, Sky & Telescope, Progressive Engineer, Cosmos, Diversion, Coast to Coast, Easyriders, Blue Murder, and New Mystery Reader. He is author of Postmarked for Death, Instant Celebrity, Awakening Storm, and The Miraculous Plot of Leiter & Lott, with awards from the SC Fiction Project, Roger C. Peace Foundation, and Writer’s Digest. Several of his radio dramas have been produced, along with two one-act stage plays and a short film. As former audiobook reviewer for Cracker Barrel Old Country Stores and XM Satellite radio, he is currently a judge in the Audie awards, and edits Tower Review.

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  CONTENTS

  THE UMPIRE HAS NO CLOTHES

  A Preview of THE METHUSELAH GENE

  A Preview of THE MIRACULOUS PLOT OF LEITER & LOTT

  Praise for The Umpire Has No Clothes

  “A dazzling tour de farce worthy of the Masters!” —Tiger Wood

  “Prepare to be outraged, yet oddly intrigued.” —Clyde Clumberfelt, High Commissioner of Wiffleball

  “A brisk swim upstream to lay an egg for free speech.” —Salmon RushDie

  “Don’t just stew on this. Do yourself a flavor, and add it to your secret recipe for success!” —Ramsay Gordon

  “As twisted as the 11th dimension. . .or inning.” —Albert Einstein on Ghost Hunters

  “A literary event that would fill Beaver Stadium! . . .Now, can I please get a pilot for this blimp?” —Thomas Harrison

  Introspection

  Who am I? Not a fan. Not a former mafia don or rehab-bouncing celebrity has-been, either. (Sorry about that.) Since no one famous has stepped up to the plate with the proper balls to write this book, (countering the thousands of tomes and shows which are pro-sports 24/7), I figured I’d risk infamy by stating the obvious: that SPORTS are America’s true religions, and radical ones at that.

  By the way, if you don’t think that statement is true, tell your wife and watch as she laughs you under the Lazy Boy. Or just count how many primitive bipeds (also known as sports commentators) say “it’s more than just a game” about their particular faiths. The NFL and NBA Dioceses, for example, each have their own rules or Bibles. Don’t think those texts are holy? Okay, imagine you had the power to actually change something in one of them, like the height of the basket (to make the game more interesting, and in keeping with the increasing height of players over the years.) What do you think would happen to you if you did change that rule? That’s right: just as with changing verses in the Koran in Iran, you’d have a mob outside your house carrying tiki torches. Before they burned you alive, they’d bounce several dozen baseballs off your skull just for fun. His Supreme Holiness, the High Seer of Baseball, might approve this jeering practice, too, reasoning that his own church could be next for desecration. (If no priests of the Empire would bounce basketballs off your head, that’s because it wouldn’t generate as many ratings-worthy cheers, much less a Coke endorsement.)

  Next, explain why they follow national news reports on TV about the entire Eastern United States being flooded and the entire Western U.S. being burned with a “late breaking exclusive” that some ball player beat his doping charge and will be in the playoffs as scheduled. Oh no, my friend. All you have to do is gaze into the glassy eyes of Bob Costas to realize that he’d be first to the plate, offering granny the match that would send you to the hell “where you belong”. . . and with no batteries for your remote.

  Finally, consider the Olympics. Sporting events, are they not? And just who were all those Olympians atop Mt. Olympus? Gods. Glorify them with sufficiently reverent enthusiasm or Medusa will put an arrow through your neck before turning you to stone. (Kinda like what the Spartans did to monk pacifists during peacetime to maintain their archery and stone pitching skills.)

  Now that I’ve established the obvious, remember to be a “good sport” about it as your outrage steadily mounts. Because what follows is something so horrific, so over the top, that even if it doesn’t attract the same number of hits online as your typical viral video featuring a vampire cat tap dancing out of a UFO, it’s a sin so odious and unthinkable that it will be remembered by your next of kin (even after a quart of gin.) As a blasphemy, it’s more worthy of an Iranian I’a-told-ya’s fatwa, in fact, than a game show host who cuts to ten minutes of truck and soda commercials right before announcing whether it’s the bacon cupcake or the mincemeat sundae that’s been Chopped from the finals.

  What is the purpose of all this? Is it merely to provide me with nursing home care in my fool’s gold years? Hardly. I probably won’t make it to Shady Acres, unless we’re talking cemetery. In fact, if I ever did a book signing, I’d need bodyguards in case some NASCAR fan decides to perform a spontaneous cremation with a gallon of gas siphoned from his muscle car. Or some soccer mom tries to run me over in the parking lot with her SUV, telling her kids to “look over there!” for a second. No, my ultimate purpose is to save you, dear misguided reader, from a lifetime of witnessing your favorite sports gods fail to make Sainthood after appearing in police lineups and prison mug shots. Isn’t it time to free your mind and explore your potential away from your crumb-strewn couch?

  A word about format. In order to survive this scurrilous screed, I shall allow my alter egomaniac Walter Witty (cousin to the infamous Mitty) to lull you into complacency by spinning tales of the imagination, (which is what he did during my own unfortunate childhood), after which I shall come at you from all sides, attacking your defenses while blithely ignoring the rules of the game (or games) in question. This means that if we’re talking baseball, I’ll send my wide receiver long for an end zone bomb. If football, I’ll have my goaltender stick it to your linebacker, shattering his teeth with a puck. So you won’t get as brain damaged as your typical gridiron warrior—who prefers such to ever reading actual books— most chapters here are as short as those in a James Patterson novel, since I (and he) correctly suspect that your attention span has been limited to reading mostly cereal boxes in the kitchen and a certain Sports Illustrated issue in the bathroom (or verse visa.) After we dazzle you with mind bending baton passes, we shall then ask you to recant your particular cult, and maybe save your soul in the process. If, by the end, you haven’t achieved enlightenment, we’ll then give you an apology and a refund in person. (By the way, if a third person named Salman answers the door, watch out for the Doberman. . .and his 600 volt novelty hand buzzer.)

  CHAPTER 1: The Secret
Life of Walter Witty

  When I graduated from college, I was very confused, even for a split personality. See, they told me that since I was educated in the Humanities, I had ‘the broad picture of life.’ Their theory was that, among all those jocks stuck in shop class, I alone possessed ‘sufficient vision’ to define the true parameters of man’s social, moral, and ecological condition. And I can still recall vividly the commencement ceremonies when the dean waxed eloquent on the great challenges which faced us as we went out into the world with our parchments and our purple cardboard hats. It was the same night they found Edgar Fishbein, a credit-laden senior, curled up in his dorm closet with one thumb in his mouth and a blue Bullwinkle blanket wrapped tightly around his neck.

  Understandably even more distressed by the prospect of the competitive unknown, I soon became sullen, morose, and saddened to learn that my Alma Mater had betrayed me by not telling us about the injustice which allowed someone who could recite Shakespeare, Byron, and Yeats to lose out to some knucklehead who happened to know his way around certain bathroom plumbing fixtures. Here was I, able to grasp the really juicy essentials of stellar fusion, transactional analysis, and gastrointestinal malfunction, reduced to trudging the city in search of beer cans, taking in laundry, and investing my hard-earned assets in a diversified portfolio of bookie bets and food coupons. Would I make it? I wondered anxiously. Would I be forced to take up residence in a dumpster and start eating refried beans? Would the student loan officers from my Alma Mater attend my funeral and hold a pocket mirror to my nose? In the throes of my disillusionment, it all seemed highly probable.

  Luckily, that was when I got lost while searching for a restroom at the US Tennis Open. Evoking some bizarre set of circumstances, then, I was immediately mistaken for a tennis player due to my resemblance to a man ranked 97th on the ATP computer. Evidently the man hadn’t shown and was presumed withdrawn. The official I addressed in the hallway as “Bud–hey Bud!” responded before I could complete my question by laughing and wringing my hand. The upshot is that he ushered me into this room where the pros were sitting around sipping Gatorade and discussing their investments. Now, not only did I have a job, but one or two friends as well.

  I wouldn’t say it was sheer LUCK which enabled me to reach the second round. Even though my opponent made more unforced errors than GM has commercials, I was pretty high on adrenalin. For instance, we were already three games into the match before I realized the warm-ups were over. And then some of my service returns had this knack for hitting the tape and rolling over on his side like a prophetic yo-yo too. Toward the end there’d be sparks spurting up all over the forecourt as he tried to scoop the dead balls back. The topper, though, was when I mishit match point into a lob which caught the back of the baseline and placed my luckless opponent within slapping radius of our resigning chair umpire.

  Back in the locker room afterward, I was accosted by several autograph-seekers of the racket-manufacturing ilk. They wanted to know why I’d changed playing hands in mid-career, and if this meant I’d be changing rackets too. Muttering something under my breath about a new go-for-broke strategy, I managed to con several commentators into spouting one-liners about my revolutionary style eventually “doing to Sampras what McEnroe’s serve-and-volley had done to Borg.” This was particularly satisfying in that before then I wouldn’t have been able to get a passing shot past a ball machine.

  Here was poetic justice at last, I reasoned. Too bad the outcome of my second round established the record as being the only love match in history when I was ousted by the 98th seed-–a defrocked ex-priest who nonetheless prayed for forgiveness before serving four consecutive aces.

  I think it was at the 6–0, 5–0 point that I also began to suspect that my opponent had the psychological edge, much like Freud had over Skinner. When the linesmen and ball girls began heckling me, I was sure of it. Regretfully, there’d been little time for me to brush up on the paperback I’d found in my locker room, INTERMEDIATE TENNIS: RELIEF FOR THE FRUSTRATED BEGINNER. Now I’d either have to fill out an application as a bagboy at the nearest Piggly Wiggly, or try entering the Papua New Guinea Open, hoping I’d get into the finals because no one else knew how to get there. Since I had no money for plane fare, I decided on the former.

  It wasn’t long before I began to realize that although being a jack-of-all-trades has its perks (one can always brag about being a ‘master-of-none’), I was somehow missing out on obtaining fulfilling employment and its subsequent burnout, and that if only I’d majored in Stadium Construction or International Sports Marketing & Endorsement Science, I wouldn’t be sitting around evenings watching reruns of America’s Got No Marketable Skills with Pan Pizza on my breath, but I’d be decorating private condos in Big Sur, and maybe going on monthly junkets to the Out Islands to launder my petty cash along with Ryan Seacrest.

  To make a long story short, I eventually began attending night school, taking Shark Tank’s Entrepreneurial Feeding Frenzies, and before long I was feeling much better about my future. That is, until several dishwashers told me about another course at the school titled Poetic Devices And Their Application In Government And Industry. The course instructor was Dr. Percy Snodgrass, former curriculum director at my Alma Mater. . .and also a part time window washer on Wall Street and Cash Cab contestant.

  DIEry ENTRY 1: The Science of Idiocy

  Walter’s main sport is lying. It’s among the most popular, whether one plays on a scholarship or not. Wally has a doctorate (M.D.) in MisDirection, and a third degree black belt in conflict avoidance. There’s method to his madness, too. He keeps me alive, playing halfback by running with what I pretend to hand off to him when fully awake and/or under the influence of Folgers crystals. Why? Because that’s how the game is played. Like any magic act, lying is about keeping the mark’s eye on the ball, which ends up vanishing, (just like the years off your life, watching TV.) This strategy has roots in the science of marketing, which has revealed that reduced dopamine receptors in the brains of sports fans cause them to become bored easily, and to seek out fast cars, fast women, fast food, and other thrills in an attempt to make life more interesting. To these people, the speed limit is a suggestion, and a rather mundane one to boot. So is marriage or eating an apple. They prefer driving through intersections with one hand while texting their mistress about a ski trip to Colorado where they will eat French pasties (i.e. underwear) with chocolate dipping sauce (while watching Ultimate Fighters and listening to The Foo Fighters.) Exciting? Whatever.

  On the other hand, sports as a religion defies science just as much as radical Islam does. Talk about them living in the Dark Ages, we’re even more antiquated. We’re still living in ancient Greece. In this first ever sports anti-bible I’m claiming that to change any rule would be like changing a verse in the Koran. Do it and you go to hell, where fans believe no games are played. . .(there’s just slot machines that don’t pay out.) To hear these painted heads talk, the God of Abraham is a huge fan of sports too, and has prepared a Sports Center paradise where the wagering and head butting never ends. “Ego is a big thing with Jesus, you know,” one Cubs fan tried to tell Walter. “He even loves NASCAR.” Right. Imagine that, after going in circles for an hour, Jesus got doused with champagne by two Pamela Anderson clones. . .right after he managed to force His opponent into the wall. Then there’s cock fighting. “Jesus loves it, yes He does,” I was told by a Broncos fan driving a Chevy Bronco. Right. Especially when a gushing eye prevented one cock from protecting its other.

  My own picture of heaven and hell is somewhat different. I see heaven as a place free of tattoos (and televangelists), and hell as having to run back and forth throwing balls through hoops forever and ever, amen. And since there’s no evidence to the contrary, my opinion (or Walter’s) is just as good as yours. (Prove otherwise.)

  We all like to imagine that our race or sex or club or team or country is better than another because we need a sense of family and belonging and, well, because we
were born into it. But if E.T. showed up, we’d change our tune. . .at least for a while. Why not do so now?

  If there’s a reason why we can’t do so now, and on our own, it’s this: evolution is just not on our side when it comes to logic. If, for example, you’re too lazy to learn the laws (i.e. rules) of logic, you’re liable to believe whatever you want to believe (rather than the truth that we could all go extinct, and sooner rather than later.) Rejecting all higher reasoning and any potential for enlightened civilization is great for those who prefer chest-beating territorial displays, but non-sports fans suffer. Personally, I’ve known sports “geniuses” who argued that there’s no such thing as “the truth,” that it’s all relative. One even told me the chair I was sitting in might be a figment of the imagination. “Yours or mine?” I asked. Listen, if you’re going to say that reality isn’t real just to win an argument, there’s no hope for you. Which is more likely: that this chair isn’t real, or the reproducible fact that I don’t fall when I sit in it (and you don’t either)? If you’re going to deny the senses, and experimental evidence, and historical verifications, well, anything is possible. The moon could be made of green cheese from Antarctica, and reality TV could actually be real. (Actually, I listened to one hockey fan arguing that this was, in fact, the case. But I didn’t listen long. I had half a sheet of plastic packing bubbles yet to pop.)

  In the library on a cruise ship to Alaska I once took there was a small science section next to a stack of jigsaw puzzles (and a much larger section of sports biographies.) Some of the science books discuss the mysteries of the universe, the probability of alien life, and physics problems related to infinite gravity inside a singularity. (Sorry, no time to explain: ask Brian Greene or anyone else on PBS. . .that’s about all they do—explain basic science to TV’s vast audience of Tim Tebow fans and Food Network Star wannabes.) In one book I learned of a project where anyone can help classify galaxies photographed in deep sky surveys. Yes, these are the same galaxies which millionaire televangelists (living next to Shaq) claim are only 6000 years old, although many are billions of light years away. So many of these galaxies exist, in fact, (each with billions of stars like our own galaxy,) that it’s hard for Entertainment Tonight to track them all. My idea is to replace those picture puzzles on board with cosmic puzzles—science and math problems that sports fans could help solve (instead of just putting together pieces of discarded plastic bottles and litter from cruise ships and tsunami trash to make a pretty picture of the ocean.) Maybe Toys R US could retail such puzzles too, and then due to the sheer number of workers, many scientific equations could be worked out, and the black hole of NASA funding debt avoided (so we could get to Mars and collect more rocks for children’s museums.) After all, if a million monkeys typing can produce Darwin’s Origin of Species in a billion billion years, maybe a thousand million sports fans actually thinking can discover why it doesn’t matter who wins tomorrow night’s game (along with the true size of their ego in relation to just this sector of Romulan space.) Ya think?