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MUNGO!   Research to Reading...               ...part two Workshop & Reading

7/13/2014

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Once our eight week workshop is over we still have one additional event to culminate our experience. Trey provides an opportunity for the playwrights involved to hear their plays read by a group of actors. These readings are scheduled to take place two to three weeks after the final class. This will give the writers some time to make any updates/additions they feel are necessary. Trey arranged all of these readings through the theater company he is associated with – Moving Arts – which has a space on Hyperion in Los Angeles.

Our play was the only one with a single cast member. From the start my feeling was that watching a play reading with several actors interrelating is interesting and would give the author an idea of how the play was working. I couldn't imagine that me sitting in a chair and reading from the script would be very helpful for Jim or me – I mean, I had been reading pages this way for the past eight weeks. If we were going to get an idea how the play was working/playing I needed to memorize it and perform it...as a kind of staged reading not a full production...but still relating to the audience throughout—not to paper.

The workshop ended on the 31st of May. Jim and I allowed ourselves until the 8th of June to have a final first draft/reading version ready so I could start learning. After meeting to outline the final sections we passed the script back and forth a time or two and were finished a day before the deadline.

For the next couple of weeks I used just about every free moment for memorization of our 27 page script. Turned out that after almost ten years those acting parts of my mind were still working...

We recruited actor and friend, Keith Moreton, to read the stage directions and, as it turned out, to become another character in the piece...When I got to the final weekend I met with Keith on Saturday morning and we worked on the play together. At that point I was still struggling with some of the the transitions between sections—I would finish a story or memory and not be able to pull up what was next. A few words or a sentence was enough to get me back on track and going again—so I asked Keith if he would become “Mud” (name was his choice), my baseball pal and when I asked him for help he would give it to me in a few words or a sentence...when I left Keith's home, just one day before the reading/performance, I was feeling relieved and much more confident that it would all work out OK. I continued working on the play through that afternoon (went through it two more times) and into the evening until the sun started down. That night and the following day I tried to trust, relax and let it go...

There was one other play being read on Sunday night the 22nd and MUNGO! was up second. The theater is small, around 30 seats, with one door stage right and a tiny backstage and bathroom stage left. We set up a few chairs at center stage as the bus stop bench and Keith was sitting in a chair over by the door to read stage directions and give me a boost when I needed it. I did end up calling on Mud...so happy to have him there and on the spot with what I needed...play ran about 90 minutes. The biggest liability was the heat – a small room with about 20 bodies and no air circulation. However, it worked and the process and play was enjoyed and commented on. Lovely feedback and clear ideas for Jim and I as to where we needed to cut some so we could bring MUNGO! down to one hour or perhaps a little bit less...

We have just finished the second draft. Next step will be trying to run it through on my own. That will take a few days because with the cuts and rewrites I will have to go through and learn some bits and unlearn others. Once Jim and I are both happy with the end result we will start sending it out to festivals and such and hopefully find some kind of venue(s) where we can stage a full performance of MUNGO!

This has been another great adventure filled with twists, turns and many more ups than downs—I am grateful for the experience, celebrate the result and all the while I look forward to whatever comes next...

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MUNGO! Research to Reading...                ...part one Research & Workshop

7/5/2014

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July is born and the time has come at last to log these past months down in my place reserved for writing on writing.

The new year brought the birth of the idea and with February came research that began creation of a place for Mungo to enter our world – alive and pitching. We piled up more thoughts and information through March. In April Jim & I started a playwrights workshop moderated / taught by Trey Nichols. Jim has workshopped several of his plays with Trey and so this was a natural place for us to go when we were ready to put fingers to keyboard and began birthing our one-man-play...The Ballad of Van Lingle Mungo -or- maybe...Mungo -or- perhaps...MungoPlay.-or-...?

Jim's guidance and choices proved wise on several levels and Trey welcomed me to the group with openness and a great cup of coffee! Trey is a gifted writer in his own right and creates an atmosphere that gave us a platform to pull the most out of our subject and ourselves.

Here’s how the eight week workshop moved along:

We met at Trey’s home 10:00 Saturday morning from 12 April to 31 May. Seven playwrights working six plays. Class began with coffee and snacks that Trey provided, chat about theater that was happening around town and comments on what people might have experienced.

The informal opening was followed by pages, maybe 5 to 10, being read aloud from each play. Every reading was followed up with Trey's comments – he also encouraged us to explore what we had just experienced so all had opportunity to speak and respond.

Although this process is likely very familiar to many creatives out there—I have never been involved in anything quite like it and found myself diving into these moments with energy and enjoyment. Jim was particularly good at seeing and responding in a way that brought light and direction. Others in the group had this gift as well. It was very stimulating and amazingly helpful...

Our main reason for writing a play about Mungo was for use in promoting Diamond Stars, since Mungo plays a pivotal role in the novel. Originally we thought the play would run somewhere between 30 and 45 minutes. We had also thought it would primarily be a play about baseball and Van Mungo's role in it. As the weeks progressed the play segued and became more about the person of Van Lingle Mungo—who also happened to be a baseball player through the prime of his life...The workshop helped frame this choice and as a result we now have a piece that will relate to a general audience and not just aficionados of old baseball.

After these sessions Jim and I would meet for lunch and create a plan for where Mungo would be moving next. A couple of weeks we revisited and re-wrote the material we had just read for the next workshop session. As it ran I would usually take first crack and then pass the new pages to Jim for his take. We averaged five to seven pages per week. We also took notes and kept them for later re-writes.

This process worked out well for us. As we approached the last weeks we discovered a couple of things. First, this was not going to be a 30 to 45 minute play—there was a lot more material here than we had imagined and we were going to have to work to bring it in around an hour. Second, we were not going to finish the play within the eight week workshop as we originally planned, we would need to come up with at least two or maybe three sections to finish Mungo up.





More to come...


                                                                  


                
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The Play's The Thing....

2/21/2014

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As we wait for definitive news about a publication date for Diamond Stars events continue to unfold—check … www.facebook.com/MarcPeterReyna ... and—I have found myself researching another piece to complement our book project and challenge my overall writing experience.

If you check out the "Diamond Stars" synopsis on the home screen—you will see at least three references to the name—Van Lingle Mungo—over the past three weeks, I have been diligently digging for facts and stories about this Depression era ballplayer, in an attempt to see if there is enough information out there that we can use to create a show…one that would contrast and complement the Van Mungo in and of Diamond Stars.

Having an experienced playwright, my writing partner Jim Brown, and an actor, yours truly, in this duo—once the pieces came to light everything fell into place. Now Jim and I are on track to create a play that could also serve as a book promotion event. This will be not only a self-contained one-man play about the man with the most colorful name in baseball history...but a companion piece to "Diamond Stars" in which Van Mungo plays a prominent role.

Jim is at the helm at this point, writing the first draft. Then he will pass it back to me and I will take my crack at writing a play. I have performed enough of them. Time will tell if that is a help or a hindrance. Next we will take what we have to a play-writing workshop—one that Jim has had positive experiences with in the past—and spend a large handful of weeks trying out our incarnation of Mungo with a group of produced/aspiring playwrights.

From there we are hoping to find a venue to stage our piece. We are working towards 30 to 45 minutes at this point—but we will see what all the effort and input produces...

I have to say that I am pretty excited. I think that a part of me has always wanted to write a play—and I cannot imagine having better circumstances surrounding me when I dive into this offered writing discipline for the first time. Another part of me is a bit scared but I believe that is productive as well...

Some quick notes about Van Lingle Mungo:

He played Major League baseball from 1931 to 1945 with one year off (1944) to attend to WWII. Van mostly pitched for the Brooklyn Dodgers (1931-1941) and finished his career with the New York Giants. Mungo was an All Star in 1934, 36, 37 and 45. He led the league in strike outs in 1936 with 238—and also led the league in walks that season and a couple others (32 and 34). As the synopsis says he was a “... hard-drinking, fireballing Brooklyn Dodgers right-hander with (a) melodious name...”

He was “colorful” which in the parlance of newspapers in the 1930's meant alcoholic...

...but wait. Is there another side to this story? Has history given Van Mungo a bum wrap or does he truly deserve to be remembered in words of his one-time manager, Leo Durocher, who said he talked “…like Edgar Bergan doing Mortimer Snerd from the bottom of a well…and he drank a bit. Anything. Including hair tonic.” Van Lingle Mungo doesn't think so—and that is why he's coming back—to set the record straight...

...I think I see him now, strolling up Van Lingle Mungo Boulevard, togged out in that old beat-up Brooklyn uniform, number 16...spikes clattering on the asphalt, his well used five fingered glove stuffed in a back pocket. Mungo's been working this two and a half mile bypass, around Pageland, South Carolina, for quite a time—looking for someone who'll listen to his story...wait...he's stopping for a breather, on that bench over there...Perhaps Van is on his way to Goob's Bar & Grill; it's just a short walk from his current residence (right behind First Baptist Church). Goob's is where Van picks up local gossip and the latest baseball news...but I think today, he might be more concerned about another kind of news...something more personal...a story he wants to tell, needs to tell—one that features—Van Lingle Mungo—and Van needs to tell us about it, right about now...
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Friday, 17 January 2014 - NYE + 7teen... 

1/17/2014

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The New Year is loose among us and with it a portion of what I have been looking forward to—has begun.

I don’t know how New Years Eve has been for you but for the two of us the past several have rolled out as follows: a quiet evening at home with a nice supper, followed up with a movie, which we interrupt around midnight to watch the ball drop. On the turning of this year, prompted by my bride, we tried something different…I believe she felt that the new adventures we were embarking on had changed her perspective and called for a different approach, which should be a part of our NYE.

Her idea was as simple as it was apropos—we come home, get settled and then each of us supply one sentence to the other. Beginning from that sentence each sits down and writes a short story before the evening is over—limit three to five pages. Wonderful. Of course, me being me I tried to complicate it and plan the evening out in forty-five minute blocks with breaks for snacks, chats and supper. I also came up with five sentences for her to choose from instead of one…that’s me, to be sure, but not in the spirit of the evening. So I let that go, handed off just one of my five first lines and we were on our way.

As it turned out we did take a couple of breaks for a quick chat and some supper—I am thinking that the writing, breaks included, took a little over three hours—and the result was lovely. You will probably have guessed that they were both romances, but each took individual personalities and quirks along for the ride. We read the stories aloud, talked about each one and then…you guessed it again…we turned on the TV and watched the ball drop.

In case you are curious, here is my NYE story—after a bit of editing which consisted of tightening up the word count and checking some facts. I send this out to you in gratitude for reading and walking with me into the new…
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                                                      SEASONED
     As he sat on the bus bench, listening to his transistor radio, hoping that the battery wouldn't run out before the football game was over, he wondered why, of all the four seasons, he hated this one so much.
     “Another time out?”
     “Well...yeah.”
     “Didn't they just take...”
     “Look Jackson,” Andrews intoned, “The Bears called that one,” a finger point. “Now we're talking the Cardinals!”
     “...oh,” was Jackson's response. “I must have missed that subtlety.”
     “Subtlety!” Andrews squawked. “Come on friend, we're talking about the game here!”
     “And St. Louis must beat Chicago—or else..?”
     “You got that—or else.”
     Thankfully, the bus pulled up. Once on board there would be no need for his battery weakened five dollar radio. Every other passenger on board would be blaring their own Japanese jobs or maybe even one of those newfangled Boom Boxes. The only problem now was how to keep this treble throated St. Louis Cardinal fan quiet on a Chicago city bus full of bird busting Bear fanatics...
     St. Louis made it to the 18 yard line—4th and 2. They decided to go for it.
     “Bad choice.” One of the Chicago faithful spouted from the back of the bus.
     This same thought was on Jackson's mind as he put his hand over Andrew's mouth and in clamping down, kept the peace.
     Why am I here? Jackson wondered. Do I have some kind of death wish?
     Must be—considering the company he chose to keep.
     Andrews was Jackson's most controversial co-worker at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Sure, Terry, unlike Alan, was motivated, and the most rewarded clerk on the floor—but there was something else. Something that kept all of Jackson's other co-workers at arms length. Terry Andrews was a girl.
     Somehow, the pair managed their trip from Michigan Avenue to Evanston before the final play of the game. The Chicago rooters were screaming pass interference while the St. Louis faithful applauded some superb examples of man-on-man coverage. Cardinals 38 Bears 21. The controversy that followed raged for the remainder of the season...
     Week seven and the teams stood even, 4 wins—3 losses.
     “How bout I let you buy me a couple of beers to celebrate!” Terry cried, slapping Jackson on the back.
     “How bout you buy me another nine-volt battery,” Alan said, shaking his radio. “This is the fifth one that's gone flat since the beginning of the Fall.”
     “Done!” Andrews extended a hand for the high five.
     “You know, Autumn used to be my favorite season...” Jackson mumbled
     “Ahhh, what a season!”
     “But, maybe you're right...”
     “Usually.”
     “Back in September, I thought I'd figured out the attraction...” Alan said.
     “Took you long enough!”
     “And nine is my favorite number...”
     “And early in the season...”
     Jackson cut her off. “But now, I don't know what to think.”
     “Are you sorry?”
     “No—but...”
     “Want to back out?”
     “Not even close to that.” He was resolute.
     “Then, what's the…”
     “It's this winner take all business.” Alan tried to find Terry's eyes. “Seems like a frivolous way to...”
     “Enough!” Her turn to cut him off. “This is home. Come on up.”
     It took a couple of minutes to navigate the fifteen stairs to the top of the stoop. A few more to get to the second floor. Alan noticed that she was moving slower this week. Every step seemed to carry a bit of a wince. He helped her into a chair before pulling up one for himself.
     “You know it's not what I want.” She said. “This way you get your fair chance.”
     “But it's me too.”
     “I'm doing all the work.”
     “Well...”
     “Enough—nine more games will decide it.”
     “Nine again…” Alan sighed.
     The Bears went 10 and 6 that year, to top the NFC Central. The Cardinals finished 9 and 7. But Alan Jackson didn't celebrate the end of football season. His celebration came on New Years Day, when Winter became Alan’s favorite season, along with the arrival of a seven pound baby daughter.
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20 December 2013-Oh...Christmas Tree 

12/20/2013

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I don’t know how your Christmas memory registers but mine feels pretty illuminated most times. Now...whether this illumination is light being shed, based on data stored in my brain cells or a product of my imagination, I don’t know. Wherever these memories come from, they do feed my soul and add new dimensions to my story.

It wasn’t until I was nine or ten years old that I realized that our Christmas Tree was something that came—from somewhere. Up to that point, I guessed it arrived, somehow, and landed in our living/family room so we could admire it. As I grew older I was allowed to put stuff on it—but very carefully and according to specific rituals that were, while unwritten, most stringent. The chief one among these was setting the tinsel on the branches one strand at a time...

Christmas must have been a particular financial struggle for my parents in the early sixties because at that time that the pattern of trees appearing and such was broken. Little did they know that this broken-ness would become, for me, part of the truth of Christmas. 

Since we could not afford a Christmas Tree, but could not do without one, it was close to midnight on Christmas Eve when we left the house looking for a lonely (and closed) Christmas Tree Lot. The reasoning was that these trees would be thrown onto the fire once the next day had past so why not give at least one of them a good home. We stayed up for a large part of the night hauling, setting up, wiring branches into blank spots, lighting and decorating—while listening to Dickens: A CHRISTMAS CAROL, on the radio. When our sisters came into the family room on Christmas morning, the transformation was complete—impacting and memorable.

I am not certain how many times we performed the—Santa Claus brought the tree on Christmas Eve trick—but at least once more, to my memory...

Cut to:

Me/us starting our own Christmas traditions. No midnight raid of Christmas Tree Lots—but there was a lot of careful selection involved in finding the “perfect” Christmas Tree. Size, shape, form. Not certain where that pattern came from—I have a few ideas— but that is a different story...

Then, somehow, a few years ago my bride and I decided that—any tree would do. Once we brought it home and loved it—this tree was a part of our Christmas and it would become “...the best tree we ever had.” This revised attitude made buying a tree a lot less of an event but much more freeing at the same time.

We are now at the point where we don’t even stop to untie the bundled up tree—we just grab and go. The surprise of what it’s going to look like has become part of the event and tradition.

Somewhere in the midst of all these personal changes—Christmas Tree producers have started growing ‘plantation pines’. These are actually Christmas bushes. Plants that have been trimmed to look like a perfectly shaped Christmas tree. So now, we go to a tree lot and there they are—everything a well informed shopper could want—thick and full and green (but fake). Feels familiar, somehow.

I don’t remember how or exactly when this next bit happened but a time came when we decided that having a bound up and trimmed Christmas Tree (nee bush) was not necessarily the right idea. It was at that point that we began our campaign to ‘free’ our Christmas Tree...

So now a tree is picked up and brought home, still wrapped up in the string the tree farmer put around it in Oregon. It is taken to the garage, a portion cut off the bottom and then put into our tree stand. At that time the string wrapping comes off. This latest, temporary, addition to our family is then hauled into the living room and placed. The next task is to free our tree...

Since its inception this tree has been forced to grow a certain way, to satisfy consumers.  So, I reasoned, why not set it free! Reaching into the tree I pull out the branches closest to the trunk and let them go—back to the way they want to grow. There they are, these beautiful cowlicks, emerging into the light of day—these asymmetrical appendages, sticking out of the tree, here and there, at all kinds of angles, odd and ugly and supremely beautiful. These branches, that had been forced to be one way, to please some consumer, are now permitted to become the limb they were created to be. And so—my hands continue to pull, twist, bend and release.

It seemed fitting that this year—the year of the novel—in my new story, I found that I was looking at this ‘bend and release’ process in an entirely different light.

Here I was, a writer—releasing characters limbs, working to let them become who they were created to be—not something I had forced them into...but their own selves. If they are to become real they must ‘be’—not be ‘like’...

“We should always be what we want to seem.” (favorite Mary Renault - Sophocles...)

As I continue to think about this process I realize that I can easily apply these freeing feelings to myself. As an individual who has been released to become the me I was created to be and not just an image of what some ‘trimmer’ clipped me into...

Not certain how well I am communicating my thoughts but I must say that these ponderings have been meaningful to me.

So, today, I give thanks for the freedom to become and be—create and celebrate—the gift of Christmas.
                                                                                 
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December 12th, 2013

12/12/2013

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12 December 2013

Anticipation…

…is one of the primary reasons that Christmas is my favorite time of year. It is through this time of preparation—looking forward—that I become alive to the bits and pieces that surround me and am led into a new appreciation of these multitudes, large and small. And although similar kinds of feelings spring to life as the year rolls along, they are—somehow—heightened in December, because I am forced to wait for that something that is understood and yet always a surprise…

For most of us, these feelings start when we were children, dreaming dreams—as the lights go up and music plays. But some, perhaps many, lose their grasp on these feelings as the years press in on them. A few have never been invited to share this mystery at all. A mystery that is less about knowing and more about giving in to our imagination. I grieve for their loss, those individuals who have not or do not know these realities. I also feel my own loss when I remember the many heralds who came to me in this time of year, those who walked along side to teach me this anticipation/hope philosophy. So I bless them and I act.

Expressing gratitude, appreciating, while continuing in anticipation, is a large part of the reason I write. That story seems to be involved in most of what comes to mind—and more than any one person, event, sport, item, state of being—it is story that drives me along.

Opening a wax pack of baseball cards is always…filled with hope. Here is a bit more of the yet to be published that illustrates…

Anticipation. That’s what made him feel alive.

Holding the bundle in his hand, he let his expectations linger while he hoped. Then, savoring the moment, he grasped the package a little tighter and lifted it close as he tried to see what was inside without removing any of the shiny wax wrapping, nudging his finger into the tucks and folds. It was a total sensory experience. He looked and felt and poked, letting the sweet pink smell emanating from the parcel fill his nostrils.

At this point in his life, he could afford to buy hundreds of these packets—but that wouldn’t be the same. One chance made the moment richer and the payoff much more satisfying. That special blessing that arrives when good fortune comes your way was in there somewhere, too—and having a moment to dream. He listened to the wrapping burst when he broke the wax seal and heard that familiar crackle as he carefully folded back the corners. Eyes wide open, senses alive, taste buds dripping at the prospect of the sweet chew to come.

The moment of truth had arrived. Pete turned the pile over.

Merry Christmas!
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Friday, 29 November 2013 - Merci...

11/29/2013

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Thankfulness is certainly what got me to this place. From the beginning of my writing to the moment I occupy now. And gratitude continues to ooze from my pores—but when I move my fingers across the keys to identify these feelings in some new and meaningful way, overused expressions dribble their way onto the page—and I backspace…Although thank you now seems the largest part of my life—an expanding circle, from the initial thank-you for baseball cards to the larger thanks of now—I still find myself unable to adequately express gratitude. And so, I turn to story.

     The blood was rushing to her head. A blush that began at her white stockinged kneecaps was coloring her face. It even looked as if the auburn hair, neatly pushed under a white dixie cup cap, was blushing too. Maybe it was the angle of her body that caused the flush, maybe not.

     The kiss had lasted longer than expected. In truth, she hadn’t expected it at all. Surprise gave way to acceptance and then segued into enjoyment as her lips melded with his. The muscular body held her up and pressed down…into hers. The blood began to pump in her ears. All she could hear was her heart. All she could feel were his lips, and the steady rising and falling of her chest against his. As her breathing slowed, her heart raced. She relaxed, and then with a rush of adrenaline squinched up her shoulders and pushed at his, signaling him to let her go. He straightened her from the swoop-down, bent-over-backwards position he had thrust her into a few moments before, and they stood facing each other in the middle of the busy boulevard.

     How long that kiss lasted always remained a mystery to her. He looked warmly but briefly into her eyes. The blood was still flowing like water through her ears. Unable to hear, she just managed to read his lips when they smiled and said, “Thanks.”

     Then the sailor rushed past her and took off down the street, running and waving his hand in the air. Abby was a bit dazed as she turned to watch him go. He zeroed in on another victim and swept her nearly off her feet, holding his newest prey in the now familiar bent-back embrace. Abby’s hearing returned as her fickle sailor finished with the other white clad nurse and continued his hunt down the busy sidewalk. “The war is over, the war is over,” he shouted as he moved through the teeming crowd. In San Francisco and all around the world, they were celebrating VJ day.

Happy Thanksgiving!

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Friday, 22 November 2013 ...moving forward

11/22/2013

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     Loads of forward moving over the past ten days—thinking, planning, listing, setting up, shooting, talking, filming, talking some more then breaking down and putting away—the talk was about baseball, Diamond Stars, and the Healing Power of Cardboard…

     Soon all of this activity will translate into images of me and my old baseball cards on You Tube…

     Life is curious. At times, I find myself unable to articulate my deeper feelings of being. Ones that have been stirred to the surface since connecting to the core of my nine-year-old's card collecting passion. Instead, I segue into a baseball cardboard patois that often leaves my non-card-obsessed friends yawning and looking for the nearest exit. Now, I wonder if I have become over sensitized about Being Boring…

     During our two You Tube video shoot sessions, I found that a part of me was freed from that fear—my belief that…no one really wants to listen to this cardboard conversation...Instead I feel hope surging that what I found along with my old baseball cards and what it is doing for me might encourage others to look at their lost connections. I believe that most of us carry passions that touched deep at some point of our lives but were swept away along with a nameless something that needed to be forgotten or kept secret. I am grateful for grace given that brought me back to this lost passion, and for the opportunity to complete this early story that began before the storm.

     I believe I am finding my way home.

Bless all victims of violence on this November 22, 2013. Many of us do recall and all of us may remember fifty years ago today. I hold my thoughts close, for those whose lives                                                   are cut short and I grieve with the survivors.
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Monday, 11 November 2013                                One-Hundred Years Ago Today....         11 November 1913—11 November 2013

11/11/2013

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     One of my favorite baseball stories comes out of Baseball's World Tour 1913-14.

     After the 1913 season came to a close, portions of the New York Giants and Chicago White Sox baseball clubs, plus other invited players, set out across the US, playing each other in games that began in Cincinnati, Ohio and ended in Portland, Oregon (the games scheduled in Tacoma and Seattle were rained out...) before departing from Victoria, British Columbia for points east.

     But my story does not take place in some exotic overseas locale, it happens in Oxnard, California...

     Giants outfielder, Fred Snodgrass, resident of Ventura, invited his teammates to stop, en-route from Los Angeles to San Francisco, and play one game in the ballpark on the corner of Wooley Road and E Street, in the neighboring town of Oxnard. It is not clear how the residents discovered that Philadelphia Phillie third baseman, Hans Lobert, a player noted for his speed on the base-paths, would be a part of the New York Giant team for this tour. But once they did find out—a plan was hatched that would not only add money to their coffers, while providing extra entertainment for the crowd, but it also might assure that a large passel of cowboys, who loved a gamble more than the game, would come and watch baseball.

     Thanks to Lawrence Ritter's THE GLORY OF THEIR TIMES (audio book) you now have an opportunity to spend this 100th Anniversary listening to my favorite story from the lips of Hans--John B. Lobert ("Little" Honus)—himself...  Just click below:
                                                                                       +++
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 Saturday, 09 November 2013 "...don't got 'em."

11/9/2013

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     As I reach back to my beginnings to focus on my earliest memories of becoming, I have realized that the first place I felt belonging was baseball. There was family, of course. The immediate and the wild Greek relatives that would surround me when I was with my Grandmother, Annika, in Chicago. But with family I was assigned a part to play—with baseball I could chose my own. It was personal, this relationship, and the baseball cardboard I could hold in my hand—made it mine.
     Imagine, having portable pieces of your passion, to carry around, show off, read, trade, memorize and play with. And all it took to gather more joy and excitement was a little ingenuity. A pack cost a nickel. That was two or three deposit bottles (depending if they were 2 or 3 cent bottles) Or you could take your chances and flip/lag for a few more. That kid across the street had seven Moe Drabowskys—how hard could it be to talk him out of one? And the number of things you could do with those cards once you got them...was limited only by your imagination. The time I would spent with that 1962 Koufax or reading the back of a ’57 Billy Loes...looking at those stats! I learned math off the backs of 1957 Topps cards.
     But even beyond all the personal involvement and the intimate kind of power that these cardboard pieces provided—there was something else. Something special and intimate, that seemed to slip away once the cards were forgotten, only to return when that shoebox found its way back to me in 1989…
     Next: is an edited version of a remembrance I sent to my OBC friends back in the 1990's when I was trying to find a way to express my thanks to them for bringing back the innocence, intimacy and passion that I had attached to my cardboard…



                                                       that feeling...
     Scuffing over sidewalks to the Westward Ho Market the young boy marked his steps towards packaged treasure. No searching through ivy for 2 and 3 cent'er deposit bottles this week for in his hand he held two silver coins—fifty-cents! Corduroy cuffs punctuated heel scuffing sounds as the boy traveled towards a rendezvous with people who filled him up.
     Moving into the market he passed an overflowing display of double Butterfinger bars, fought the urge to pick one up, continued and then stopped before his cathedral of cardboard. One hand was too small to hold the ten packs his half-dollar would buy, so he let the coins slide into a pocket and grabbed. He walked with purpose to the register, stacked packs, coins out, ring, drawer, clink, bag, receipt—and he was out the door.
     Retracing his steps toward home, holding the less than lunch size bag in his left hand and a fresh pack in his right—he ripped with his teeth.
     “Got 'em—got 'em—don't got 'em—got 'em”, his cadence sounded. The “got 'em's” were far ahead. Plopping down on an available lawn the boy pushed through the fifty-cards once more, pulling out every Dodger, while sliding gum into his mouth and shirt pocket.
     Three more Lee Walls another Roseboro, another Wally Moon! Still no Snider, Koufax and no Maury Wills..! The bag bottomed out and the little one was feeling down. For good measure the boy turned the bag over and shook. His reward cascaded to the grass...
     Don Drysdale! “All right!”
     Holding the Drysdale close, feeling, reading, all his senses alive—a contented smile spread across his face—and he got that feeling...
     Pushing through the front door, Monday, after work, the sagging man dropped keys, change and mail, on the dining room table, sat and sorted bills from junk. But a couple of envelopes he set aside. Bills opened and junk torn up, he attended to the ones he'd saved for last.
     Gently tearing open each he sifted through the contents and spoke. “Don't got 'em—don't got 'em—don't got 'em—don't got 'em— DON'T GOT 'EM!” Card after card—Dodger after Dodger.
     The man straightened as he looked, touched, read, smelled and even tasted. A contented smile changed his face—and he got that feeling...
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    Author

    Marc Peter Reyna, co-author of DIAMOND STARS, a historical baseball romance novel, soon to move from manuscript to e-book to bound copy. 

    Thanks to my writing partner James Harmon Brown and our agent Diane Nine and Keith Publications.

    In the spirit of my new discipline as a writer I hope to use this blog to explore the passions and pieces of my life that were brought together to move me down this path, and while I am here I will report on the events of the publishing process as each step unfolds over the next several months.

    I hope you'll join me on the journey...

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