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(Continued from NATIONAL PASTIME PT. 2)
You may be surprised to know that I am a little dubious about ‘No Bullying’ policies instituted at schools these days. Of course, no one wants to hear those unpleasant stories about some weepy middle school girl overdosing on Sominex because her classmates label her a ‘whore’ or ‘slut’ on MySpace. Had I been labeled a whore or slut in middle school, I would have been overjoyed as I am a fierce proponent of the there’s-no-such-thing-as-bad-publicity school and would have much preferred ‘whore’ or ‘slut’ to my assigned moniker ‘fag.’ In my mind, whores and sluts were glamorous and desirable ‘fallen’ women who wore red silk underpants, and slept with all the hot teenage guys, where as ‘fags’ were bad at sports, utterly undesirable, and much to my chagrin didn’t get to sleep with any of the hot teenage guys. I’ll take ‘whore’ or ‘slut’ over ‘fag’ any day, thank you very much!
It was 1973, and in those days, there were no enlightened educators, childcare providers, or in my sorry ass case, suburban little leagues instituting ‘No Bullying’ policies. Undaunted by my nervous puking, my clueless father nudged me forward, carelessly throwing me to the little league wolves who seemed hungry for fresh meat.
From what little I can remember (I’ve spent decades repressing this shit) most of the boys on the team were outright hostile as I had absolutely no interest in the game, nor possessed the talent to either hit, catch, or throw the ball in any kind of meaningful way. To them, I was some freakish liability, who spent inning after dreary inning seated on the dugout bench staring off into space. Like most children who can intuitively sense difference, the boys on my baseball team decided I didn’t belong, and when they weren’t outright ridiculing me, treated me with cruel indifference. My father ‘Big Mike’ remained blithely unaware of the situation, and would from time to time schedule humiliating meetings with the coach to ascertain why his son was rarely, if ever, on the field.
The coach, an Italian immigrant with the suspicious sounding name of Sergio Cantalupi, politely explained in broken english that I was “How you say in English…a dreamer not a player.” To my father, Mr. Cantalupi might has well have shrieked “Your son is a ‘Finocchio’ (Italian for gay) and belongs in a dress!” Horrified, my father then and there decided that he would implement a rigorous home schooling-type baseball regimen. My guest star dad, who had never taken any real interest in me before, decided his only begotten son was going excel at baseball whether he liked it or not. It was in those ghastly, grueling sessions, that a ‘No Bullying’ policy would have come in handy.
(To be continued)
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