CONFESSIONS OF A DARK HORSE

Chapter 1

December 23, 2009

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NOTE: Some of the various threads of this story began floating around in my head over a year ago, around the time I posted an article about George Bjorkman and myself here. Over the intervening months, I thought several times about sitting down and trying to pull everything together; but I never did, because A.) I knew it would be a lot of work and, B.) I feared some of it might be painful. I basically resigned myself to the idea this story would never be told in its entirety. No great loss, there.

Then Ike happened. Sitting around alone in the hot, almost dark every night for over a week (the family had evacuated to Rayne, LA), listening to the thrum of a generator creating just enough juice to run a refrigerator, a few lamps, and a few box fans; with enough left over to power up this old Dell Inspiron laptop/boat anchor I had sitting around, well, some force compelled me to sit down each night and go about lashing this thing all together.

So I did. It is a little dark in a few places, convoluted in a few others. If you decide to read it, keep the context and setting of when and where it was written in mind, and maybe it will make a little more sense. Or not.

Anyway, everything in it is factual – all this stuff happened. I might have altered an ancillary detail or two in the interest of flow, but that is it. I did change a few names, not so much to protect the innocent – I don’t know any of those, and certainly no one in this story is anything close to it. No, I changed them on the off chance one of the principals might come across this on the interwebs, and feel compelled to come after me, with the intention of kicking my ass.

So, in a way, I guess I am protecting the innocent. That being myself.

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Submitted by Joey Trum

My dad didn’t like baseball while I was growing up. It being the 80′s and him being a very 80′s type of businessman (Porsche driving, polo wearing, Reagan-loving Houstonian), he was more attuned to the growing white-collar hipness of the NBA than the old-fashioned nuance offered by MLB. Sure, he was an Astro bandwagon jumper in ’86 like everybody else, but overall he had a certain disdain for the sport that I’ve never understood. And the result of this disdain that is most relevant to this story is that I grew up playing basketball. Not just playing basketball, but absorbing everything about it. I was one of those kids who routinely stayed up late to watch random Big West teams complete ESPN’s Big Monday college basketball triple header, who went to the half-full Summit at every opportunity to watch the parade of lackluster complements to Akeem the Dream. I went to Pat Foster’s Cougar basketball camp 4 years in a row, and even went to the one at Rice a couple of times (Tommy Suitts?). Read the rest of this entry »

Submitted by Farmstro
December 2007

Twas the night before Christmas in the Farmstro house
Not a creature was stirring not even a mouse.
The caller IDs were turned on with great care
In hopes Ed Wade’s number soon would be there. Read the rest of this entry »

July 14, 1983.  When I woke up, I was laying crossways at the foot-end of a double bed in the beach cabin, on my back, uncovered.  I had on a pair of Lamar U. gym shorts, once bright red but now faded almost pink – magenta, maybe – with the white piping along the sides and bottoms of the legs fraying and coming loose.  The skin along my chest and belly and on the tops of my arms and legs had turned medium to dark brown.  I had been out in the sun a lot that summer.  After burning off a few layers of skin early on in the spring, I no longer got sunburned.  Rather, each subsequent exposure just turned me darker.  And, melanoma be damned, I didn’t use sun block; at times I slathered on a coconut-oil based Coppertone product called Savage Tan, something like that, which not only did not block UV rays, but I am fairly certain was formulated to actively attract them. Read the rest of this entry »

by Alkie

This season promises to be unlike any season we’ve ever seen before. Mostly because that’s how linear time works. Spring Training is winding down and the rotations are almost set. Except for the last spot. And the spot before that.

As everyone puts together their fantasy team (for some reason) and gets out the ol’ Rainbow Gut from the mothballs, I notice people paying good money to buy predictions at other websites on how this season will play out. Well, fuck that! As part of my good will toward man (and child), I will offer these 101% guarantees for the 2007 season, absolutely free to you, the listener. Read the rest of this entry »