THE "LEFT HANDED STARTER" SOLILOQUY FROM MACVASI
(with apologies to the Bard)
Act 2 Scene 1: The Anteroom of the Mariners Suite at the Baseball Winter Meetings
Macvasi is alone in the room, staring at a television monitor playing video tape of a baseball game.
MACVASI
Is this a left-handed starter which I see before me,
The baseball in his hand? Come, let me clutch thee.
I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.
Art thou not, left-handed starter, able to
Start as well as relieve? or art thou but
A starter like Piñeiro, a false creation,
Proceeding from the loss-deranged brain?
I see thee yet, in form as palpable
As this free agent which now spurns my bid.
Thou marshall'st me the trade now proposed;
And such an exchange I am wont to make.
Mine eyes are made the fools o' the other senses,
Or else worth all the rest; I see thee still,
And from thy arm and wrists legions of ground balls,
Which was not so before. There's no such thing:
It is the ne'er ceasing defeats which informs
Thus to mine eyes. Now o'er these last seasons
the campaign seems lost, and wicked dreams abuse
The curtain'd sleep; citizens celebrate
Athletics successes, and vanquished foes,
Honed by the sentinel, thine agent aroused,
Whose howl's his watch, thus with his stealthy pace.
With Beane's ravishing strides, towards his design
Moves like a ghost. Thou sure and firm-set agent,
Thou heedest not my offer of option year that vests.
These very acts prate of my indecisions,
And augur horrors from the time,
Which now suits with it. Whiles I swoon he plots:
Offers of deadline deals too panic'd breath gives.
The baseball in his hand? Come, let me clutch thee.
I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.
Art thou not, left-handed starter, able to
Start as well as relieve? or art thou but
A starter like Piñeiro, a false creation,
Proceeding from the loss-deranged brain?
I see thee yet, in form as palpable
As this free agent which now spurns my bid.
Thou marshall'st me the trade now proposed;
And such an exchange I am wont to make.
Mine eyes are made the fools o' the other senses,
Or else worth all the rest; I see thee still,
And from thy arm and wrists legions of ground balls,
Which was not so before. There's no such thing:
It is the ne'er ceasing defeats which informs
Thus to mine eyes. Now o'er these last seasons
the campaign seems lost, and wicked dreams abuse
The curtain'd sleep; citizens celebrate
Athletics successes, and vanquished foes,
Honed by the sentinel, thine agent aroused,
Whose howl's his watch, thus with his stealthy pace.
With Beane's ravishing strides, towards his design
Moves like a ghost. Thou sure and firm-set agent,
Thou heedest not my offer of option year that vests.
These very acts prate of my indecisions,
And augur horrors from the time,
Which now suits with it. Whiles I swoon he plots:
Offers of deadline deals too panic'd breath gives.