The Magic Mojohan

These kids will say anything these days to get past the doorman blocking entryway into the Gimme My Mets Fantasy Now Goddammit, Bring Me My Johan! Club. They will even pretend they know how to play to get my Magic Mojohan on.


The Magic Mojohan

So they pushed me up on stage and about a hundred tiny little Mets prospects, some of them even future pitching stars projected into the forever with every itchy trigger finger wondering whether or not they will burn out before they hit their prime, the future of the World for crissakes, the Mets World anyway, just waiting for their moment of truth, stepped up and handed me the multi-string Mojohan, the magic one, and I commenced to a playin' it, one foot stamping loudly on the hardwood floor of the stage, the smell of steroids and cigar smoke thick in the air, the laughter of baseball bimbos as they shadow danced with overweight, greasy fingered Moneyball addicts twitching in place as the attempted to look nonchalant in front of the baseball bimbos and repress the imperfections they spent a lifetime rehearsing.



Baseball Bimbo and overweight, greasy fingered Moneyball addicts

And for a few seconds I had them all captivated by the Mojohan, no one cared that the hundred tiny little Mets prospects, including any pitcher the Mets had drafted since 1982 and the rights to their children, were sent by Greyhound to the Minnesota outpost, "The Future Is Always Now" they sang as they formed a conga line, waving goodbye. We could all tell straight away that this Magic Mojohan was capable of some amazing music.

Then one of the strings broke. I didn't miss a beat. After all there were still several strings left and by then I was already lost in the beautiful music of Cy Youngs punctuated by torn rotator cuffs, the milonga of the disabled list, the throat tightening of the twinge in the shoulder or the elbow. The baseball bimbos were taking pictures of themselves, videotaping themselves in Dodgers uniforms, MLB-sponsored nighties snake charming those overweight, greasy-fingered Moneyball addicts who were, after the first string broke, twitching just a little bit faster, thinking of the slide rules in their back pockets and dancing out of tune.

Then another string broke and another and suddenly the Magic Mojohan was out of tune and I stood there, having stopped playing it altogether as the room fell silent and everyone was motionless.

What's going to happen to our future they all started shouting out after a moment's pause. What good is this Magic Mojohan if it won't play? My god did you see how much of our future we've given away for this Magic Mojohan??!! Have you any idea of the everlasting misery that's been caused by giving away our bright futures for this broken-down useless Magic Mojohan that once played such beautiful and fulfilling music??!!!

"The Future Is Always Now! I screamed in reply, smashing the Magic Mojohan against the floorboards over and over until there was nothing but splinters and memories in my hands.


The Magic Mojohan gets fine-tuned.

Then all of the baseball bimbos rip their tops off and whilst we are all stunned for a split second expecting to see something no one under the age of 16 or 18 should be allowed by Jesus Christ to see with their own eyes, instead they exposed the Minnesota Twins jerseys they were all wearning underneath their traditional baseball bimbo garb.

They'd known all along.

And the fat, greasy-fingered Moneyball addicts, curdled by this sudden lack of good organ grinding music and now that the baseball bimbos had stopped dancing and swaying to the music, moving and grooving and making everyone sweaty, were becoming manic at the sight of the Magic Mojohan in hundreds of pieces on the hardwood floor of the stage, took out their pocket calculators and starting banging away on them, rocking back and forth, whispering to themselves "Sabermetrics, Sabermetrics...."

*****

I know, it's been a sloooooow offseason so far....