The moment the Senators had been waiting for had arrived and it came at the end of practice – they found out when they would be getting uniforms.

“Senators, I have two announcements to make – one, Gilbert here will be our new assistant coach and two, I have some news about your uniforms.”

“The Milpitas Rotary Club has agreed to sponsor us and we will all be meeting after practice on Tuesday next week for pizza at Mountain Mike’s and uniforms.”

“Make sure to write your sizes down on my list and the number you want – there is no guarantee you will get either, so let’s just hope for the best ok!”

Coach Deanda was kidding right? “No guarantees on either,” what in the heck did that mean – “no guarantees on either!”

The Kid took his turn with the clipboard and at first wrote down “size large” and then nervously scratched that out and wrote “x-large” with the number choice of  44 – ala Reggie Jackson.

The Kid needed a ride home and he threw off the rest of the catching gear as fast as he could so he could beg a ride from Steve the Giant and his brother Gilbert.

“Steve, do you think your brother would give me a ride home since I have a little bit of a problem with my bike over there?” The Kid begged.

“HAHAHA,  C’mon, I’m not sure I can even get a ride home with Gilbert.  Grab that end of your bike and I’ll carry the other end and we’ll just put my bike and your piece of **** in there before he notices.”

Gilbert was packing up his aluminum bats and was talking with Coach Deanda as The Giant and The Kid made quick work of shoving the two bikes into the back of the old camper.

There was just enough room in the back for the two bikes and two covert stowaways who happened to stumble upon Gilbert’s latest edition of Lowrider Magazine.

The Giant did the honors of flipping through the pages as the two boys gawked at the huge, ummm…tires, when suddenly they heard the driver side door to the camper creak open.

“Shut Up! The Giant motioned with his mouth and finger as Gilbert climbed into the camper’s driver seat and ripped out of the parking lot in his normal B-A-D A-S-S  M.O. (Modus Orangutan).

The camper drove down the road for about half a mile before The Giant and The Kid couldn’t help but burst out in laughter at a cartoon in the magazine illustrating a  fat Cholo character farting in a swimming pool and claiming the bubbles were from a non-existent Jacuzzi.

SCRRRRRECCCCHHHHH!!! 

The door to the beat up camper slammed shut and everyone instantly “made eyeballs” on a fast moving and pissed-off-looking Cholo in a “beanie cap” carrying a couple of aluminum bats over his shoulder.

Steve the Giant instantly began to tremble and it was the first time any of the Senators ever witnessed the menacing 6-footer even so much as flinch.

Gilbert was a B-A-D- A-S-S in every definition of the word.

Rumor had it that he had learned how to drive his dad’s camper at age nine and that by the age of twelve, he had won over thirty some odd after school fights – all of them ending in a bloody mess.

Gilbert was also a track and baseball star athlete with the local high school  - he was lightning fast and could hit just about anything.

Maybe that’s why Steve the Giant trembled.

Gilbert walked straight up to The Giant, who was instantly dwarfed by his six-foot-three older brother.

“Dad and me had another fight and I took off with the camper.  Instead of kicking you’re a-s-s to make me feel better, I decided to take it out on your sorry a-s-s little league team.”

The Senators also had never seen Steve the Giant ever smile – yet The Kid detected a small crease on The Giant’s upper lip that pointed to centerfield.

The Giant walked up to Coach Deanda and told him that Gilbert knew some practice drills the team could practice and before you knew it, The Senators started to resemble a real team.

The Kid would soon learn what the connection between Steve the Giant, his Cholo older brother and The Kid’s baseball glove with his mother’s name etched into it with a soldering iron was.

The Kid got recruited to play catcher because his belayed arrival meant that he got chosen to play the most undesirable position of them all.

“Umm Coach, I don’t know if you have noticed or not, but I’m kinda big and I’m not sure I can squat longer than one pitch, so maybe Mike over there is more flexible and all.”

Mike was already comfortable at first base and he shot the Kid a “I’m gonna bean you in the head with the baseball the first chance I get” kinda look.

“Chale (Coach loved to use Mexican-American slang – Chale meant “**** No!”), I want you to be a big target for Rudy so just try your best ok!”

The Kid’s cup had been destroyed by his mishap with his crash landing and he tried another avenue with the coach to escape “catching duties.”

“Coach, I can’t play today because as you can see, I crashed my bicycle over there and when I crash landed, my cup got messed up, so I can’t play today already.”

Without a moment’s hesitation, Coach Deanda reached into his equipment “bag of tricks” and produced the elusive “mythical cup” – and let’s just say that it wasn’t something a bunch of gringo Knights of the Roundtable would traverse the earth to find for King Arthur.

The cup did exist, and it looked like it had been used and abused – the Kid thought that “the cup” might have been passed down through the Deanda generations because the contraption was a mere bunch of plastic shards held vaguely together by a bunch of elastic threads.

“CHALE!!!.” The Kid  repeated to the coach after looking at the coach’s “iron maiden.”

“I’m gonna take my chances with my own cup!”

The group of Senators anxiously waiting for the Kid to suit up in the catchers gear laughed and dubbed the Kid with the moniker “NO CUP.”

The Kid reluctantly suited up with the catcher’s gear and squatted down behind home plate with a big chocolate covered back end, compliments of his crash landing and his smashed package of Rolo’s candies.

SHOW NOTES:

Yankees - Red Sox thoughts
Alyssa Milano Skit

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