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DID YOU SEE THAT ANGRY CHOLO DRIVING A CAMPER ON THE ROAD THE OTHER DAY!!!
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The Giant’s brother Gilbert rolled into the school parking lot in a beat up camper truck just as Coach Deanda was explaining to the Senators that a “Squeeze Play” was NOT a move executed on one’s girlfriend while she wasn’t looking.

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.

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THERE’S A REASON WHY THERE WERE NEVER ANY CHUBBY, OK, FAT CATCHERS IN THE BIGS – THEY NEVER GOT ANY BIGGER THAN JOHNNY BENCH!!!
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Coach Deanda finally got the Senators to participate in their first semi-solid scrimmage game.

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.