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The Orange Flash

This is what an Orange Flash looks like just before it runs into a Royal Canadian Mounty in Blue.

Well, OK!, maybe he wasn't exactly a Mounty, and neither was the Orange Streak precisely a blinding flash of pumpkin, but there they are--Carl and Denny--bringing light and levity to what otherwise might erroneously be thought of as a game of inches, grinches, and grinding out.

There is a bright yellow baseball out there somewhere, probably doing a kind of jumping bean dance, trying to avoid a long, lonely lob toward first, probably on the bounce.

People do peculiar things when muscle mass converts to belly dancing material--buying little convertibles, combing their ear hair over to the other side, showing irresistible charm toward young thangs, and paying keen attention to testosterone commercials--but not Carl.  Carls invested in a pumpkin shirt.

It works!  People tend to loose their place in sentences, reverse the logic of their own arguments, and forget to close their mouths, just looking at Carl.  All Carl has to do is smash a dribbler down toward third, and the fielders, even if they pick up the ball, tend to forget what they are supposed to do with it, in their fascination for what a runaway pumpkin looks like.  Carl is all business!

Baseball is not just a game of inches and cliches:  it is, in the right hands, a psychological battle; a lesson in how to make the most of arthritis.  

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