Designated Sitter: Daly: No Fear

“Wilkerish” run by Jon “GGC” Daly…as fear strikes out, with no mention of Malden, Mass.

Eventually, we settled down. Vinroe is in IT. Page teaches. Last I heard, Ladison was selling Amway. It took me years, but I settled down, too. I’m married now. Gave up snuff five years ago, drive soberly at a more reasonable speed. I push paper from pile A to pile B so that salesmen don’t have to. Now I worry about deadlines and commitments. What to leave in? What to leave out? But Leyritz was a jock and remained in a state of suspended adolescence. Mel Hall used to wear batting gloves in his back pocket to wavy bye-bye to pitchers as he circled the bases after hitting a dinger. Now he’s doing a stretch in the hoosegow.  Then there’s Lenny Dykstra. Nails has quite the rap sheet.

Given the money and adulation athletes receive at an early age, it is a wonder that there aren’t more cautionary tales like his. I think it is mainly the adulation. I knew jocks in high school. I wasn’t one myself, but I was athletic enough to escape the treatment they’d give to some of the nerds and other outsiders. I had no leaping ability or hand eye coordination, but I had a little speed and was willing to sacrifice my body. I went to high school with a guy who made it to AAA. His baseball coach was also the gym teacher and he’d help him and tyrannize some of the kids. One time I was hanging out with friends in Hartford. It was the offseason and he walked into the bar we were hanging out in. He had an entourage. He may’ve changed by now, but it is hard to mature when you were given a big head at an early age. It was hard for me and I was just some soldier; a chairborne Ranger in the 101st.