Running Out the Hurt
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As he jogs along a beach in the coastal city of San Arturo Cipriano Gómez notices a young vagabond leap across a jetty and he senses, immediately, “Now there’s a real athlete.” The young man, Alejandro López, denies that he plays baseball but accepts the temporary work that Cipriano offers him.
The young man’s athletic ability doesn’t stay hidden long. Cipriano introduces him to the Zancudos, San Arturo’s basement dwelling baseball team, and Alejandro becomes an instant catalyst, leading them to victories over rivals they’ve seldom beaten before. He also becomes the focus of interest for a bevy of the town’s teenaged girls, whose attentions both thrill and intimidate the young immigrant. Reluctantly he admits that he left his native Cuba to sign a professional baseball contract but deserted after failing to compete successfully against older and more experienced athletes.
Alejandro is the novel’s unifying character and the protagonist of the between chapter breaks. The reader experiences the Mexican ambiente, “baseball the way it should be played!” and Alejandro’s transformation from a shy and irresolute
teenager to a take-charge young adult through the eyes of the Zancudo’s nine
principal baseball team members. Along the way the reader meets wives and lovers, rambunctious opponents, a harem of hefty hula-dancing aficionados,
American tourists and professional baseball scouts.
As the Zancudos continue to win enough games to keep them eligible for the league playoffs, Alejandro’s teammates and the team’s sponsor manipulate his legality as an immigrant and his eligibility as a performer. The youngster has aroused the interest of Major League scouts, some of whom suspect that he is the "Jaime López" who deserted the Yucatán Leones. Whether he can remain with the team as the Zancudos go into the playoffs becomes a controversial issue.
Like all ballplayers, the members of the Zancudos tease, tell stories and exaggerate both their accomplishments and their shortcomings. They celebrate every win--and every defeat--with beer, carne asada and practical jokes and they take care of each other with salty rough-and-tumble affection.
The Zancudos' participation in the national semi-pro playoffs in Tijuana brings the novel to a close. Alejandro is forced to choose between a professional contract to play in the United States and staying with the team. His decision and the responses of his teammates provide a dramatic climax to an entertaining and vivid look at baseball, at Mexico, and at how human relationships struggle and prosper.
ReviewsRunning Out The Hurt paints a vivid picture of the colorful world of Latin American baseball. The story begins with a Cuban player, drafted by Yucatan in the Mexican professional league, who decides his younger brother has more natural talent and should take the opportunity in his place. Fifteen year old Alejandro Lopez posing as his older brother is not mature enough to play at the professional level and suffers “the hurt” of failure and bringing shame to his family. He runs away to hide in the small coastal town of San Arturo.
Like most small towns, San Arturo prizes its amateur baseball team, a collection of colorful players ranging from the catcher Sergio with some professional experience to Paco, the crafty old junk ball pitcher who could have taught Gaylord Perry a thing or two about doctoring baseballs, to El Jipi, the outfielder able to slug the odd home run and to an assortment of other players of varying ability. All work to support their families but live to play baseball. Cipriano, the second baseman, recognizes the runaway boy’s athleticism, befriends him and coaxes him to come to a practice. Alejandro tries without success to hide his baseball talent and is soon drawn back into the game. The team adopts him as one of their family, finds work and lodging for him, immerses him in female admirers, introduces him to sex, even arranges a false Mexican identity for him. In return, Alejandro transforms the team from perennial losers to league contenders with both his outfield play and pitching. However, this is not one of those stories of an unsung hero coming out of nowhere to lead a team to glory. It is a realistic story with losses as well as wins, a story of amateurs with dreams of what might have been and the ability to nurture a boy with the talent to live their dream. Stout cleverly keeps readers immersed in the Latino baseball culture with unique experiences such as post game parties, saucy if not risqué interplay between sexes, dialog structured as though translated from Spanish, and a liberal sprinkling of Spanish words in his prose. There is no need for a knowledge of Spanish to read the book. In fact, a sensitive soul is better off not translating the more commonly used words. Nor is a knowledge of baseball necessary to appreciate this story of human relationships and aspirations. It’s a well written, entertaining book. Commentaries
The Way It Should Be Played
The soft liner down the left field line nicked the foul line and skittered foul. The runner rounding second hesitated, then bolted towards third. “Go!” the third base coach shouted. The runner, gasping, charged towards home. Slide! The on deck hitter waved. The runner went in head first, eating dust and groping for the plate as the catcher leaped for a high throw and came down on top of him. The World Series? Pan-American Games? Opening Day in Detroit, Miami, Oakland? Hell no. The first game of a Saturday doubleheader in a California over-60s league. Guys who’d been playing baseball/softball every summer for forty, fifty consecutive years. Just as overweight balding counterparts in Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Nebraska, Tennessee were doing. Wheelchair leagues in New Jersey. Seven-year-olds on Okinawa. Topless coeds in Ohio. Javier Acevedo, now nearly eighty, laughs and calls baseball “a good disease.” Once one is infected it never goes away. Unlike wives, children, teeth, hair, jobs and money it stays with one, loyal to the end. Behind his little house on the outskirts of Oaxaca, Mexico Acevedo pitches to his great grandchildren. They call him “Abuelito Beis”—Grandpa Baseball—and listen to his stories about a second baseman who refused parole because his prison team needed him for the game against the wardens, about the return of the deceased on Día de los Mertos competing in a local park, about Mamá Melida who substituted at third for her broken-legged son and scored the winning run when the Putla Villa town team beat their rival Reyes Grande. The characters in Running Out the Hurt reflect the good disease. Do you? How Running Out the Hurt Came To Be
Running Out the Hurt originated in a cozy semi-pro ballpark in the little town of Tamuín, Mexico. My neighbor, Enrique, was one of the umpires for a game between Tamuín and rival Ébano. I don’t remember who won the game but remember the faces, the dust, the throws home, the small crowd’s enthusiastic participation. Once back in California I wrote a few short pieces about amateur baseball in Mexico and one summer a series of poetic portraits of ballplayers like those I’d met in Tamuín. The collection of portraits appeared as the prize-winning chapbook They Still Play Baseball the Old Way published by White Eagle Coffee Store Press. Several writers who read the collection suggested that the characterizations needed to be amplified and the nine ballplayers and their manager became cornerstones of Running Out the Hurt with the addition of a young Cuban runaway and a supporting cast of wives, daughters, baseball scouts, beanballers, teenaged admirers and an old dog named after a popular brand of cookies. The journey from Tamuín to publication, first by Black Rose and then in a Kindle version was roundabout. Writing the novel was not my primary focus and was interrupted by divorce, a second marriage, journalism assignments, the writing and publication of The Blood of the Serpent: Mexican Lives and new homes in southern Baja and finally Oaxaca. The poetic version, They Still Play Baseball the Old Way, became part of A Perfect Throw, a full-length poetry volume issued in 2013 by Aldrich Press. For anyone who’d like to meet this roustabout gang of ballplayers and their hangers on, the Kindle version is inexpensive and print copies can be acquired through Amazon. |