Chipper Injured .... Again.

After another injury to my namesake Chipper Jones yesterday in Spring Training, I came across this blog from the Atlanta Journal Constitution. My apologies to them for ripping it off. Their apologies to Hemingway for the paraphrase.



“The Braves cannot lose.”
“But I fear the Mets of New York.”
“Have faith in the Braves my son. Think of the great Chipper.”
“I fear both the Phillies of Philadelphia and the Mets of New York.”
“Be careful or you will fear even the Nationals of D.C. and the Marlins of Miami.”
“Tell me about the baseball,” the boy asked him.
“In the National League, it is the Braves as I said,” the old man said happily.
“They lost today,” the boy told him.
“That means nothing. The great Chipper is himself again.”
“They have other men on the team.”
“Naturally. But he makes the difference.”
“I would like to take the great Chipper hunting,” the old man said. “They say his father was a hunter. Maybe he was as poor as we are and would understand.”
“But I must have confidence and I must be worthy of the great Chipper who does all things perfectly even with the pain of the bunions in his toes. What is a bunion? He asked himself. Un espuela de hueso. We do not have them. Can it be as painful as the spur of a fighting gamecock in one’s toe? I do not think I could endure that or the loss of the eye and continue to fight as the fighting cocks do. Man is not much beside the great birds and beasts. Still I would rather be that beast down there in the darkness of the sea. Unless sharks come. If sharks come, God pity him and me. Do you believe the great Chipper would stay with a deer as long as I will stay with this one? he thought. I am sure he would and more since he is young and strong. Also his father was a hunter. But would the bunion hurt him too much? I don’t know. I never had a bunion.
I need a pencil for that. My head is not that clear. But I think the great Chipper would be proud of me today. I had no bunions but the hands and the back hurt truly. I wonder what a bunion is. Maybe we have them without knowing of it.
Don’t think old man. Sail on this course and take it when it comes. But I must think because it is all I have left. That and baseball. I wonder how the great Chipper would have liked the way I hit him in the brain. It was no great thing. Any man could do it. But do you think my hands were as great a handicap as the bunions? I cannot know. I never had anything wrong with my toes.