HoraceClarke66: A Report from the Swamps: Cousin Dan the Gator Man Gives Us the Hot Skinny on Anthony Rizzo!

 

From the desk of HoraceClarke66... 

 I caught up to Cousin Dan where I usually find him, in one of the quieter coves of the Great Okefenokee swamp, just over the Florida border. 

Dan was hard at his regular work, which was tossing marshmallows to the local gators so tourists could snap selfies with them, and selling jugs of his homemade, patented “Gator Juice” bourbon. 

“Them Gatorade fellas was down here ag’in the other day, talkin’ all about copyright infringements,” Dan told me when I arrived.

“Oh, yeah? How’d you handle it?”

“Let’s just say we saved a lot on marshmallows that afternoon,” Dan said, scratching his scraggly red beard that made him a dead ringer for about a hundred ballplaying millionaires these days.

I asked him what he thought about Anthony Rizzo, who he had the pleasure of meeting at a rehab center, back when Dan’s idea to create a water-skiing alligator pyramid attraction went a tad haywire. For once cuz’s bourbon-twinkly blue eyes turned downright sober.

“Best man I ever met,” Cousin Dan told me. “He was a young fella, recovering from non-Hodgkins lymphoma. Went through the whole course a chemo, an’ was tryna get back into shape.”

“So he did all right?”

“Sure! Worked like a demon, but was also nice as peaches to everyone on hand. Asked them about themselves, encouraged them, worked with them—and had a great sense of humor as well.”

“Sounds like a real leader for the clubhouse.”

“But he’s more’n that. Look at his skills! Look at how he chokes up on the bat, an’ goes the other way when he needs to, even with all that power! Look at what a magician he is around the bag!”

“You sure he’s all that?”

“An’ more! Look at how he just shrugged off gettin’ hit in the hand by that young whippersnapper the other day! Look at how he ignored that terrible call by the ump! Why he’s a old-timey ballplayer, the sort we’re always sayin’ the Yankees need to get.”

“That’s very encouraging. But as I recall you said very upbeat things about Giancarlo Stanton and Gleyber Torres, as well.”

Cousin Dan fixed me with a look and meditated for a moment upon the giant armored lizards swarming under the dock just then.

“Hmm, you know them gators ain’t had their marshmallows yet today…All right, call me a sucker for that silver-tongued devil, Brian Cashman. But one more entry on Mr. Rizzo’s side of the ledger is that he always talked up The Gleyber and encouraged him when they was both in the Cubbies’ organization. Could be he’s just the man to turn that young pup around.”

“Could be, Cousin Dan, and it sure is nice to have a note of hope, at least, in this miserable season. I won’t take up any more of your time.”

Dan fixed me up with a jar of the good juice, the brand made with extra extract from the gators’ pituitary glands, and I made sure to slip a finniff in the Tallahassee Prosthetic Fingers Center collection jar on the way out.