Story Five

Baseball in the Garden of Eden

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He sat with his arm draped over the bleachers waiting, pen in hand. He had his I-phone recorder at the ready. As a sports reporter he was always in ‘standby’ mode. He had spent 15 years working for the local paper and was readily recognized around town as the go‒to guy when it came to anything regarding the Eden Prairie High School sports scene. Every small town has a sports junkie like Harley Hance. Harley was the Google of local sports. He could recite—without looking—the stats from the state high school track championships a decade ago. He could tell a bar full of patrons who had the highest point-per-game average over the last 15 years without consulting any notes. He had a one-dimensional mind that was always geared to local Eden Prairie sports. That he could make a living plying a virtually useless body of knowledge spoke more to the affluence and vanity of the locals than it did of Harley Hance’s own lack of personal depth.  

 

It almost goes without saying that Harley Hance was single. He had no use for a wife. A wife wouldn’t have him. He had sports. They were his life, his lover and his best friend. He was at every sporting event. He was the most recognized by-line in the local paper, the Eden Prairie Bee. Harley also had a Saturday morning radio show on KQDE-FM, and maintained a faithful stable of sponsors composed of local car dealers and exclusive downtown merchants. His contract was always renewed by station management because of his lasting relationships and incessant shilling on behalf of his State Street sponsors. It was no secret, either, that Harley was always available for a beer and a bump at the local tap. Most nights, Harley would close the bar and stumble, unnoticed, into his State Street loft apartment, popping a couple B-12 tabs and aspirins before heading off to his boozy slumber.  

 

In Eden Prairie, Harley was as ubiquitous as fireflies in July. He had no journalism degree because he didn’t need one. He had a warehouse of sports knowledge stored in his brain; knowledge which could never be taught to him by some loser college with a journalism program offering a useless pedigree. Harley J. Hance was that rarity of creation few people ever aspire to become—a walking, talking encyclopedia of useless local sports knowledge; facts and stats which had no value whatsoever outside a five mile radius of Eden Prairie, Ohio. He was a fine reporter of sports, to be sure, but he was personally and professionally over-inflated.          In Eden Prairie—a wealthy enclave of executive homes located on the shores of Lake Erie—Harley Hance was King Sports. He was a pig in mud. He liked being the big pig and he wallowed in the executive mud. He had no plans to ever relinquish his place at the trough.  

 

On this day, Harley Hance was looking for a face in the crowd at the Junior Varsity Championship baseball game. Harley had a story to tell—privately, to an old acquaintance.  

 

John Banner limped into the complex from the parking lot outside the left-field line. John could never disguise his entrance. His cane and the walker he pushed always gave him away. Harley Hance waited before approaching John. He didn’t want to rush over to him and draw suspicion. He wanted to wait until attention had been diverted before approaching Mr. Banner.

 

John Banner, in Harley Hance’s opinion, was an anomaly; a word which Harley would never use in a story because he was only halfway certain what the word meant—or how it was spelled. Banner had been a baseball prodigy, a stellar prospect who had garnered the attention of a half-dozen pro scouts. He was the complete package. Of the five traits they say a player should possess—hitting, speed, fielding, hitting with power and base running, John Banner had them all—in spades. He had led his team, the Mecklinville Yellow Jackets to the state tourney his senior year, only to lose in the final game. Harley, himself, was a senior in high school the same year John Banner graduated. Harley attended school in neighboring Jasper, Ohio—an outcast teenager in an outcast town—a boy who fueled his youthful imagination by admiring the athletic talents of people he could never be.  

 

The year was 2001. In September of that year, Islamists attacked the World Trade Center in New York City. John Banner reacted as many 18-year-olds did that year. He enlisted in the Marines. John had a million dollar bonus waiting for him the following year if he made the major-league roster. Harley had read in obscure, insider baseball magazines that the Reds had penciled John Banner in as their future shortstop.

 

Baseball stardom might have happened, except for a war and a HumVee and an improvised explosive device.

 

Why? Harley Hance often wondered. For what? Patriotism? It made no sense to Harley. It was an enigma; another word Harley would never use in a story because he could only approximate what it meant—or how it was spelled. How could a kid with a million-dollar potential scrap it all for a misguided patriotism? It boggled the one-dimensional mind of Harley Hance.

 

Harley checked the crowd. He hadn’t seen the varsity coach, Jim Munger, anywhere. He calculated the time was right. He glad-handed his way past a few of the JV dads and angled past the home dugout to the left-field side. John Banner had taken his usual spot away from the other moms and dads and turned his walker around so he could seat himself and watch the game.

 

“Hey, John,” greeted the reporter, extending his hand.

 

“Harley. Good to see ya.”  

 

“Put your spikes on, Rocket. They need you in the game.”

 

“Correction: Spike. Singular. Remember?” he said, pointing to his titanium foot.

 

“Yeah, well with one foot you’re probably faster than that Wayland kid who hits in front of your boy. Every time Bobby gets a hit he has to step on the brakes to keep from passing him.”

 

“No comment.”

 

No comment was par for John Banner. John never wanted to go ‘on the record’ with Harley. Harley expected as much. For a moment, they both settled in, basking in the glorious early June sunshine and drinking in the larger than usual crowd against the palate of blue and green painting their landscape.

 

“JV championship,” said the reporter, “could be the last hurrah for a lot of these boys. Most of ‘em won’t make the varsity next year, you know.”

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“Yeah. Varsity is only graduating four. This could be it for a lot of them.” Harley decided the time was right to post his observations with John Banner.

 

“Say, John, I was wondering if I could talk to you ‘off the record’ for a moment?”

 

“Sure, Harley. Long as it’s not about baseball.”

“Well, it is about baseball.  And, it’s about your son.”

 

“Off the record?”

 

“Off the record.”

 

“What do you got?”

 

The next sentence would be done in one breath. Harley Hance had information he was willing to spill and he knew it had to be done in one run-on thought. He took a deep breath.

 

“So, the other night I was talking to a guy at the bar—you know him, but I’ll keep him anonymous right now. He says that last weekend he goes up to Cleveland for some sort of business meeting and he spots Coach Munger at the bar. Well, he knows Munger ‘cuz his nephew played for him a couple a years ago.  Before long they become beer buddies and Munger’s tongue gets a little looser and he tells my friend that he’s got this real talented kid on JV he’s going to have to break. That was his word: ‘break.’  The kid, he says, is a Christian and Munger tells my buddy the kid is a walking, talking scripture-quoting Christian who is not afraid to share his faith. Munger says he’s going to have him in biology next year and there’s no way he’s going to allow him to spout his creationist crap without flunking him. Munger did that, you know, to the Tolle boy. Tolle is off the team ‘cuz Munger flunked him for turning in a final paper filled with Bible stuff and creationist science.  Old man Tolle can’t be happy, right?”  

 

“I heard. Chuck Tolle and I are deacons at the same church. I know more than you about this story.”

 

Harley took his eyes off the field and looked directly at 

John Banner.

 

“You know who my bar buddy is referring to, don’t you?”

 

John looked out onto the field dispassionately. “Yeah. It’s a 

fluid situation.”

 

“What are you going to do?”

 

Instead of answering the reporter, John had a question he wanted to volley. “Let me ask you this, Harley—if a story broke that put the school in a bad light, would you report it?”

 

“We’re still off the record, right?”