Intelligence.

I am happy to announce that I am going into the motivational poster business. To kick off the series, I decided to begin with a photo from the crocodile farm I visited in Vietnam last fall, the same one in which we threw cashews at the heads of these crocs and walked away tingling.

Quickballs, Large Leagues, & Spectacles Lived With Intensity!

Many years ago I used to play baseball now and then on the weekends with a bunch of guys at a field a few blocks from our house in Guatemala City. Among these was Jorge, a big dude who was our sandlot's version of Benny "The Jet" Rodriguez. When he stepped to the plate, one or two of us in the outfield would climb through a small hole in the chain link fence and go wait out on the street, which served as a sort of McCovey Cove for us.

Jorge once went missing for a few weeks, and when he returned he was wearing a Dodgers hat and told us he'd been visiting his brother who was playing in the minor leagues in the Dodgers farm system. Hugo, I would go on to learn, was the first (and as far as I know, still the only) Guatemalan player drafted to play professional baseball - discovered, as it happens, by the same dude who found Fernando Valenzuela in Mexico years before.

In one of my Google-search attempts to follow Hugo's career several years ago, I found an article from a Guatemalan newspaper, and since my Spanish was rusty-to-nonexistant at the time, I plugged it into one of those free online translators and what it gave me was nothing short of amazing:

Hugo Pivaral lit up with its curves and straight before the observers of the Yankees, Sailors, Gigantic and Mets, during the session of lanzamientos of yesterday in the diamond. The activity gathered to near 100 spectators, as well as to elements of press written, radio and television. The spectacle lived with intensity and all coincided in affirming: “I Hope Hugo achieve to go Large Leagues�.

“The adrenalina rose me al most maximum�, said Pivaral al moment of performing the exercises of straightenings. “In ten days will be known if I go or not to some of those equipment. I have confidence in achieving the dream of being in the great tent of the béisbol American�, he commented. The curves, to 77 miles for hour, and the quick balls, to 91, they left the sensation of security in the lanzador. “I felt myself well. Better than when did the first test. That it gave me confidence�, indicated finally.

Robert Engle, observer of the Sailors, of Seattle, of the American League, of the béisbol of the Large Leagues, of United States, recognized that the lanzamientos you done by the Guatemalan of 25 years, Hugo Pivaral, they were “good�.

There were hopes that he would continue the long line (five years at one point) of Dodgers who won the Rookie of the Year award, but he apparently got injured, which set him back, and unfortunately, just last year tested positive for doping at a Latin American tournament, though it seems there is some debate as to whether the positive test results were because of treatment he had received for his injury.

I'm not sure what became of Jorge. But someone of the same name appears to be the drummer in a Guatemalan nu-metal band called Disel.

All in this together – alone?

Two guys are sitting on the twin black pleather chairs in the coffee shop. One has his feet kicked up on one of the metal chairs with a yellow seat cushion. The other guy also has a chair pulled over in front of him, which he uses to collect the slivers of fingernail he apparently forgot to clip off this morning.

Newspaper Guy occasionally grunts and lets out a monosyllabic laugh in a cynical, "figures" sort of way. Nail Clipper Guy, without looking up from his task at hand, then says what, but he says it without the voice inflection at the end like you'd expect in a question, instead uttering the one-word sentence as if it ends with a period. Newspaper Guy then summarizes/editorializes the latest article he has just read, about hassles with city government or the fellow who got arrested for dog fights or the disabled, elderly woman who died in her home after the power company shut her electricity off.

"Tell you what I'd do if that lady was my mom," asserts Nail Clipper Guy as he slides the clippings into his left hand, "I'd sue that company for every penny they're worth."

"You'd have to find a lawyer," mumbles Newspaper Guy without averting his eyes from the paper.

"I'd have no trouble there, believe me. Lawyers would do it for free. They'd line up. That's what they did with my injury. They knew they'd win, big time. And they did."

Nail Clipper Guy gets up with the clippings collected in his palm and makes his way to the trash can where he drops them in and wipes off his hand, then returns to his seat.

Newspaper Guy folds the paper in half and tucks it under his arm. "Someone just went in the bathroom. I'm watching the door and as soon as it opens I'm going in. Then I think I'm gonna go home and go right to sleep... after I take a shower."

"Aren't you going to play with your cat at all? Do you sleep with your cat?"

"Nah, man, I throw her out when I go to bed. I'm allergic."

"Why do you have a cat in the first place, then, if you're allergic?"

"Well, I'm attached."

"When did you first get allergic?"

"Oh, I was allergic since day one."

"So what happens when you spend time with her?"

"My eyes get puffy and itch like crazy. And I can't stop sneezing. It's bad."

"Wow... well, I guess I'd have a hard time getting rid of her too. I know what it's like to be attached. My cat is my best friend in the whole world. Damn, only real friend I got."

"Yeah, I'll tell you this. I wake up in the morning and the first thing I see is my cat. She's always there...

[pause]

...but I'm allergic."