Sports & Psychedelics

BEDTIME STORIES FOR GROWNUPS.

"SPORTS & PSYCHEDELICS"

Summer of '84. 2 of my childhood friends Marc & Eli were looking for something to do on a hot sticky Chicago night. We decided to each take an eighth of liberty caps and go to the batting cages. We were quickly disappointed to learn that it was over an hour wait for every cage... except one.

We bought a plastic pitcher of Old Style with our fake ID's and sat at a picnic table covered in green cracked paint.

The mushrooms kicked in hard. That moment where the pressure in your skull is released, but just before the fulminating laughter. I narrowed my gaze at this one cage with virtually no wait and watched one person after another attempt and fail at the 100 MPH fastball. I looked at the guys and said.

ME: Guys, I can hit the hundred.

ELI: Dude. If you go into that cage, you're going to DIE.

ME: I'm telling you, I can see it in slow motion. I can count all 108 of those red laces on that ball.

ELI: Please don't go in there. I really don't want to be tripping in an emergency room.

I was doubtless. I went to the counter and bought a few 25 ball tokens. I missed the first ball clean. Chipped the 2nd, then proceeded to pound the next 73 clean like I was peak steroid Barry Bonds. That feeling where it doesn't hurt your hands. Where you hit it so pure, it just goes "Click".

I could hear the murmurs behind me as the crowd grew. By the end, roars and applause.

At the end of 75, I had proven my point and was sweating, tired and my hands were chewed up from batting without gloves. I put the bat down and my friends were screaming laughing and bug eyed. A group of people followed us to the parking lot.

BIG CONTRACTOR LOOKING GUY: (Mike Ditka dialect.) Hey! You're awesome! You should join our city softball team.

ME: Hey thanks, but nah.

GUY: C'mon. Gimme your number! You're one of the best hitters I've ever seen.

ME: Thanks dude, but I don't like team sports.





















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