Shaking Off the Speedball

Look, I’m not saying this is the most important thing happening in the world. There seems to be a decent chance that the U.S. will default on its debt in the next few weeks, so that’s, you know, important. There are all sorts of international crises. Elizabeth Holmes wants to be called Liz. I mean, important news abounds.

But I’d say that if reports coming out of Dublin are true, this is certainly one of the top two or three stories in the world.

Bruce Springsteen apparently has updated “Glory Days.”

Regulars here will know two things about me: One, I’m an apologetically bonkers Springsteen fan, even though, as a middle-aged sportswriter (emphasis on the “aged”), this makes me nothing more than a cliché.

And two, I vehemently and entirely out-of-proportion disagree with his lyrical decision to call his friend’s pitch a “speedball.”

I’m sure all of you know this, but “Glory Days” is a 1984 song about those people who can’t let go of their high school renown. In it, Bruce tells the story of two friends. One is a woman who was the most beautiful girl in high school — “back in school, she could turn all the boys’ heads.” She got married, split up, I take it from the lyrics that she’s a single mom now, and she finds rare comfort in reliving those times when she was on top of the world.

The other was a fantastic high school pitcher, and we’ll talk about him in a moment.

This song should have spoken to me as few ever have. As mentioned, it came out in 1984, which just so happened to be the year I graduated high school. And at that moment in my life, I so desperately wanted to believe the song’s message because, yes, I was entirely invisible. I wasn’t even the biggest loser in high school, because that would have been a distinction; I left no tracks, no traces, no echoes. I felt like nothing.

And those words, “Well, time slips away and leaves you with nothing mister, but boring stories of … glory days,” well, those should have been my mantra, my guiding light, my reminder that time doesn’t end in high school, it only begins there.

The word in Dublin is the speedball is out. (Kieran Frost/Redferns)

But … yeah, speedball.

That friend who was a pitcher, that was the pitch he threw. A speedball. He could throw it by you. Make you look like a fool.

There was a time, maybe 75 or 100 years ago, when you would see speedballs referred to with at least some regularity on the sports pages. Interestingly, as I look back, the word was more often used in horse racing than baseball. Fast young horses were sometimes called speed-balls. But, no question, it was a baseball term, too; sometimes Walter Johnson, for example, was called “Speed-Ball Johnson.”

But by the time Bruce was in high school himself, speedball was pretty much an outdated and bygone word in baseball. Speedball was much more of a drug term. I’ve seen it theorized that Springsteen was going for the drug double-meaning and that his friend was actually a pusher in high school. I’m rejecting that theory simply because I think that would make the song’s message very sad and silly.*

*Speaking of that, I recently watched a documentary about the song “American Pie,” and the basic thing I got out of it was that Don McLean is a pretty literal guy and meant his song to be taken pretty literally and all of the fun and quirky and wild theories about the lyrics (that the Jester was Bob Dylan, and the king was Elvis and that the girl who sang the blues was Janis Joplin and so on) are not right, and the words are the words are the words. It was kind of a bummer, if I’m being honest.

Anyway, songwriters like Jason Isbell and Bruce’s running partner, Stevie Van Zandt, have powerfully defended the Boss’ use of “speedball,” and they know a billion times more about music and lyrics than I will ever know. Isbell’s logic, if I’m getting it right, is that the character Springsteen plays in the song is probably not a particularly devoted baseball fan and is exactly the sort to refer to a fastball as a speedball in order to highlight just how hard he threw.

Van Zandt’s theory, best I understand it, is that all of us bothered by the speedball thing are “$*#(@* morons” and that he wasn’t writing a baseball documentary, he was writing a “$*#&(@ song.” Which, OK.

I believe (and I apologize if I’m getting this wrong) that one of our favorite Brilliant Readers, the wonderful singer/songwriter Matt the Electrician*, has made the point that “speedball” simply sounds better as a lyric.

*By the way, Matt wrote maybe the perfect baseball song called, yes, “Baseball Song.” The opening lyrics are:

On Opening Day
No one will say
”The country’s gone to hell in a handbasket.”
’Cause it’s just you and me
Section zero-3
With a beer and a Polish sausage the size of a Buick.

Here he is performing “Baseball Song” 14 years ago.

And, look, all of that’s probably right … but I can’t let it go.

“Speedball” just sounds wrong to me, every single time. I can’t help how I feel.

All of which leads to the big news coming out of Dublin. I’ve heard it from numerous people now, including Brilliant Reader bbison.

Bruce, on tour, has started replacing “speedball” with “spitball.”

It’s utterly and entirely brilliant. Having that high school friend throw that SPITBALL by you (make you look like a fool, boy) is so utterly wonderful and adds so much texture to the song that all I can think is how sad I am that I didn’t think of it myself.

Having him as a spitball pitcher changes everything. Now, he’s a high school kid who was never going to be drafted but found ways to get batters out with his sneaky and illegal pitch, making him a hero of the school. Oh, the stories he could tell! Yeah, that totally plays. I love it so much. I hope Bruce keeps it in the song forever. For me, that will even make up for Mary’s dress swaying.

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Joe

OK, as long as I’m nerding out here … a little something for the chess nerds at JoeBlogs. I played a game on Monday and, though I did end up winning, I missed a once-in-a-lifetime checkmate-in-one, and I don’t think I will ever be able to forgive myself.

Here’s the situation, if you want to figure it out for yourself. I’m playing the white pieces. I’ll give you the solution afterward. Remember, this is a mate-in-one.

I’ll set this up. I had a rook checking the king on d6 — my opponent had no choice but to take the rook with his knight (you will see a little star above the night showing that it was the best move). But that set me up for the kill. What I did then was move the pawn up one square and promote to queen, setting up an unstoppable attack. My opponent resigned.

BUT … again, there was a life-highlight mate-in-one that I missed.

What I needed to do was promote the pawn … but not to a queen. I needed to underpromote it to a knight. You NEVER do that. Why would you do that? But in this case, that would have put the king in check and there are no escape squares. That’s an extraordinary and beautiful mate. I will probably never get a chance like that again. Time really does slip away and leave you with nothing mister but boring stories.