What is this? For an explanation read the first installment.
There is joy abundant around the Royals again, after last night's dramatic come from behind victory over the Indians. At 12-7 the Royals are already five or six wins ahead of where most of us thought they'd be. But what does the spirit world say? Once again, I turn to bibliomancy to find out.
Today's source: British Folk-Tales and Legends by Katharine Briggs, page 162. This selection is from a story called "The Prize Wrestler and the Demon."
"That instant he felt himself seized, all unawares, by his waistband, and lifted clear of the ground."
Lesson: (Yes, he was lifted clear "of the ground" not clear "off the ground." I double-checked.) This passage reminds me of how Melky Cabrera must have felt stepping to the plate last night with the game on the line, seized by the tension of the moment, unawares of how to react. Nervous. Frightened. Of course, being above ground is an uncomfortable and unholy position for any Royal hitter, as the good Rev. Seitzer has certainly taught them. Ground balls only!
"It seemed as if the Old One rose with him many yards above the earth, but during a desperate struggle in the air, the man got his right arm over his opponent's shoulder, and grabbing him on the back with a good holdfast, took a crook with his legs."
Lesson: I'm glad I grew up in a world without folklore, for this is quite a sentence to make sense of. But alas, this is part of the Divine's lesson here: your mortal soul dost not always understandeth. In my pride I believed that Melky Cabrera was not actually a good hitter, that he was superfluous, that he had peaked long ago. But then we watched him struggle against Chris Perez, who for our purposes is the Devil.
"As he did so, his waistcoat touched the Evil One, who on the instant, lost his hold, fell flat on his back, as if knocked down, and writhed on the ground like a wounded snake."
Lesson: To defeat the enemy, one simply has to know their weakness. In this case, Chris Perez's weakness is any living hitter. In the 9th, Perez allowed the following: double, single, fielder's choice to the worst hitter alive, walk, single. So, in this case, any breathing opponent for Perez= a waistcoat touching the Devil.
My faith in Melky is once again strong.