Uncle Sal and the Soused Southpaw (Episode 68)

Uncle Sal sat on the park bench next to Alice and opened the newspaper. He saw a story about the Wombats and began to read it aloud.

"Wouldja lookit that? The Wombats just signed Tank Loeb." Alice didn't look up from her romance novel. "Left-handed pitcher." Alice's interest still wasn't piqued. "You might think they call him Tank because he's a big, solid guy. Guy's no bigger than I am. If anything, he's probably skinnier."

Alice set her romance novel down on her lap and said, "Then why in the world do they call him Tank?"

"Guy is always drunk. You wouldn't know it to look at him. He holds his alcohol pretty good, especially for a guy his size. It all started one day when Tank shows up to the park and he's still drunk from the night before. Guy's gotta pitch against the division leader and he's still drunk. The manager, he didn't have any other pitcher to put out there, so he told Tank that he better sober up real quick. That wasn't the way Tank operated. He took a little hair of the dog, then he warmed up for the game."

Uncle Sal adjusted his Prussian blue cowboy hat and shooed a fly before continuing his story. "Wouldn'tcha know it? Tank was drunk as a monkey and pitching the best game of his life. Pitched a no-hitter that day. He figgers from then on, he better pitch while he was drunk. This is genius. He figgered out a way to put a little flask into one of the fingers of his glove. Then when he brought his glove up to his face, he'd take a little sip. He's been way better ever since."

"You mean..."

"Yep, the guy became a better player when he learned to keep a beer at the mound."

This episode featured:
Harry Hrudey as Uncle Sal
Ginger Frogg as Alice
and
Jellybean Merengue as the romance novel.

Tune in next week when Uncle Sal says, "It beats doin' stuff."