Divine Nine

Back
in the early 1960’s, five young dudes moved separately to New York City
from different states.  They
met at the basketball courts at Green and Washington streets, where a
group of 30 or 40 young, unemployed black kids would meet up every day
there wasn’t snow on the courts, and play ball.  Afterward, they
would hang out by the busted up picnic tables, smoke a few joints, drink
wine out of brown paper bags, and sing.

Eventually the five of them started meeting in a basement
apartment and recorded some homemade tapes, which were passed around
and eventually passed to Frank Zappa, and the rest is history. They became
know as the Persuasions, and they did exclusively a cappella stuff –
no instruments, just the five voices.

We were reminded of the Persuasions by a snatch of audio
from some commercial, the subconscious soundtrack of our times, not specifically
remembered, but caught in the nooks and crannies of the mind, sparked
into nagging sentience by random cues and associations.

There was a period when the Downrigade listened to the
Persuasions seminal second album, They
Came to Play (1971) at least once
a day.  The cover features a photo of the band on the NYC basketball
court where it all started.

Our interest piqued, we discovered that the Persuasions
lasted a lot longer than our LP collection.  Among their more recent
production we found this gem:

Life is a Ballgame

Life is a Ballgame, but you’ve got
to play it fair.
Life is a ballgame, being played each day
Life is a ballgame, everybody
can play
You know Jesus is standing at the Home Plate
He’s waiting
for you there
Life is a Ballgame, but you’ve got to play it fair

Well you know Moses is on the
sideline, waiting to be called
Well the day he parted the Red Sea, he knew
Christ all in all
Now John came in the ninth Inning, and the game was
almost done
God gave John a vision, and we knew we’d already won!

Life is a ballgame, being played each day
Life is a ballgame,
everybody can play

Wise words for trying times. Well, this got me thinking. Just
imagine, for the sake of argument, there
is some sort of ecumenical Valhalla or Olympus or Pantheon of the gods,
majority and minority, past and present, not just the Judeo-Christian
Hall of Fame of the Persuasions persuasion.

Despite
being divine, we imagine that these gods would get bored sitting around
all the time, and so would inevitably come up
with some organized diversions.  Why NOT baseball? It you were one
of the celestial captains, do you know who you would pick for your Divine
Nine? The Dowbrigade does.

On our scorecard, we have fleet Mercury roaming centerfield
and batting first. Apollo is a ray of light in right, and a steady second
hitter. Second baseman Bacchus, an engaging clubhouse presence who keeps
the guys loose, holds down the three hole, at least when he isn’t hung
over. The Hammerin’ Hun, Thor, bats cleanup and patrols left field.

Morose third baseman Pluto is a fixture at the corner and
fifth in the order, despite a huge contract and reputed underworld
connections. Nimble shortstop Krishna switch-hits in the six spot, seemingly
unaffected by being permanency blue. Playing first, and batting seventh,
is Illapa, Inca God of weather, especially thunder, lightning and rain,
usually depicted as a man carrying a club and rocks in his hands. Between him and Thor, rain delays are a team speciality. Batting
eighth is the pugnacious catcher, Vulcan, who is built like a Babylonian
blacksmith.

Batting ninth (for there is no designated hitter in
the Divine Baseball League) is the starting pitcher Mahakal, one of the many
incarnations of the Buddha, this one a six-armed god of Tough Love.

We’ll take on all comers. Anybody up for a game of Ultimate
Fantasy Baseball?