Play Ball !

It’s almost Spring.  In here, the seasons are controlled by the equipment on the rec yard.  You always know when summer turns to fall when the rec yard workers come out to install the soccer goals.   Soccer – at this prison anyway – is a fall and winter sport.

And Spring?  Spring arrives the day the yard workers come out on the field, take down those same goals and then drag the infield.  That’s right, just like outside, you know its Spring when you hear the sound of balls pinging off aluminum bats, you see guys playing long toss in the outfield and infield practice begins.  Spring hit last Sunday.  It’s time to play ball.

Our dorm is putting together a softball team – two teams actually.  Because our IT college students (40 guys) have night classes at least two nights a week and our day students (44 guys) have classes at least one night a week, we’ve built two teams.  I’m head coach, a role I’m excited about because I love baseball.  Baseball, you see, always reminds me that there’s hope.  No matter what happened the season before, Spring arrives and you start over.  It’s a new season, a new game, a new chance.

I thought about that the other night as I looked over our list of players:  twenty-two guys spanning the age and “bid time” brackets.  A fair number of our “players” will be heading home at the end of summer, their sentences completed.  For them, this Spring really is a new beginning.

And some of the other guys?  For “old heads” like DC and Saleem – and even Mike, down 19 years (though he’s only 34) – there will be parole hearings.  Those three are still part of the “old law”, pre-1995 when parole existed and inmates could earn “30 for 30”, meaning you only did – usually – 50% of your sentence (assuming you earned good time at the max level).  And they try not to think about the disingenuousness of the current parole board’s practices.  It’s Spring.  They each, deep down, carry hope that they will be part of the select few, 2% last year, who will be paroled.

Me?  This July 1^st I can petition the Governor for a conditional release, converting the rest of my time to supervised probation or house arrest.  And I have hope.  No matter how unlikely it appears, I have to have hope. I have to believe.  After all, it’s Spring.  It’s time to play ball.

The other morning the paper reported that Governor McDonnell was on pace to restore more voting rights to convicted felons than any of his recent predecessors.  The article also noted he granted medical releases to two inmates.  I smiled when I read the short description of the older inmate from Salem who was pardoned after being diagnosed with terminal cancer of the bile duct.  See, that was the inmate whom I helped.  I drafted his petition.  He was able to pass away at home with his family beside him and I was part of that.  It’s Spring and things that didn’t make much sense during those long, cold winter days suddenly make sense.  There’s a reason – and a season – for everything.

A few weeks ago Lent began.  In my old life, my “free” life, I never gave much thought to Lent.  I didn’t “give up” anything.  I just went on as I was.  “AC” – after confinement – I took a different look at Lent.  Renewal, I figured, could come through sacrifice and discipline.  So each Spring (for the past four seasons of Lent) I’ve fasted, meditated and given something I enjoy up.  This year it’s been coffee and chips, my two favorite commissary purchases.

And giving them up has been fairly easy, just like engaging in 36 hour fasts.  It’s because I know Spring is here and Spring brings renewal, hope and life.

Our ball teams are excited about getting the season underway.  It’ll be a nice break from the three-a-day classes the guys have, a chance to get out in the fresh air and run and playball.  And all those things matter in here.  It all matters because time is the most painful part of prison and Spring brings hope and hope eases the pain of time.

Place Your Bet

Last night was the final game – the championship – for the “over 40” summer softball league. Our building – as it had in the regular softball season – went undefeated the entire season, got cocky and lost. Not only did they lose the game, but the main four players lost about $100 cash.



These four guys are all ringers. They’ve all played softball for years in the “prison leagues”. One guy – M & M – will tell you “I’ve played ball at every prison in the system since 1986”. That’s something he can put on his resume!


So these four guys in the spring just “happen” to all get moved into our building. I had thought about playing, but once I saw these four gems in action, I decided against it. They hand-picked who would play. They taunted and criticized their teammates and their opponents. And, they got cocky. “Pride goeth before the fall.” I learned that in my own situation. These clowns learned it with their bets.


Gambling is illegal in prison, yet we have one of the most sophisticated bookies here I’ve ever seen. He could work in Vegas at a casino’s sports book operation.


C is a young guy, 24. Ironically, his brother is a rising senior majoring in history at the University my ex teaches at. He’s been locked up for almost three years with seven to go. He ran his own “chop shop” in the Harrisonburg-Winchester area. He must have had a pretty large operation because he still owes in excess of $800,000 in restitution (for all the stolen cars he disassembled).


C has a great math mind. He knew of my gambling background and we hit it off. I don’t gamble. For awhile, I thought I suffered from a gambling addiction. Through therapy I realized it wasn’t gambling that was a problem, it was my wanting to be everything to everybody. In fact, I was a pretty good gambler. I had a positive win-loss rate in both Vegas (the Mirage) and Atlantic City (The Borgata) for the five years I played high limits craps.


Anyway, C and I routinely discuss odds and sports book. He runs a sheet on anything and everything: Baseball; NASCAR, WNBA; the World Cup. He clears $500 on a good week, then pays his “runners” (guys in every building who accept bets and collect) based on their intake.


He ran book on the softball league. Our “fearsome foursome” all decided to bet on themselves to win it all and to win big. As Pete Rose can attest, the cardinal rule in baseball is “no betting on the game.”


You would have thought they learned their lesson when they lost the regular league championship. No, these guys – while sitting around doing Bible study – also plotted how to run the action up to maximize their winnings.


Back to the game. The “Fab Four” squad is getting killed. One of the unique aspects of “prison sports” is the unbelievable amount of crap thrown at the players. Heckling is not an art form in here; it’s a way of life. And, everyone – even the guys in our building – is rooting against these four scumbags.


Right fielder makes an error, M & M explodes. Runner tagged out at home, Max hurls insults at his teammate; talking about his mother, his wife, his sexual orientation. Guys on the sides of the field hoot and holler. Every other word is profanity.


Then, ever so gradually, the tide begins to turn. The game gets closer, only one run down and last at bats. Two quick outs and the bottom of the order still to bat.


“Cheddar Bob” somehow places the ball just right to get a single. “Carolina” hits one in the gap and Cheddar moves to third. The crowd is going wild. Bettors hold their tickets waiting to see which way it goes.


Moore – the 10th place hitter – is due up. Max, M & M and Elliott are huddled by the bench. M & M whispers to Moore and then M & M retrieves his bat. M & M, the “Sultan of Swat”, “the Great Bambino” steps up to the plate. No one notices he’s batting out of order; no one notices the best softball players in the history of DOC are cheating. No one – that is – except for Jimbo – the other team’s first basemen.


“Walk Him”, he yells to his pitcher and, on three straight balls, M & M walks and heads to first. Max steps up to the plate.


Jimbo leans over and whispers to the first base ump. He pulls out the lineup card, looks at the bench, looks at M & M and yells out:


“Batted out of order; runner on first is out. Game over!”


Pure pandemonium breaks out. M & M is screaming; Elliott has to restrain him. Guys are laughing and cussing the “losers”.


I see C sitting at a picnic table. He smiles as I approach. “Made over $600 just on the game.”


I want to give a “shout out” to a guy who left this week and a guy who’s still here. “Boston” went back to the regional jail for “transition home” in 90 days. He hated a couple of guys he lived near. His final “see ya” – he left feces covered shorts on one guys bunk; urinated in another guy’s cup, and filled “friend number three’s” boots with used tissues and toilet paper. He made a sign for the C.O.’s that said simply “you clowns all suck. Die scum!” A beautiful farewell from a real gentleman.


Then, there’s Reggie who really is crazy. He’s our morning trash man who literally talks to his trash cans. He said something very enlightening to his trash cans the other day after an alleged Christian called him a “mental a—hole.” He looked at his trash can and said “wonder what Jesus would say to him for talking to me that way?”


I had to agree with his trash can: that was a hell of a good question!