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Case #12 - re The People vs Rick Cocke #1 (A triple Cocketale)

Case #12 -  re The People vs Rick Cocke #1 (a triple Cocketale)

This story is in honor of today being Game 7 of the World Series  DODGERS vs astros

     I worked with a few characters whose names will appear repeatedly in these stories, guys like Jeff Fleming, Luis Nunez, Louis Suazo and a few others.  Rick Cocke (pronounced like the soda pop) is one of these guys.  This is one of his stories.

     Rick Cocke likes to play baseball although, by all accounts, he’s not very good.  He’s strong though, so he can whack the ball pretty good when he hits it, but he’s slow as a bear in winter... uh... that’s when they hibernate…get it?  During one game, Rick smacked that ball good.  The Bronx Bomber would have been proud.  Now, anyone else would have turned that crack into a home run, easy, but for Rick, that was a tough double.  Rick, however, decided to try to push his luck and go for a triple.  Now, Rick never made a triple in his life (except for that time he worked the West Hollywood parade, and hey, those hookers were cheap…and from the waist up, they looked just like women!).

     Rick streaked to first base in less than 30 seconds, stopped, caught his breath and began a 60 second hump to second.  He rounded second base, ignored the third base coach’s frantic signals to go back to second base, and kept chug, chug, chugging along.  The ground trembled under his pounding feet, causing the Caltech technicians to drop their crossword puzzles and rush to their quake monitors. Rick was moving so fast, he was verging on feeling a slight breeze on his face.   As he neared third base he saw an outfielder preparing to wing the ball to third.  Ten feet from third base, Rick did what he’d always dreamed of doing, he dove for third.  He stopped lumbering and sprang forward with all of his remaining energy. Rick flew through the air, stretching out his 6’05” frame.  Rick closed his eyes.  In his imagination he could hear Bette Midler’s voice singing,
“I can flyyy hiiigh-er than an ee-ee-aglllllle, ‘cause you arre the winnnd beneath myyyy wingsss…”
Over the sound of the divine Miss M’s voice, Rick thought to himself,
“I’m like Superman!  Nothing can stop me now!”
Then the kryptonite of gravity kicked in, pulling Rick’s immense mass back to earth with a vengeance.

     Rick slammed into the Earth’s crust, like the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs 75 million years ago, sending up an immense cloud of red dust that choked all of the onlookers, even the fans in the cheap seats.  He smacked down so hard, his feet hit him on top of the head, like a scorpion.  But Rick was happy; he could feel third base resting under his left hand.  The thought that, after all of these years, he had finally made a triple, released a shot of endorphins coursing through his veins, so that he didn’t feel the pain of his cracked vertebrae or the cleat that was stuck in the top of his skull.

     As the dust slowly cleared, everyone saw the blissfully triumphant grin on Rick’s face fade, as he opened his eyes and saw that his left hand was clutching the third baseman’s right foot.  As he blinked the dust from his eyes, Rick contemplated the third base bag for a moment; as it lay only 3 feet beyond the shoe he was gripping.  Then he slowly rolled to his left side and squinted up at the third baseman, who was staring down at him, chewing a wad of tobacco.  The third baseman turned his head slightly, spat, hiked up his pants and squatted down in front of Rick’s dust covered face.
The two warriors locked eyes for a moment, then the third baseman spoke a word of admiration and advice, for Rick’s Herculean effort,
“Nice try, kid.  Oh, and you might want to see to that cleat in yer noggin.” 
Then he spit, …lightly tapped Rick on the head with his glove,…. exhaled tiredly and stood up, as the third base umpire yelled,
“OUT!”

Verdict –  Rick Cocke, the Court finds you guilty of Stretching Your Limitations (subsection (b) for baseball).

Sentence -  Since today is Game 7 of the World Series, I'm going to go easy on you Rick.  The court sentences you to stick to wiffle Ball.  When you can haul your big ass to first base in less than fifteen seconds, then you can try Tee ball.  We'll reassess your abilities after you get the hang of that, in the meantime, YERRRR OUT!

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