RUBBERY SHRUBBERY Post 20
This is the Rubbery Shrubbery (RS) blog, an account of the quest of the Oregon village of Yachats (YAH-hots) and its inhabitants—called Yachatians (yah-HAY-shuns) or Yahotties (yah-HOT-tees)—to obtain a Major League Baseball team (pre-named the Yachats Smelt). To learn about Yachats, please go to this page or go to GoYachats.
We are fortunate to have Ms. Isabel Stackhollow join us again in writing this post. She will describe the continuing shaping up of the young Smelt baseball organization.
Home of the Smelt
by Isabel Stackhollow
Ever since news of the spawning of the Smelt hit baseball’s grapevine, salespeople have swarmed on Yachats like mosquitoes on an equatorial missionary.
A scant 48 hours after Annabella Kowalski adjourned the second meeting of the Yachats Smelt Board of Directors (see Posts #13 & 14), the Board’s Stadium Committee was standing again in the ballpark’s center field—transfixed by the slick pitch from Bonnie McQuiver, head of sales for The Stadium Guys, Inc., the world’s #1 seller of prefabricated sports stadiums.
On a portable bulletin board, Ms. McQuiver tacked diagrams full of geometry and fuzzy set theory, as well as Lemurian architectural drawings. She displayed photos of cities hosting The Stadium Guys’s products, such as Ittoqqortoormiit, Greenland (see Fig. 1). She showed pictures of famous prefabs of the past, such as the glassy Crystal Palace, just a stone’s throw from 19th century London ragamuffins (see Fig. 2). The committee drooled appreciation, and Ms. McQuiver smiled her very, very sincere smile. She beckoned to come closer.
Figure 1. Ittoqqortoormiit, Greenland. Prefab stadium has been folded up and stored during off-season.*
Figure 2. The Crystal Palace.**
“It will be the Yankee Stadium of the West,” she explained, clarifying the whole shebang. “You’ll be so proud, you’ll pop your buttons.” To say nothing of the zippers.
The McQuiver Rule of Salesmanship is: If they can picture it, they’ll buy it. “Imagine we are standing in center field of this YACHATS BASEBALL CATHEDRAL,” she uppercased. “The stadium rises around us.” As she gazed skyward she was the spitting image of Christopher Columbus (see Fig. 3).
Figure 3. Christopher Columbus enacting the spitting image of Bonnie McQuiver.***
“Now imagine it’s opening day. Banners, balloons, and confetti everywhere. The band plays as the Smelt take the field to the roar of thousands. TV cameras all around the stadium capture the images the world is waiting to see. And a horde of journalists in the press box devours the free food.” She turned her back to her mesmerized committee and swept a hand out over the playing field.
But then Ms. McQuiver hesitated and contemplated. “Ummmmm…,” she observed. “I know your weird local optical illusion makes the field appear smaller than it is, but still…perhaps we should be thinking of vertical opportunities.”
When she whirled to face her audience again she announced, “Definitely, you should have a multi-layered structure. Let’s say, three tiers. On the ground floor you could have a basketball arena (the NBA is always looking for places to put franchises) or maybe get an ice hockey team from Texas or Arizona. The second floor could host other sports, such as old-time revivals and rock concerts and celebrity bachelorette bashes.” She nodded her head and noted with satisfaction her audience nodded, too.
“That leaves the top floor for the Smelt, playing high above the city. Imagine the view from up there.” They imagined.
Someone in the front row raised her hand. “Would we still get our retractable roof?”
Ms. McQuiver was delighted. “You certainly can have your roof, pumpkin,” she chuckled. “Now, we don’t manufacture stadium roofs, but all roofs have standardized tabs that slide right into slots we build into each and every one of our stadia. The roof will fit perfectly. So easy a child could do it.”
Ms. McQuiver could feel the committee vibrating in perfect pitch. She knew she had them. She turned back to the field. “Yachats will be the sports capital of the universe,” she exclaimed as she lifted her hands to the sky, a prefab priestess posing in prefab veneration. At the top of her game.
All eyes rose in vertical appreciation of the great hi-rise sports complex—a boggling moment in the history of Yachatian minds.
* By Hannes Grobe, AWI (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-2.5 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5)], via Wikimedia Commons
** By Philip Henry Delamotte, Negretti and Zambra [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
*** By Gergio Delucci, “Christopher Columbus Arrives in America.” Published by the Prang Educational Co., 1893. 40802Y U.S. Copyright Office
Next time: Will Bonnie McQuiver make her sale? Will the Smelt play their games in a penthouse overlooking the majestic Oregon coast? Wouldn’t you like to know?
NOTE: We’re still looking for persons to write one or more postings of the RS blog. We’re suggesting it be an intriguing celebrity (not like all the rest)—perhaps John Thorn or Jim Bouton or Tom Boswell. But if you happen to not be one of this trio but would like to pitch in anyway, please don’t hesitate to let us know at the bottom of this page.
NOTE AGAIN: Dave Baldwin and Eric Sallee do not endorse the prefabrication of major sports stadia. At least, not on the central coast of Oregon.