21 – The Stadium Committee in Action, At Last!

RUBBERY SHRUBBERY Post 21

The Rubbery Shrubbery (RS) blog is back in your life again, telling you of the efforts of the Oregon village of Yachats (YAH-hots) and its hearty inhabitants—called Yachatians (yah-HAY-shuns)—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.

Our volunteer writer today is Ms. Isabel Stackhollow who will continue to tell about the Stadium Committee of the Yachats Smelt Board of Directors. You recall that super-saleslady Bonnie McQuiver of The Stadium Guys, Inc. was just about to close the sale of a magnificent facility for the home of the Yachats Smelt.

The Stadium Committee in Action, At Last!
by Isabel Stackhollow

Brassica Chin has always been short. “Oh, grow up!” her mother would say to her. And Brassica was always picked last for trimming the Christmas tree.

Nevertheless, she is renowned for her politeness—her manners are impeccable and complete due to her great-grandmother’s genes, and since she has had only one great-grandmother, that lady’s genes hold considerable sway.

Naturally, being wrapped in all that etiquette, Brassica is reluctant to claw her way to the front of a crowd to see what everyone else is seeing. So, during Bonnie McQuiver’s sales pitch to the Yachats Smelt Stadium Committee, Brassica could only snatch glimpses of phantom blue diagrams through the crooks of wrinkled elbows and knees.

But standing in the back didn’t prevent her from hearing every undotted “i” and uncrossed “t” of the discourse—Brassica has ears like a Doberman Pinscher (see Fig. 1), metaphorically and vice versa.

Figure 1. A dog-eared yet wolf-eared Doberman Pinscher.*

And because she couldn’t join in the gawking of her fellow committee members, she had time to think about what Ms. McQuiver was saying. Of course, the triple-decked prefabricated stadium being proposed for Yachats sounded great, what with hosting all those top-notch sporting events—Brassica was especially intrigued by Ms. McQuiver’s mention of the celebrity bachelorette bashes—but on the other hand, did Yachats really want to deal with the social stigma of being the home of an NBA team?

And why was Ms. McQuiver emphasizing how inexpensive a prefab stadium is? She’s not thinking that Yachats is going to pay for this thing, is she? If the Washington Nationals, say, decide to move their franchise to Yachats, they should build their own stadium. After all, it would be their place of business. Would Yachats build a petroleum refinery and give it to Exxon? Or a whatever-it-is-that-Google-does-business-in and give it to Google? Too ridiculous to even consider.

Yet, Brassica had the uneasy feeling that the rest of her herd was feeling too easy. Except for Brassica, each committee member was turning more and more rapt.

Meanwhile, in front of the ruly mob, Bonnie McQuiver was spieling about the superdeluxe Seabreeze model assembled upon the demo table. Each of the fifteen members of her audience was hit between the eyes by a dollop of magic. Ms. McQuiver felt that warm, luxmorphious rush of one who is about to put one over.

Ms. McQuiver told herself smugly, “Now is the time to close this thing.” She paused to gather a tailwind. Then, “And here is the best part. The Stadium Guys, Inc. is about to end their very special, once-in-a-lifetime offer. If you buy this stupendous triple-deck prefabricated stadium RIGHT NOW, you will still qualify for both a five percent discount AND a five percent rebate! But you have that remarkable opportunity only if you hurry because this offer ends…” She studied her watch. “…in just five minutes! Hoo, boy, are you in luck. You have just enough time to sign this contract and qualify.” She looked at her crowd of fifteen who were now in full rapture. “In fact, you should all share in the credit for this…let’s have everyone get the opportunity to sign this historic contract.”

Ms. McQuiver held up a single radiant ballpoint pen and the crowd ogled it as she knew they would. But before they could surge, from somewhere behind them, an actinic voice rose like the rays of the sun, “Wait! Don’t sign that contract!” And a frigid gust hit Ms. McQuiver’s soul and shivered her as she realized there were sixteen members of the committee. That pesky little Brassica Chin wasn’t to be seen rapturing anywhere!

Before the shaken Ms. McQuiver could recover, Brassica stepped out from behind the committee. Some say she was nearly bathed in a glorious rainbow aura and almost seemed to be wearing a flowing white gown and brandishing an insinuated flaming sword. Quite impressive!

Brassica strode to the front of the committee where she stopped and took aim at Ms. McQuiver. “Don’t tell me you think we’re going to buy a stadium just to lure a sports franchise here. What town would be crazy enough to do that? You must think we all just fell off the rutabaga truck.” See Fig. 2.

Figure 2. Rutabaga truck Ms. McQuiver mistakenly thought they all fell off of.**

Ms. McQuiver tried to rebound. “But the competition to attract major league franchises is very intense. If you lack a first-rate stadium, no team will even give you a glance. And every city wants to be able to call itself a big league city.”

“They do?”

“Of course. Think of the prestige.”

Brassica thought of the prestige. “Yachats has majestic mountains and a shining sea and a wry sense of humor. We don’t need prestige.” The other committee members nodded and mumbled right-ons.

Ms. McQuiver was beginning to wilt.

Brassica continued, “You want to know what I think? I think you try to sell your stadiums to cities because there are a lot more of them than there are teams. I can’t imagine any city is dumb enough to buy a stadium, though, and give it away. You just made all that up, didn’t you?”

“But that really is the way things are done,” pleaded Ms. McQuiver.

Just then Brassica looked down at the contract lying on the table. She shrieked. “It costs THAT much? That’s insane! Even with the millions of dollars we’re given by deposed Nigerian royalty and the millions of euros and pounds we win in obscure European lotteries, we could never raise that much money!”

“But you’ll have the Yankee Stadium of the West,” whined Ms. McQuiver.

“Ha!” replied Brassica. “Go peddle your triple-deck stadiums someplace else. We all know Caveat emptor, and what’s more, ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny, Missy.”

That did it! Bonnie McQuiver didn’t have to take that kind of abuse. Her valuable time could be better spent elsewhere. Besides, she had once eaten a bad candy bar about an hour earlier and was beginning to feel a little iffy. She packed up her table, diagrams, drawings, and assistant, and hailed a cab to the Yachats International Airport where she caught the evening flight to her next sales pitch—in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea. Even though the Yachats airport was a figment of her imagination.

* By David Iannotti. From Wikimedia Commons.
** Courtesy of Rutabaga Society of Spitsbergen.

Next time: Is the stadium a dead issue for the Smelt? Of course not. A completely different solution—a proven solution—will emerge. You’ll slap your forehead in why-didn’t-I-think-of-that disgust when we tell you what it is.

NOTE: We’ve asked you politely several times whether you happen to know a brainy celebrity who would be itching to write one or more postings of the RS blog. A quality celebrity such as Alan Schwarz or Ken Burns or Timothy Egan. Do you know such a person? If you are nodding your head “yes”, please tell us all about it at the bottom of this page.

NOTE AGAIN: Eric Sallee and Dave Baldwin are hoping to have many volunteers anxious to contribute to the Rubbery Shrubbery blog.