Damn Yankees by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview

Damn Yankees

Page 8

him; and worse, that Lola has actually fallen in love with Joe, he turns her back into an ugly hag.

They arrive at the ballpark by the ninth inning, the Senators up by a run. With two outs, one of the Yankee sluggers hits a long drive to the outfield. As he backs up to make the catch, Applegate impulsively switches Joe Hardy back into Joe Boyd in full view of the stadium. Now paunchy and middle aged, Joe makes a final lunge at the ball and catches it, winning the pennant for Washington. As his teammates celebrate and fans storm the field, an unrecognized Joe escapes from the ballpark.

Late that night, as the public wonders why Joe Hardy has disappeared, Joe Boyd meekly returns to his house. A tearful Meg hugs him and they sing to each other. Applegate materializes

once again and offers Joe the chance to resume being Joe Hardy in time for the World Series. He also makes Lola young and beautiful again to tempt Joe. Joe ignores him, and a tantrum throwing Applegate vanishes for good.

Back to reality, the most frequently stated, popular objections to any team or individual being considered the greatest of all time is that their era of triumph was low on talent and competition. This is not the case here as in the American League the Cleveland Indians, Boston Red Sox, and even sometimes the