1.04 - The Baseball Fan

My name is Mal Fleming. I am here to assist in your passage. Can you remember your name and the circumstances of your death? Myra Manuel. I died of a broken heart the moment the Dodgers left Brooklyn. I was also shot in the forehead when my barber shop was robbed, but hey, I I was already a walking corpse by then. Spiritually, I mean. Ah.

Yeah, I I know you're trying to get me to move out or pass on, however you want to call it, but I'll save you some time. I'm not going to any bright lights, I'm not going through any tunnels, not opening any doors, whether or not they're made of onyx. until the Dodgers come back to Brooklyn. I'm I'm not sure that's going to happen any time soon. Hey. You can talk to ghosts. What if you found the rich schmucks who owned the team?

and gave em a message from their parents, told them things only they would know, and then become part of the will. Then when you own the Dodgers, you're moving back to Brooklyn. And how would that work exactly? I don't know. We're just throwing ideas around. Animals can see us a bit clearer than folks, right? Well what if you found a ghost that could get out of Grey Briar? You go to a racetrack and you spook some of the horses so you win the bets.

You get money and you know and I'd win enough money to buy the Los Angeles Dodgers at the racetrack. Don't call'em that. Hey, you got any better ideas? Even if I could somehow use the fact that I can talk to the permanent residents of Grey Briar which I will note only happens within Grey Briar itself and is extremely limited even then. I have no desire to exploit it. You could probably make enough money to buy the Dodges if you proved ghosts were real. Just saying.

that would cause complications. Caldwell made that very clear in his notes, and I agree with him. And to sum it all up, all of this, the proven existence of life after death, the purchase of a multibillion dollar sports franchise would be for one spirit to pass on. I'm just giving ya options. I'm okay staying here.

I get to listen to baseball games, I get to talk to the other ghosts. Nobody needs a haircut. Well, aside from you. I don't know. think I need a haircut. Who cuts your hair? I cut it myself. Uh during the pandemic I bought a hair trimming kit. It's much cheaper and I never really cared that much how my hair looks, so haven't been back to a barber ever since.

First off, I can tell your hair wasn't done by a professional. It's completely uneven. Your hair says a lot about you, whether you care about the impression you're making or not. It matters if you say to everyone in Flatbush, Hey, I don't care what I look like, how you see me. It's rude. At least that's how it was back when I was alive. Things have changed, I get that. I'm just saying.

Second, a barber shop isn't just about the haircuts. It's a place where you catch up, you get advice, you listen, you talk about the neighborhood, who's hiring. You talk about baseball. You like baseball, kid? Yeah. Yeah, I do. I like baseball. Baruch Hashem. Caldwell was a basketball guy. Fun sport to play, I get it. At least he wasn't a football guy. Basketball just moves too fast. Baseball gives you room to talk. Let's the excitement build.

You got a team now? The Mets. Yes, to it me alight. You know they're never gonna win again. I wouldn't say that. Uh we got pretty close last year, and if you look at the advanced stats, Wansoda's plate discipline is unmatched in the entire I put a curse on them. As a ghost. They're trying to replace the Dodges in people's hearts, and the Dodges were Brooklyn's team. The Mets, they play in Queens. Come on. That's why they'll never win. Curse of Myro Emanuel. I mean they did win.

nineteen eighty six and nineteen sixty nine, before I was born, but still. Even the best hitter only gets on bass a third of the time. Are any of the ghosts here able to actually curse people? Best I can do is get baseball games on the radio. Ghostly antenna. I I would say that I hope that it isn't possible, but I have been surprised by what spirits here can do and how much it varies between each permanent resident. Kinahara. Oh uh sorry, I I don't know Hebrew. Yiddish.

And neither do I, just picked up a couple of phrases from my parents. Born in Brooklyn, pretty much never left. Don't know any language except American. And a little Hebrew for my bar mitzvah. Would you like to talk about your life at all aside from the Dodgers? Hey, I know what you're trying to do, Mel, and I'm always ready to talk. That's part of being a barber.

Some customers just want to go on and on about whatever comes into their head. Some of them just want to listen to what you have to say. You're the second type, I can tell. I'm always ready to talk. But I'm not passing on until the Dodgers move back to Brooklyn.

Understood. We can also talk baseball if you'd like. You go to many games at uh it's not uh Shea anymore, it's uh City Field. Uh something wrong about that. A ballpark named after a bank. I've only been a few times, unfortunately. Tickets are expensive. Guessing they aren't a buck eighty five anymore. They are not. Don't worry. I I know things have changed.

But that was the thing about Ebbot's Field, you know. It was small, it was cheap to get into, especially since the neighborhood kids would just sneak in. Not saying I did that, but and it was in the neighborhood. You could walk there from Flatbush. Sometimes Eva and Ruth would get out of school and I'd just take em there. We did hot dogs, made'em promise not to tell their mom. You heard of Howlinhilda or the Dodges Symphony?

Vaguely? Howlin Hilda. She was just a regular Dodger fan, you know, but she was loud. You could hear her in Prospect Park how loud she was. And she'd bring this cowbell. I don't think you'd be able to bring a cowbell to City Field, let me tell you. And she'd bang on the cowbell, telling them bums to get their act together, telling the other team to Well, she could get a little worked up when she started banging her cowbell. Eva once repeated some choice words at the dinner table and

Go into a Dodgers game is a cultural experience. It's like the Brooklyn Museum but for the present instead of the past. And a Dodgers Symphony well They were a band, if you could call them that. Just a bunch of people playing instruments that they had no idea how to play. Symphony emphasis on phony, you get it? Red Barber named them that. One of the best parts of the Dodgers were the announcers. We had the best.

Red Barber, Vin Scully. The Dodgers betrayed Brooklyn, but I don't blame Vin. He was the best you could ask for. After what happened with Don Drysdale when he had to announce He was the best you could ask for. And baseball's better on the radio. We'd always tune into the game at the shop. Everyone would talk and talk and talk except.

when there was a Dodgers game on. Sometimes I'd hear about a double play or a home run on the radio, and I could swear I could make out the cheering all the way in Ebbottsfield. It was special, you know, you don't have stuff like that at Citi Field, do ya? I suppose not. Yeah, I'm not trying to bust your chops. You get into baseball when you were a kid? Sneak into ballparks, play your own games in the street. Oh uh

No, I I was much more interested in, well, uh, the history of the game and how the statistics sort of told that history. How you could compare someone like Clayton Kershaw to Sandy Koufax, all the way back to Christy Mathewson. There aren't other games you can do that with. Not not really. Yeah, I guess half the conversations in the shop were about who the best player was, who the best defensive catcher or what have you. Roy Campanella, in case you were asking.

Plus I I actually play this video game called Out of the Park Baseball where you play as the general manager of a team. You can sign players, create a scouting system. I have to actually set limits on the amount of time I spend on it or I will absolutely lose days on a team rebuild. It's just so in depth. Sorry, that was Not related to the

Maybe there's something wrong about dreaming of being a general manager, instead of dreaming of actually hitting a home run or making the double play, you know? I I was never a particularly athletic child, even in my imagination. Sorry, I I don't want to be one of those old guys who's always ranting about how the the kids these days aren't right. My dad was one of them. My father in law.

Huh. Whole side of the family like that. Didn't like baseball, didn't like how I was raising Eva and Ruth. Didn't like, you know, that I'm buried here. I can imagine that was not that I'm complaining. Herschel gave me some of the money to start the barber shop. With that and the GI loan, it was I paid him back quick though.

The barber shop did well, but it always remind me. Not that I'm complaining. Of course not. I'm not complaining. It was a good life. Worst thing that happened was the Dodgers leaving Brooklyn. Yeah, I got shot by some idiot kid. The war. Wasn't pretty. Never made my peace with God after that. My wife and I w we married young, but that's just life, right? What happened to the Dodgers, that's different. You don't move a team. Rips out the heart of the city.

I did research your death. They found Doesn't matter. Are you doesn't matter. Yeah, it was probably part of a bigger story, but it doesn't matter to me. Doesn't matter to the people I loved, still love. So doesn't matter. It's not what's keeping me here. That's The Dodgers moved to Los Angeles. You got it, kid. I find it interesting that that's more of a sticking point than the circumstances of your death or your changing relationship to God.

And hey, saw some stuff in the war. Asked God about it, got no response. Well, I don't need to go to synagogue, don't need to keep kosher, and definitely don't need to be buried in your cemetery. Well, Grey Briar is non denominational, so You see anyone else from my family buried here? Must have been pissed when they couldn't get out of the will. Yes, so that feels slightly more important than whether the Dodgers You're a baseball fan.

Don't you get it? Baseball's more than just baseball. Game three of the fifty-five World Series. I was able to get tickets for me, Eva, and Ruth. And Ebbotsfield was it felt like the entire borough of Brooklyn was there, you know? And even Ruth, they were giddy, right? They couldn't sit still, even though the Yankees had won the first two games, and even though the Yankees always beat the Dodgers. The Yanks were untouchable back then.

And in the back of my head, I was thinking, well, what have I got Eva and Ruth into? The Dodgers are gonna lose and their hearts are gonna break, and that'll be on me. Esther told me not to take them to games, not to show them how to keep score, even though it taught them math. It wasn't something for nice girls to be fans of. But they loved it. They loved it even more than I did.

But then Roy Campanella hit a two run homer with two outs in the bottom of the first, and Eva and Ruth go crazy. They screamed louder than howlin' Hilda, and I just knew the Dodgers weren't gonna win it all. And on game seven, we gathered around the radio and we all listened as Ellie grounded out to Pee-Wee Reese and the Dodgers won the series.

Eva and Ruth were jumping around and yelling, but no one told him to keep it down because all of Brooklyn was doing the same thing. Even Esther was smiling. First time they won the World Series. Last time too. That's lovely. Yeah, it was. And it The Dodgers were important to Brooklyn. You know about that, right? Everyone talks about Jackie Robinson, but that's because he was important. For the country, yeah, but for the city, the Dodgers did that. And it felt like we did that too.

Seeing everybody out there rooting for him, that was special. And people forget that he was also just a great ball player. He played angry, I mean I I get why he played angry and why people don't talk about his ball playing, considering that he was more than just a ball player. But what a ball player.

best base runner I ever saw, and an incredible second baseman. He could turn one out into a double play. And Sandy did his best work in LA, but I got to see him in Brooklyn, when he was still finding his control Imagine if he could have done what he did in Brooklyn. The city would have... You shouldn't be allowed to do what Walter O'Malley did. There should have been a law. The Dodgers didn't belong to him. The team belonged to this city. Sorry, that

This would have gotten me laughed out of the barber shop. Too sappy. But yeah. The Brooklyn Dodgers. They were something. I the Dodgers aren't moving back to Brooklyn. Hey. Give it enough time. Maybe Mr Emanuel. Yeah, I know. But hey, until that happens, I can just listen to baseball games. Show hey Otani is doing things nobody's done since before I was alive. He may be a a Los Angeles mister Emmanuel. Caldwell said it was fine if I stayed. Told me to take all the time I needed.

I wonder how healthy that is. You think they have baseball once you go towards the light? Because they definitely don't in hell. Oh maybe they do. Maybe it's just the Mets. I didn't talk to Caldwell about anything other than baseball. He just took me at my word. Hm. Do I have to say it? I think you already know. It might be helpful for you to say it. They visited my grave, you know. Told me about their lives, what they were doing. Eva became a doctor, and Ruth became a sports writer.

I know I should be more proud of the daughter that becomes a doctor, but Ruth got to interview Roy Campanella. So they both became such incredible women. They stopped visiting a few years ago. They weren't gonna be buried near me, I know that. But what happens if I go through the tunnel? And Eva and Ruth aren't there? I can't give you an answer, mister Emmanuel. Feels like you should know what happens. If I did, I would tell you.

What I can tell you is that, as great as listening to Shoheiotani and Juan Soto And I really do think the Mets might win next year. It's I curse them, remember? They're not gonna win next year. You didn't actually It's a ghost curse. What else explains it? I know you didn't actually curse them, but uh

if they lose and you didn't retract the curse, I'm going to blame myself, so understand. Curse retracted. Thank you. As wonderful as it is to listen to baseball, If you pass on and your daughters are there, you're going to regret every minute that you could have spent with Ruth and Eva. Yeah. I mean

Any other spirit tell you they're scared? That they know what they have to do, what they're supposed to do, but they're scared. You have a little bit of comfort here, but you don't want to give it up for the unknown. get that sense from some spirits. Yes, and and some of them are happy here, some of them still need to resolve things, but You're right. It's easy to get comfortable to not do something you know you need to do because it scares you. And life too, I guess. It's

It's like how the worst type of team to be is a mediocre one. If you're contending, well then you're contending. And if you're at the bottom of the standings, you're rebuilding. You're getting draft picks, getting prospects. Saving money for a free agent signing, but if you don't But if you're just in the middle of the road, lose in the first round of the playoffs every year, you're stuck.

You don't even have the prospect of a World Series a few years down the line to look forward to. Easy to get comfortable. Pish. That sounds like some general manager Drick. Sorry, but I see it. I I see it. We're we're in agreement. I would have brought up some actual ball players, but uh I know what you mean. I I I guess I'm going up to the plate. That sounds Thank you. Listen though.

If I hear that the Dodgers actually move back to Brooklyn, I'm gonna haunt you. Understood? Understood. Okay. Here we go. Meyer Emmanuel. Passage completed. You've been listening to Conversations with Ghosts, a Dead Signals production. For complete cast and crew credits, check out our website at conversationswithghosts.com. Dead Signals is an independent operation, and we're supported by our patrons. If you like what you hear,

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