It is still 86 degrees outside. What I would give for a snow squall right now. The rotting flesh in Berdoo is going to be rank tomorrow. Tempers could flare; the city might burn – not a good setting for the 66ers home opener tomorrow. What is worse is the 66ers could be riding a six game losing streak into that game, meaning all good will from the Cal League will be Gone, Daddy, Gone. The Locals are likely to rend limbs from the new players to satisfy their need for flesh.
Perhaps the best thing that could happen to the Locals is a sustained fire in San Bernardino – a glorious blaze from which the firefighters just walk away, leaving Berdoo to the mercy of the winds and heat. After all, there isn’t a great deal of talent on the current group of 66ers – the core of this team sucked in Burlington last year. Throw in some Repeat Offenders (a player who is not good enough to advance after a season) from the 66ers last year, and you have a recipe for misery. A terrible fire could spare the Locals from the upcoming anguish and perhaps purge the city from blight.
In Berdoo with enough brain cells to possess long term memory like to look to the glory years of the past and dream of a return to splendor – the Cleveland of the West! Like Cleveland, those glory years are a myth – when the city was vibrant the air was green from the Los Angeles smog trapped by the mountains. When steel and rail are your muscle, the acrid smell of doom greets you every morning when you awake. Smelt could even be found in the orange groves back then – if you slept with your window open on a chilly night, you’d awake with oily ash on your cheeks. The Good Old Days indeed.
San Bernardino has spent so much time looking back that it forgot how to get ahead. Somewhere not that long ago, existing replaced living. This really isn’t a story about Old Berdoo though – the city is just a backdrop. The 66ers don’t instill civic pride in a rapidly dying city; many of their fans come from surrounding communities who kiss their kids on the forehead at night, and thank the stars above they don’t live there.
Dead Religions 