Tusa: The pianist and Satchel Paige
From SABR member Alfonso Tusa at The Hardball Times on May 24, 2019:
Aldemaro didn’t like any of his favorite stuff touched before rehearsal. Those objects had meaning for him at each stage of his preparation. On a table by the side of the black Steinway piano he had a broken guitar string, a book by José Rafael Pocaterra (Un Venezolano en la Decadencia), a bunch of marbles, some grains of sand he said were from an African desert, a white t-shirt with two holes in the chest, a dry leaf almost breaking into pieces, a very round stone that looked like a billiard ball, the stick of a popsicle, a little bottle with some liquid inside, and a paper that said “Cabriales-Manzanares.”
But what intrigued Carlos most was a wrinkled and yellowish score sheet that had been filled until the top of the ninth inning. He could understand the presence of the other objects, but a baseball scoring sheet on the table of a musician? What did that mean?
Carlos got a surprise that afternoon at the restaurant. Aldemaro was in the mood to talk. He had started by playing guitar like his father. But Aldemaro didn’t like the guitar, at least not as much as the piano. The first time he saw a piano was in Valencia’s public library. There was a concert, and it was love at first sight.
Read the full article here: https://tht.fangraphs.com/the-pianist-and-satchel-paige/
Originally published: May 24, 2019. Last Updated: May 24, 2019.