You don’t know about me without you have read a book by
the name of Universal Baseball Association. That book was made
by Mr. Robert Coover, and he told the truth, mainly. There was
things which he stretched, but about my daddy and the demise of
his UBA, he got that right.
I thought he was a one-of-a-kind, my daddy. Turns out there
is thousands like him, behind closed doors, rolling their dice and
keeping their records. Obsessed with wins and losses, home runs
and strikeouts, batting averages and fielding percentages, so they
keeps careful records, and all of it determined by them dice, by
sheer luck, though they don’t want to admit that, obsessed as they
is, worshipping stats like they could see God in the numbers.
That’s what got my daddy into trouble.
I met one of them, spinning his dice night after night, though
not yet as gone in the head as my daddy, which is why I come to
write this. To maybe save him from my daddy’s fate.
I met him when he came into the shop to buy dice. I own a
little game store—fitting, ain’t it?—where we sell the stuff gamers
need, like dice, which is what he was looking for. Twelve-sided
dice. Said he needed them for his baseball game. Turns out he
got the idea for his game from my daddy. Small world.
Why twelve-sided? I asked.
‘Cause he could get more possible results.
Twelve times twelve is 144, I said. But if you take three
regular dice, six sides each, and roll them together, you get 6
times 6 times 6, which is 216.
So? he said. Gimme three of them twelve-siders.
Them twelve-sided dice cost a purty penny, I said. He saw
the advantages immediately.
Gimme four a’ them dice, he said, meaning the six-sided
ones. How many possibilities is that?
6 X 6 X 6 X 6 = 1,296.
Whoa! he said.
I asked him about his game and he told me how reading
about my daddy’s UBA had inspired him to build a game of his
own. He’s so lost in his game I’m afraid he’ll never come out.
Send your fives and tens ‘cause this residential recovery
center for addicts, where he is now, ain’t cheap. I never had the
chance to save my daddy, but I got a chance now and I’m taking it.
THE POETRY OF THE GAME