[image via]
I was talking with an acquaintance named Dante last night when he brought up Jack Kerouac's fantasy baseball league and I had to get more information of the Pittsburgh team because I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together.
The league's teams were named after cars or colors. For example, the Cincinnati Blacks and Boston Grays were two such latter teams, while shown below are the Pittsburgh Plymouths, St. Louis Cadillacs and Washington Chryslers:
Fortunately for us Pittsburgh fans, the Plymouths were the only team managed by Kerouac himself.
It's rather hard to distinguish the Plymouths' lineup exactly, what with there being only a few small images publicly available, and those that exist are shown written in Kerouac's chicken scratch handwriting. But I've tried to list out the Plymouths' team below:
Pittsburgh Plymouths Starting Fielders:
1st Base: Tod Gavin
2nd Base: Homer Landry
3rd Base: Joe Martin
SS: Leo Sawyer
C: Gus Texas
LF: Lad Gavin
CF: Paul "Sky" Tibbs
RF: Rob Sokolka
Pitchers (no first names given):
Mclaney
N. Gavin
Henry
Sawyer
Lafayette
Gameau
Cody
Jessup
Levesque
Rogers
Bench Players:
Tremblay (IF)
Hazard (OF)
Guewa (C)
Wayne (OF)
Pray (IF)
Grenanig (IF)
Vinde (IF)
Hall (OF)
Largest availble image of the Plymouths lineup below (full-sized here), but even then, some of these names are guesses:
GUS TEXAS! The incredible Gavin brothers, Tod, Lad and N! My name is Nicholas, so I'm just gonna go ahead and say it's Nicholas Gavin because I need to be a part of this team. Even as a B-rated relief pitcher. Plymouths Shark Tank, baby.
And if Andrew McCutchen doesn't somewhow acquire the nickname "Sky" then all is for naught.
Kerouac had some sort of card system built up where certain rated players could perform relative to certain rated pitchers, and he was found to have played this game for most of his life, unbeknownst to his closest friends. The game underwent changes from the time he began the league as a teenager, and some historians believe he moved from cards to dice to perhaps projectiles at a game board on a wall.
And players moved about as well. Paul "Sky" Tibbs, the Plymouths' center fielder? He's listed as being a member of a team named the Blue Sox at some point. Us Plymouths fans are just glad he eventually made his way to Pittsburgh. I mean, he's the only one with a nickname on the team, he HAD to be something special.
I should get bonus points for finishing an entire Kerouac baseball post with zero easy "beat" or On The Road puns.
