Wishing
Jeff Davis
1/10/99
Well, I suppose you know who Josh Cameron is, right. The best baseball player that ever was, and probably ever will be. You know, the guy that played every position for the Detroit Tigers. Sorry if I'm laughing, but before he came along that Jordan guy was the most famous in the world, had his own basketball shoes, movie with Bugs Bunny, whole bit. Cameron left him in the dust.
You know how Cameron got that good, don't you? Don't believe the shit they tell you in Sports Illustrated and on ESPN. It wasn't years of study, then applying the principles that did it. C'mon, if that was the case, every Roto-Geek in the US of A would be smacking frozen-rope linedrives into the bleachers. No, that wasn't it. He made a wish.
That's right, he made a wish. Laid there in his bed next to his wife, pissed off about something or other and hating his life, and he looked out the window at nothing in particular, and thought in his head "I wish I was the best baseball player that will ever be." There wasn't any falling star, shooting star, rising star, none of that crap. No bushes burned, or anything else. He just woke up the next day knowing that he was the best damn baseball player that would ever live. So he looked on the map, found out that Detroit was the closest team that was in town that weekend, packed up his car and drove out there. Didn't tell his wife anything, just put his old softball cleats, some sweats and an old glove in the trunk, and took off.
So, when the General Manager at the stadium hears that there's this nutcase in a beat-up Volkswagen van who says he's the best ballplayer in the world, well, what would you do? He had some peon go tell him to beat it, but gave him a ticket to the day's game so the PR wouldn't kill him. He'd already had enough shit with the radio guys lately.
Ok, now here's the scene. Cameron's out in some nether-region of the stadium, just about the worst seats in the joint, and some big kid straight off the farm blasts one for Oakland. The thing lands right in his hand, great catch. Of course they put him on the big Jumbotron thingy making the catch, but then he throws it back. That's when they all pay attention. See, not only did he throw it back from deep in the bleachers, but he threw it to the second baseman. The second baseman. Hey, you following me? That was probably the best goddamned throw anyone ever seen up until then. So Mr. General Manager has some kid usher go find Cameron, and then he finds out that he was the yahoo that come out to see him earlier.
Mr. GM's standing there in his big box looking at Cameron, not believing what he saw. Here's this guy in his early 30's, 20 pounds overweight, doesn't look like any type of athlete, and he's just uncorked the best freaking throw in New Tiger Stadium, hell, probably old Tiger Stadium for that matter. "Here's the deal," Mr. GM said, "You come back tomorrow morning, and we'll run through some drills, give you a tryout, how's that sound?" Shit, you know how this gonna work, but I'll tell you, nobody was ready for this.
Cameron shows up the next day in his softball gear, gets out there and hits everything out. Lefthanded, righthanded, doesn't matter. When the pitching coach starts giving him crap, hell, Cameron closed his eyes and hit the next one out. Then the next one. And the one after that. After 28 the pitching coach gave up. Then they pulled in one of their starters and had him throw. Didn't matter. So then they stuck Cameron out in the field, and it was the same. He even pitched. Mr. GM had lawyer-boy upstairs draw up a contract right then, and Cameron signed it. Didn't even look at the money part.
So that's how it started. Every team that he ever played on won the World Series. Played into his 50's, eventually just pitching. Even his body wore down eventually.
What's that? No, nothing of the sort. He and his wife got back together pretty good, they had, I think, 4, 5 kids. Nobody came to steal his soul. None of his family got sick. No, none of that. He just wished it, and it happened. Sometimes things just happen, you know.