Saturday's Storyteller: "Sad Lefty came to baseball hammered."
by Belinda Roddie Sad Lefty came to baseball hammered. Every game, without fail, he would stumble onto the field with the smell of cheap whiskey on his breath, the alcoholic cloud hovering over him like a swarm of hungry, sweaty gnats, eager to feast on him once he inevitable collapsed under the weight of a fly ball. His uniform stained and awkwardly lopsided on his gaunt, crooked frame. Many expected Lefty to be fat, a Babe Ruth of the twenty-first century, choking down hot dogs with beer serving as a solvent. He did not like eating. He preferred only the nectar of the gods, only the nectar was honey bourbon and the gods were scraggly white-haired gnomes behind a dirty counter, pouring booze with one hand and waving away belligerent patrons with the other. "I'll get to you. Just hold on." Sad Lefty, of course, did not play left field - he played center, or right when Webster's elbow acted up, and he couldn't hold his arm out long enough to make a catch. Nor was