Melky, You Could Have Gotten Me Killed!

8/27/07

You are seriously not funny, Melky. You are seriously a jerk, and now you’re my enemy. If you expect me to ever hit you home again, you better get a life!

This is going to be a hard story to tell. You all remember my last entry when Melky accused me of trying to have sex with a urinal simply because I was leaning close for sanitary reasons. Well, he approached me to apologize on Saturday. As a “peace offering,” he told me about an area of Detroit with a great rollerblading scene. It was on the east side, he said, in a neighborhood called Conant Gardens.

I love ‘blading, and I didn’t think I’d have the chance to roll in Detroit. I forgave him immediately, went on to get a hit, score a run, and lead us to an easy 7-2 win. Everyone was really nice to me after the game. It was strange but great. By the time I showered and strapped on the blades, Robbie Cano had already hailed me a cab. The driver seemed surprised when I told him I was headed for Conant Gardens, but I was too excited to really notice.

When we arrived, the cabbie left right away, like he was scared. It was almost six and starting to get dark. Long stretches of condemned buildings lined both sides of the street, and I didn’t see gardens anywhere. Nobody was ‘blading, either, but I thought I could scare up some action easily enough, especially if this was as big a rollers’ neighborhood as Melky claimed.

But when I started rocking down the street, executing some pretty flawless spins and jumps, the people just laughed. A few women dressed like prostitutes tried to approach, and I had to veer away. A younger boy with large jeans and a sideways Tigers baseball cap started riding his bike around me in slow, ominous circles.

Soon a flurry of homophobic epithets came from the stoops, and for a while I took the insults without comment. I thought the local rollers club would have my back soon enough. Finally, though, I heard one particularly rude catcall and retorted, “takes one to know one!”

That didn’t go over well. A heated exchange followed, and soon I was being chased on foot. It became a sort of mob scene, and as I fled I kept screaming out my name: “I’m A-Rod the baseball player!” It had no effect, except to make them angrier. Still ‘blading at top speed, I took my wallet from my waist-bag and tossed some bills to the side, hoping to distract them the way you might distract a mean dog by throwing cheeseburgers (if you happen to have a bag full of cheeseburgers). Finally I just threw the whole wallet, filled with about four thousand dollars cash, and sped down a side road. Which reminds me that I need to start a checking account somewhere.

After a few minutes I guess they stopped the chase, but I had blacked out and couldn’t stop ‘blading. I don’t remember anything from that moment until the next morning, just after six, when a couple cops found me passed out in a Wal-Mart parking lot. I was clammy, starving, and close to exhaustion. The Wal-Mart was in Toledo, Ohio.

Today I went 0-for-4 with 2 strikeouts. So thanks, Melky. You’re about as cool as the Conant Gardens rollerblading scene.