[It is a humid, drizzly day. Cut to the narrator, an older, weathered looking man wearing a one-size-fits-all Red Sox cap, telling his story to a man with a clipboard:]
“These days, Juan Carlos Rivera is both a past legend and a present scourge for the Carlsbad Cubs. The legend, once called the savior and hero of the Cubs in years past, has now become the scourge of the team. Most fans of the game view Rivera as a has-been who clings to old strategies.
[The narrator continues:]
“To understand Juan Carlos Rivera though, you must understand how he grew up and how he learned to live. Juan Carlos Rivera was born in a two-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn. Rivera's parents were poor Venezuelan immigrants. He was the youngest of nine siblings, all of whom occupied one of the cramped rooms in the apartment. Life was tough in the Rivera household and nothing about their life was fun, except for baseball.
Juan’s father told each of his five boys how to master a different aspect of the game. He taught each of his five sons a different craft of the art of baseball. Juan Carlos' father taught his brother Jose how to pitch. Jose ended up winning the Cy Young award after every season of his short 4 year career. He taught his brother Pepe' how to hit home-runs and Pepe' led the MLB in home runs for 7 of his 14 seasons in the Majors. He taught his brother Miguel how to steal bases, and Miguel became a terror on the base paths, ending his career with a stolen base percentage of 97.9%. And he taught his brother Rafael how to become a master of fielding and Rafael won Gold Glove awards in all but three of the seasons of his 21-year career.
Just when Rafael, Juan Carlos’ next-youngest brother, was entering his prime, Juan Carlos' father told him that he would teach him his skill. Juan Carlos’ father told him that he saved the best skill for him. He taught Juan Carlos the art of managing baseball. At first, Juan Carlos was furious...
[It is a humid, drizzly day. Cut to the narrator, an older, weathered looking man wearing a one-size-fits-all Red Sox cap, telling his story to a man with a clipboard:]
“These days, Juan Carlos Rivera is both a past legend and a present scourge for the Carlsbad Cubs. The legend, once called the savior and hero of the Cubs in years past, has now become the scourge of the team. Most fans of the game view Rivera as a has-been who clings to old strategies.
[The narrator continues:]
“To understand Juan Carlos Rivera though, you must understand how he grew up and how he learned to live. Juan Carlos Rivera was born in a two-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn. Rivera's parents were poor Venezuelan immigrants. He was the youngest of nine siblings, all of whom occupied one of the cramped rooms in the apartment. Life was tough in the Rivera household and nothing about their life was fun, except for baseball.
Juan’s father told each of his five boys how to master a different aspect of the game. He taught each of his five sons a different craft of the art of baseball. Juan Carlos' father taught his brother Jose how to pitch. Jose ended up winning the Cy Young award after every season of his short 4 year career. He taught his brother Pepe' how to hit home-runs and Pepe' led the MLB in home runs for 7 of his 14 seasons in the Majors. He taught his brother Miguel how to steal bases, and Miguel became a terror on the base paths, ending his career with a stolen base percentage of 97.9%. And he taught his brother Rafael how to become a master of fielding and Rafael won Gold Glove awards in all but three of the seasons of his 21-year career.
Just when Rafael, Juan Carlos’ next-youngest brother, was entering his prime, Juan Carlos' father told him that he would teach him his skill. Juan Carlos’ father told him that he saved the best skill for him. He taught Juan Carlos the art of managing baseball. At first, Juan Carlos was furious that his father gave him such a seemingly useless skill. Juan Carlos viewed managing as an unglamorous existence. As he grew older, however, Juan Carlos learned that his father gave him the best skill of all. As each of his brothers came and went, leaving a small and inconsequential mark on the game of baseball, Juan Carlos found that managing was the best way for a baseball lover to be able to live his life around the sport he loves.”
[Narrator pauses, to pour himself a drink from a plastic jug of bourbon. He first drops a couple of ice cubes from a oval bucket from his side table into his glass, which he fills to the brim. He then resumes his story:]
“The glory days of the Cubs took place in the 1970's. These were the days when baseball was shifting from a classic pastime, into a game of roughnecks.”
[Rivera is a stocky, muscular middle-aged man sporting a handlebar goatee and large sunglasses. Rivera sits in the dugout, with a stern, unpleasant look on his face. The players in the dugout watch the game, while chatting with one another. Rivera sits at the end of the bench in the corner.]
“Juan Carlos Rivera was the Cubs' manager. We used to call him “JCR.” He was the leader of the team from 1973 onward. Jack McKee, the wealthy son of an oil company CEO, named Rivera as team manager, right after he purchased the team from the ‘Lucky Strike’ tobacco company. People thought McKee was nuts giving Rivera the job, but I guess he saw something in JCR that nobody else did.
During the ‘70s, Rivera's boys were notoriously the roughest of the American League. It was rumored among Cubs Fans that their leadoff hitter, Shifty Brown, slid head-first into home-plate, so that the cocaine vial in his back pocket wouldn't shatter. Fans swore they saw shifty doing drugs in the dugout. The Cubs players during that time were always in trouble with the police, amassing assault charges and DUIs in every state. When they were on the field though, they were Rivera's team.”
[Narrator pauses to light a cigarette, while asking the sportswriter if he is getting good information for his story. The sportswriter nods, and the narrator continues, blowing a billow of smoke toward the ceiling:]
“The rough and tumble Cubs, while they were on the field, obeyed Rivera as a soldier obeys a general. The Cubs won 3 World Series Championships during the 1970's, two of which came back to back, in '77 and '78…”
[Narrator pauses and stares into the sportswriter’s eyes:]
“…but the good times fade…”
[Rivera now sits scowling in his office as he reads an article in a sports magazine that predicts the Cubs will finish under .500 for the year. He seems outraged and is now a gaunt, sickly looking man wearing a nylon jumpsuit with a “Cubs” patch embroidered over his left breast pocket. He muffles through a mouthful of salmon and cream cheese bagel:]
"It's not even May, and they write this shit?"
[Narrator resumes, but is lost in thought:]
“Rivera still lives for the game. He still keeps a watchful eye over the empire that he built over his lifetime. He still controls every aspect of his two teams, the Cubs and the Bears. The only thing I can say, is that the game seems to have passed him over.”
[Rivera throws down the magazine.]
“Who the fuck wrote this about me?”
[Narrator continues:]
“After managing, Rivera met with his brothers to discuss buying the Carlsbad Cubs. Jack McKee was looking to sell the team, but honestly, I don’t think anybody in their right mind wanted it, except for Rivera. The Cubs were a money-trap. Carlsbad didn’t want to give the Cubs a new stadium, and the team profits were in the red every single year.
The Cubs, like the city of Carlsbad, fell into a state disarray during the 80s. Most of the industry had left town about a decade ago, and the city was dying from the inside. Cubs attendance had steadily dropped over the years, and the team’s fans slowly started to forget the championship years of the 1970’s. The team became the cellar-dwellars of the American League.
Back in those days, the only people who owned baseball teams were men who came from generations of wealth. These were men whose great-grandfathers founded shipping companies, coal companies, electric companies.
When Juan Carlos met with his brothers to discuss buying the team, they thought he was crazy. He finally persuaded them to buy the team as a collective group. The brothers had made millions of dollars during their years in the Majors and had done well in the stock-market boom of the mid-80s. The Rivera brothers would own the team as one. A team of people who knew the ins and outs of the game
At first, everybody in Carlsbad loved JCR. He brought them victory on the field, and now he was saving the city’s team. Rivera seemed enthusiastic too. He called for “4 year plans” to restore the glory of the team. He promised the fans that he would build a beautiful, state-of-the art stadium. I guess he eventually came through with his promise, though I don’t see anything beautiful about Carlsbad Field.”
[Narrator continues:]
“During my last few years in the business, I covered baseball for the magazine that you work for. I left before the worst came, but when I left the game, it wasn’t the same as it was when I found it.
Look at Rivera now. He got his wish. He has power and he never has to leave baseball voluntarily. He commands his team like it’s his toy, but it seems as if he is no longer in baseball because he loves baseball. He and baseball are like an old, loveless couple. They go through the motions of living their everyday existence with one another. The only joy that they get out of one another is through reminiscing about the past.
Carlsbad stadium personifies Rivera. I swear, I can trace Rivera’s downfall in the public’s eye, to the year after his new stadium was built.”
[Nothing about the stadium is elegant. It is a “modern” donut-shaped multi-purpose facility, built in the hayday of the astro-turf loving 1980s.]
“I guess that’s why I stopped writing. I no longer loved baseball anymore. Sometimes I feel as though I had changed too much over the years.”
[Narrator to the young reporter:]
“Oy, we used to write beautiful things. I grew up reading Roger Kahn. I would have to pause, mid-sentence when I read his writing, it was so beautiful. During my time at the magazine, our writers’ pieces drew a perfect harmony between sport and art. Our guys wrote literature. Our stories were tragic, they highlighted the human qualities of being an athlete.”
[Sighing:]
“Nowadays, you guys just write short pieces that a person can read while they’re taking a shit.”
Krito