COHEN'S CONCOCTIONS #6

POSTERITY SCORNS ITS FAME-SMITTEN SUITOR

So the long-retired ballplayer dies. His egocentric ghost tries to grab posthumous fame-mongering admiration from the current generation of fans and players. Well, good luck to that enterprising ghost, who hires a live-wire publicity agent, who sends long-ago statistical reminders to all the media outlets: which fails to make an impression enough to get printed notices, because when alive the ghost client's major-league career topped off at mediocre. No fielding award, no hitting award, no post-season appearance, add up to forgettableness, especially given the current generation's attention-span disorder, creating the phenomenon known as oblivion. The ghost's egocentricity is grandiosely way out of its depth in trying to rouse remembrance of long-ago non-heroics. None of his contemporaries is alive to contribute any remembering, so historical archives would have to be pointed out, which gathers total indifference among callous posterity. For that old ballplayer to try to fame-hype a career via his wealthy ghost's hiring a "look-down-the-ages" agent, just doesn't seem to work. Death is ignoble enough, but to add a deficiency of fame glory to the dirty dust of coffined skeletal decay is what you'd call "piling on," unanswerable by death's smothered passivity. So the ghost flees, and nothing's left, except the hired agent who takes his commissioned fee, unmerrily, to the bank.

Marvin Cohen is the author of several books including Baseball The Beautiful (1974) and a former creative writing teacher at the New School. Marvin plays first base for Softball For The Love Of It.