byronic :: mad bad and dangerous to know

mightyflynn:

Neruda, ca. 1970

Latin American scholars today often express surprise at how few Americans remember Pablo Neruda’s days in baseball. Even most dedicated fans of the game remain unaware that in the spring of 1965, the renowned Chilean poet put in almost a month at third base far the New York Mets: He was sixty-one years old at the time. His short-lived career in baseball goes largely unremembered for two reasons, I believe. First, in the initial four years of their existence, the Mets experimented with a dozen or so third basemen, hoping to find one even minimally suited to the position. Second, to be frank, Latin American literature was not nearly so widely known in the United States then as it is now, especially among baseball fans. It is safe to say that no Latin writer of similar stature could play pro ball in North America today without attracting a great deal more attention than [Pablo] Neruda ever received. In fact, there is some evidence that Neruda, at best a barely proficient third baseman, took the job in order to relax: to escape for a while from the rig- ors of his art and from a deteriorating political situation at home. “I had a marvelous time in New York,” the poet told El Mercurio, Santiago’s largest daily, shortly after his triumphant return to Chile. “It could not have been a better experience for me.”

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the Mets. Among the terrible third basemen the team has had, none was worse than Neruda. Over twenty-eight ball games in a four-week period Neruda saw seventy chances at the hot corner and muffed forty-five of them. In eighty-seven appearances at the plate he man- aged but one hit. And he was struck by pitches no fewer than seventeen times. “In the north the ball is thrown very fast,” he told El Mercurio. ”Sometimes I had difficulty escaping its path.” 

 - ”Neruda and the Mets” [excerpt] by Vincent Passaro 

Harper’s (May 1985), originally published in Willow Springs (Summer 1985)