The World Series is over, the Red Sox have won, my sleep pattern is beginning to return to normal (sort of) and I can get back to going through my books to add to the “Letters From My Library” series. So this will no doubt leave the multitude of readers out there who have been waiting for this moment greatly relieved.
Cue laughter.
Actually this submission is all about that topic – laughter. It’s also about the phenomenon that I call the “Shlabotnik Effect” after the fictional baseball player “Joe Shlabotnik” who was Charlie Brown’s favorite player in the “Peanuts” strip. No one knows why Charlie Brown chose Shlabotnik as his idol, he only played in the minors, was as far from famous as you can get and would never be noticed even in a roomful of baseball fanatics, but – and this is the key part – he did choose him and Shlabotnik thereafter belonged to Charlie Brown even if no one else could appreciate why he would have him as a favorite.
We all have Shlabotniks. If you’re a music lover you have bands or singers who no one else seems to appreciate, but which you are convinced are separated from the Beatles only by virtue of the fact that the rest of the world hasn’t yet caught on to the brilliance that you, you who have had the vision to discern this unique talent, have been witness to for years. For art lovers it could be a painter, for film lovers a given actor – and for book lovers it is an author who you discovered and think is really good – but seemingly hasn’t become recognised for the genius that he is.
Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you my personal Joe Shlabotnik of writers, Mr. Jay Cronley.
I first discovered Cronley when I was about 13 years old. The library in my hometown of Blandford, Massachusetts (population about 1000 people back then) would receive a regular delivery of books from the regional library consortium. Now, before getting in to the genius of Cronley I think I need to mention the venerable Porter Memorial Library. Here’s a picture of the building taken back shortly after it opened:
About the same, except the open space with the rocking chairs has been enclosed. I show the pictures only because I could, if I had lived in any number of other small towns throughout the United States, have posted almost exactly the same picture, of a very similar building, and the library would often have the same name. There is a “Porter Memorial” in Machias, Maine, another one in Georgia, and scores of others that go by different names all through the country. I think they are the most important buildings in these towns. The fire department is up there, but only because if you didn’t have one the library might burn down.
Anyway – on the shelf this one week is a book with a picture of a dumb looking football player and the title of “Fall Guy”. I decided to take a flyer and give it a read.Good decision.
“Fall Guy” is essentially about a hotshot football recruit who gets in to a major institute of higher learning, where, in addition to his duties as a halfback, he is expected to take a full load of challenging courses – like “Theory of Golf 15” which has the following exam: “When your golf ball is in a trap you may (a) move it (b) replace it with a clean golf ball (c) hit it (d) pour chocolate sauce on it and eat it with graham crackers.” Before settling on this academic goldmine the player had been recruited by a load of schools back east “like Notre Dame, and Pitt, and Ohio State and Holy Cross, wherever that is. It must be a school for monks and nuns. They must be a dog of a team”. Through the entire sordid college football factory process the book follows our hero’s progress – or, lack of the same. Fall Guy was the first Cronley book I ever read and it retains a soft spot in my heart. I didn’t know it at the time but Jay Cronley had a day job – he was (is) one of those sportswriters who exist in one of the “mid-major” markets. In his case it’s Oklahoma. He must like it there, because he’s managed to make himself a local legend and also into one of the country’s great writers on the lost sport of kings, horseracing. There is a great history of these writers, guys who kind of like writing in Tulsa, or Springfield or Dubuque. They have a nice life for themselves, are the first thing everyone in town looks for when they grab their paper in the morning, and they don’t feel like they need the validation of a massive national following to know they’re good. If you know of Bill Bryson, writer of travel books, and lately books on nearly everything (literally) – his dad was probably the greatest baseball writer of his time – and he never left Iowa. That’s what Cronley is when he’s not cranking out side-splitting novels – the local guy everyone can’t wait to read. There are worse things to be.
Next up I spotted the book “Screwballs” which is what they based the movie “Major League” on, even though I don’t think Cronley was ever credited. No matter – it is a screamingly funny take on a bunch of misfits who manage to confound everyone and turn in to a winning team. I now counted Cronley as batting two for two.
I didn’t get any more Cronley’s from the Blandford library (I’d moved away to college) but I kept him in mind when browsing bookstores. I was patient, and over the coming years, as people awaited the latest Vonnegut, Updike and Irving release (myself included) I added to the mix waiting for the next Cronley. And I was richly rewarded. Here are the other Cronley’s I have in my collection:
Good Vibes – Here’s the scenario – a guy who never had a bit of luck in his life, but loved a good day out at the track, gets on the hottest of hot streaks – for every race on the card he seems to get the winner. So he lets the bet ride through the day – bankrolling a small initial bet through each successive stage – letting the whole thing carry over – and watching it grow – and grow – and grow. Can he keep it going , and will the lucky streak carry over into real life? Cronley, as stated above, is one of the country’s top writers on horse racing. In the 1920’s this would also have made him one of the most important people in the country. Today, however, the atmosphere that attaches to the track is almost entirely lost, appearing only briefly at the Kentucky Derby and the other triple crown races so long as the chance of a horse actually winning the elusive three legs remains alive. You can still get a sniff of the old glory days if you go to Saratoga in August, or to the Breeders Cup – but there was a time when horse racing was, at the very least, the third most popular sport in the United States, right up with baseball and boxing. Cronley obviously yearns for those days and he expertly conveys the allure of the sport of kings in this book. But it remains hilarious throughout. Even the dedication is funny: “Funding for most of the research involved here was provided by a modest Daily Double grant one fine spring afternoon in 1978 at Oaklawn Park in Hot Springs, Arkansas. A horse named Rambunctious Road made this novel possible by winning the first race.” There is also this perfect description of the type of food you typically get at your average, run down racetrack – “the hamburger was tough because it had a thin slab of frozen ice in the middle, plus it was little, plus it was lousy”.
I’ve had that burger.
Walking Papers: John Grape has been served with divorce papers and finds he is looking at losing everything in the proceedings. But he hatches a plan to totally remake himself, new nose, hair, chin – lose about 50 pounds, - look like a completely new man. He would change his voice, his name, his address, create a past history for himself. Then – to get everything back – he would remarry his ex-wife, who wouldn’t even know it was him. He manages to pull off the identity change, manages to meet up with the ex-wife, manages to dodge or pay off the people looking to track him down for alimony, explains the makeover to his daughter – and puts the plan into operation…
Quick Change – This is Cronley’s Gatsby in my opinion. It has all the elements of his work that I like – the outrageous scheme that could never – okay, just might – hmmm, really could if things broke perfectly – work. It has the tortured sidekick, the baffled authority figures, the witty repartee – everything.
And, in one of the two movie versions, it has Bill Murray.
The plot is this – dressed as a clown Grimm walks in to and proceeds to rob a bank by holding all the people inside hostage. Using a trick he manages to exit the bank with the money and his accomplices. Then things get tough – he has to get to the airport in New York. As anyone who has tried to do this can attest – this ain’t always as easy as it seems to be. Braving private cars, taxi’s, public transport and the peaceful neighborhoods of 1980’s New York (har har) Grimm races to get away to a tropical paradise before the law closes in.
Funny Farm – OK – so, in the movie version, Chevy Chase is a big comedown from Bill Murray – but the premise of this one is nearly as funny as Quick Change’s. In order to “get back to paradise” a couple from the city decide to buy a farm in the sticks. Imagine “Green Acres” on drugs. In this one you get to read about unhelpful telephone operators, rigged bingo games, runaway dogs, alcoholic postmen, unlicensed sheriffs – you know, the usual.
Cheap Shot This is my second favorite Cronley. If you want to steal something without having to worry about the cops – why not first steal the cops? That’s the premise of this book – a group of burglars kidnap the night shift of the local police station and pack them in to a van before breaking in to the nearby museum and loading a second van with the loot. Only problem is – they’ve got two identical vans and can’t remember which is which – open the one with the paintings – they’re millionaires. The one with the cops – they’re dead. How do you figure out the one to open?
In the course of this misadventure the gang manages to pick up a couple of “common” criminals to put in the van with the cops, an unwilling driver, some seriously dysfunctional security guards and, being a police story, a doughnut salesman.
Shoot – Couple number one is having marital difficulties but, when faced with a crisis, just might be able to see their way through to a reconciliation. Couple number two has a difficulty with commitment but, because of a shared career interest, might just have found that special someone. Except that couple number one has each hired a contract killer to rub out the other. Couple number two?
They’re the killers.
Can things work out for our star crossed lovers? Well, in Cronley novels things don’t always work out completely smoothly but they tend to, shall we say, “partially resolve”. There are a lot of novels like the ones Cronley writes, a surprising number of them written by sportswriters like Rick Reilly (Missing Links) or Dan Jenkins (Semi-Tough). But Cronley is the writer I find most consistently funny – even though I am admittedly biased as he is, after all, my Shlabotnik.
As a matter of fact I think everyone should have a Shlabotnik. They belong to you more exclusively than the more widely popular writers, or bands or artists would. A Shlabotnik (or, probably more appropriately the lower case “shlabotnik” if I want to turn this in to a non proper noun) is like a favorite sweat shirt – maybe not much to look at for others but something that is comfortable to you, appearances be damned.
Thanks Jay Cronley.
