2001 (Second Helpings #17)
Highlighted in the top margin in one of the last pages of this particular notebook were some scribbled run-on and half sentences from a NYT Times magazine article about baseball pitchers who “forget how to pitch.”
I’m not sure why I jotted this down. Maybe I considered using it in Second Helpings as a way for Scotty to screw up his senior year. Perhaps it was the inspiration behind Jessica’s decision to quit the cross country team. Or maybe it was an extension of my own anxieties about the publication of Sloppy Firsts.
Translated: “Pitchers who forget how to pitch, something they’ve done since childhood don’t want to face the pressure of the expectations of their success so they self-destruct in a blameless way. This talent so simple, takes on mythic importance.”
