There are a zillion baseball analogies out there. There’s “hitting it out of the park,” and “striking out.” There are people who “play hardball” and there are people “way out there in left field”… But I haven’t heard any new ones in a loooong time. Maybe all that’s left are the more obscure elements of baseball. But I guess you could also reuse some of those common elements. Anyone have any new ideas? Here are a couple, just to get the ball rolling. (Hey is that a bowling metaphor?)

A person whose overconfidence costs them in the end was “picked off at third base.”
If you are a bold person willing to take risks, you are “someone who isn’t afraid to bunt with 2 strikes”

I know- these are pretty lame. And I’ll probably look back on this tomorrow and think “why the hay did I publish that?” But then I’ll remember that I needed to get a new entry up here and I’ll feel a little bit better for a while.

And in conclusion, I could be clever and end with a final baseball metaphor, but that might be too cheap and corny and embarassing, and would definitely put me over the top as far as deciding to delete this post. So instead I’ll just finish it up with a final request for new metaphors and call it good.

I never thought about this until just this second, but the first book I ever tried to write was about colonizing the moon. And the second book I ever tried to write was about baseball. Outer space and baseball were on my mind all along. Kinda crazy, since it took me another 10 years or so before I figured that out.
Anyway, neither of those were ever published. They both pretty much sucked. The moon story rambled on without any plot in sight, and the baseball book read like an instruction manual. But the concept in the baseball book was interesting enough. It just wasn’t worthy of hundreds of pages of contemplation.

The idea was that the flow of time in baseball is different from every other sport. There are sports with clocks running down (like soccer and basketball and football), where the scoring and the clock are separate things. And there are sports where the scoring is the clock itself. These ones are like races. For example, running and golf are sports where the players are trying to cross the finish line in as few ticks of the clock or strokes of the club as possible. And tennis and volleyball are races to win 3 sets.

But baseball is different. At the fundamental heart of baseball you have strikes and balls. If a pitcher throws only strikes*, then strikes lead to outs and outs lead to innings and innings lead to games. And if a pitcher throws only balls, then balls lead to walks and walks lead to runs and runs lead to victory. One determines your location in the game and season, and one determines your location in the score and standings. Interestingly, if one of these elements (the ball/baserunner or the strike/out) were missing, you’d never see the end of a game.

The end result is an epic battle between time and eternity. The defense is trying to move time along, pitch by pitch, out by out, game by game. The offense is trying to suspend the flow of time altogether. Ultimately it’s a quest for immortality over death, a mini version of life itself, played out on a baseball diamond.

Now I remember why I thought this was so cool.

* This example starts with a batter here who doesn’t swing the bat. I can get into the swings and all that later if anyone besides me thinks this is remotely interesting…

Check out this cartoon from 1932. I love stuff like this that is simple and clever. Looks like bugs and aliens have the same ideas about baseball…

Levi and the Issaquah All-Stars

I had the amazing privilege of watching my 11 year old cousin’s Little League all-star team compete in their regional tournament a couple weeks ago.

They lost the final game of their tournament, but it was easily the best game of baseball I’ve ever seen. Down 6-0 in the 3rd inning of a 6 inning game, they rallied to tie it in the bottom of the 6th.

My cousin Levi hit a leadoff homerun that sent the crowd into a frenzy. and in the bottom of the 7th, after the visitors scored a devastating 7 runs, Levi’s team fought back, scoring 5 runs and threatening to score with the tying run at first base. It didn’t end like it would in the movies, but it was an excellent game nonetheless.

The biggest difference I could see between little league and big league was the raw emotion these kids showed.  When despair struck, you could actually see it. Shoulders would slump. Dirt was kicked. Scowls, winces, and rolling eyes marked the faces of the frustrated. And at the other end of the spectrum, you could see the joy and confidence that came with success. It wasn’t cockiness. It was joy.

Joy and despair. There was no middle ground. Every player had his heart squarely in the game. With each play the emotions would come out. This wasn’t just a baseball game. It was a full-on battle of emotions, and I’ve really appreciated observing and identifying with their ups and downs. This game really meant something to them. That’s what made it so electric. I think I’m hooked forever as a Little League fan.

A giant leap for robotkind! Here are a couple videos of some basebots. The first one is from the article posted here yesterday.

This basebot was created by a research team led by Masatoshi Ishikawa at the University of Tokyo

This basebot was created by Frank Barnes.

BREAKING NEWS

No Joke. Baseball-playing robots have arrived on Earth! CLICK HERE to read about what the Galactic League peeps have known all along: our metallic pals got game. Basebots are here to stay.

AP Photo/Itsuo Inouye

Over the years, lots of wild ideas have come up for background data in Alien All Stars- ancient teams, concession stand treats, galactic fast food franchises… all kinds of random things. Most of these will probably never see the light of day. But one of my favorites of these has to do with alien robots, and how the Alien Leagues and the Robotic Leagues combined together to form the Galactic Leagues.

Compelling drama! Here’s a brief summary. The baseball community was divided. The aliens wanted to combine forces. The robots were opposed. It was a tense time in galactic baseball, but there was also lots of hope…

Subtly, respectfully, and with a good dose of fun, this story is my own small tribute to the Negro Leagues of baseball’s past.

I love the depth of content available for the topic of alien baseball. There is so much you can do with it, and not just the feel good stuff, but the ugly stuff as well. And about that ugly stuff- another issue that I’m looking forward to addressing is banned substances. Heck yeah it’s an issue!  MLB has a problem with steroids, and the Galactic Leagues has a problem with gravity pills and anti-gravity pills. (I think it would be hillarious to call them uppers and downers, but that might be pushing it a bit…) 

I’m not interested in having widespread use of banned substances in the league or anything. But I do think an occasional player should generate some whispering speculation, stir the pot a bit, and maybe even crash and burn. They don’t all get to be heroes. To quote  Syndrome from the movie The Incredibles, “If everyone is super, then no one will be. Muhahaha.” (That’s Syndrome’s laugh, not mine!)

Zagmar, or Sweet Lou?

If you drive from Seattle on northbound 405, and keep going just past Everett, You’ll see Dagmar’s Marina on the left side of the highway. As a lifetime local to the Seattle area I’d passed the place a ton of times before. But one day the name just jumped out at me. I was working on a story, and had been looking for an alien name. One of the easiest ways to name an alien is to replace the first letter of a word with a Z. For his last name, I pluralized a name from my childhood favorite album “Free To Be You And Me.” In the song “Helping,” there’s a character named Zachary Zugg.” That’s how Zagmar got his name, and became the first alien baseball player for Alien All Stars.

Zagmar gettin crazy

Zagmar became the co-star in a kids story I wrote (and never published) in 2002 called Henry and Zagmar. Henry was a boy from Earth. Zagmar was a goofy alien who took him into outer space to play baseball. The story pretty much sucked. But the idea was super fun and I couldn’t leave it alone.

Jason Medeski's Zagmar

The idea for Alien All-Stars has evolved over the years, and Zagmar has always been one of the main characters in the adventures. When I met children’s artist Steve D’Amico in 2005, I absolutely loved his artwork and wanted to see what he could do with Alien All-Stars. I paid him to create 3 character designs for me, and he did an amazing job. The first of these characters was Zagmar. Steve did up a quick baseball card frame and background to make it pop a little more. I really liked the fact that Zagmar reminded me of current Cubs manager Lou Pinella. But at the same time, since he was going to be Henry’s best friend, we wanted him to have a bit more of a playful look. Steve sketched out another drawing, where he would be giving Henry “bunny ears” while posing for a team photo.

getting close

Building out a whole cast of characters was a huge project, and Steve brought in his friend Jason Medeski to help out. Along with his great ideas, Jason reworked Zagmar to give him a more playful look. It took me a while to let go of who I thought Zagmar was, but I eventually saw that Jason’s character really captured Zagmar’s personality.

Perfect!

Steve loved the new Zagmar as well, and he took the character and “Stevised” it to match the rendering style of our other art.
And finally, the Zagmar that we have today emerged- a perfect blend of the two artists!

first rendition of the lunar jinx logo

In October 2004, I was in baseball heaven. The Boston Red Sox (Woohoo!) were playing the New York Yankees (Boooo!) in the American League Championships, for a shot to play in the World Series. I was hopeful that this could finally be the year that the Sox overcame the Curse of the Bambino and won their first World Series in 86 years. I was thrilled that the road to victory would go right through Yankee stadium. It only seemed appropriate.

But things got ugly fast. New York won the first game of the seven-game series. And the next. And the next. In the history of Major League Baseball, no team had ever come back from a 3-0 deficit to win a series. In fact, in hockey, basketball, and baseball combined, only 2 teams had ever done so. The taunts in Yankee Stadium were relentless. The Sox seemed to be crumbling under the oppressive weight of history once again.

But miracles happen, and a big one was in the making. Before an audience of millions, the story that unfolded couldn’t have been scripted any better. It was almost mythical. It was supernatural. And in game 7 at Yankee Stadium on Mickey Mantle’s birthday, the Sox came back from the edge of elimination to win the American League Championship Series. World Series baby!!!

I couldn’t wait for the World Series to begin. It was the only thing I could think about. On the day before the first game, I found out something incredibly cool. On the evening of game 4, for the first time ever in World Series history, there would be a full lunar eclipse! And not only would it happen that evening, it would begin right about the same time as the start of the game. I had absolutely no doubt what was going to happen. The Sox were going to sweep, winning the series on the night of the eclipse. Go Sox!
They won the first game. They won the second. Then they won the third. Then, on the night of game 4, I found myself running back and forth from the tv to the middle of the street, watching for the lunar eclipse to begin. Finally it did. Minutes after the earth’s first shadows turned the moon a strange shade of reddish orange, the first pitch was thrown out. And by the time the final shadows had left the moon, the Red Sox had been crowned World Series Champions. With the help of the most fascinating celestial experience in baseball history, the Curse was broken!
Read the Boston Globe’s Story

I couldn’t believe it. Ancient legends, and modern heroes, and celestial wonders, and baseball… All things that have fascinated me for as long as I can remember. And there they all were, in one amazing, unlikely, unbelievable story. It was perfect.

This series of events was too perfect. I needed to use it in Alien All-Stars, which I had already been slowly building for a couple years. At the time, I had been working on names for the 16 teams I wanted to create for Galactic League Baseball. Magically, the baseball playoffs effortlessly unveiled one of the coolest teams we have today- the Lunar Jinx.

The Lunar Jinx are a team have their roots in the Red Sox/Yankees rivalry. They aren’t one team or the other. When I designed their logo, I based it off the NY that appears on the Yankees caps and uniforms. The colors of black and orange with a glowing yellow were perfect, simultaneously representing the midnight sky and moon, and invoking the superstitions of Halloween. Curses and hexes and longshot luck- I dig this team! Tons of fun stories to explore here, and lots of great possibilities…

Besides the idea of a bunch of aliens playing baseball, my favorite thing about Alien All Stars is the opportunity to build something amazing with a bunch of like-minded people. And by like-minded people, I don’t just mean the people who work for our company (although they most certainly do rock). I mean everybody. A fictional world, designed by its fans and inhabited by their alien characters- I think that’s the coolest thing ever.

I’ve seen this model work in amazing ways. As a creative writing teacher I’ve worked with tons of kids, developing story skeletons and fleshing out their story details. During our story designing sessions, the students brainstorm possibilities and vote for their favorite ideas. Brainstorm and vote. Brainstorm and vote. My job is simply to facilitate their conversation and make sure they stick to their story structure.

At first I was terrified to try this writing workshop out. Handing over creative control to 50 third graders definitely felt like a leap of faith. But in the end, it didn’t matter if I was working with 8^th graders or 1^st graders. From the first time I did this, the stories they came up with have always been amazing. Always. It didn’t take long for me to recognize the brilliance of concentrated imagination.

For Alien All Stars, our team is in the process of putting this same system of concentrated imagination in place. Our fans will have the opportunity to define new alien baseball players, equipment, planets, alien candy bars… you name it. Our artists will render them made-to-order, based on these specifications, and mix them into the alien world. And conversely, our artists will create alien characters, spaceships, new pitches, etc., that will in turn be named and defined by the fans. Brainstorm and vote. Brainstorm and vote. This is the perpetual process we’ll use to build out the galaxy.

And for the gaming aspects, we’ll be doing pretty much the same thing. By playing our online baseball games, each fan will have a direct impact on the events that happen in Galactic League Baseball, from team statistics right down to determining the Galactic Series champions. Put simply, we’re building a fantasy baseball league where fans are actually in charge of the fantasy.

As the creator of Alien All Stars, I’ve seriously spent hundred of hours thinking about alien baseball team names and alien baseball player names and all kinds of alien baseball stuff. It’ll be tough to surrender all that creative control. But I know that this project wasn’t built just for me. It’s for everybody. And I also know, without a doubt, that a million imaginations will bring Alien All-Stars to life in ways I’ve never dreamed. Wild stuff, this collaborative art. Let’s play ball!