"What is that smell? It stinks like fish!" I said to Dos Guapos as we sat in his car behind the horse stables at the beautiful Del Mar Fairgrounds.
"Bait my brotha!" he said with a coy smile on his face, "Mackerel to be exact."
"Geez, don't you know it is like 90 degrees outside, and here we are sitting in a hot car, full of dead fish, behind a horse stable. The smell is atrocious. What are you trying to do?" I asked.
"Don't worry about it, " he said as he pointed to a horse jockey jogging up with paper bag under his arm. The Jockey's eyes darted around as he approached the car to see if anyone was looking, "there is my guy right now."
The horse jockey came up to the window and handed Dos Guapos the bag, and Dos Guapos handed him an envelope and said "It's all there man. Thanks again. Oh, by the way" he said as he gestured with his other hand in my general direction, "This is my buddy Lavishly Handicapping."
"Hey, aren't you the one who accurately picked Monterrey and Baltimore to be the number 1 and 2 teams in your Postseason Power Rankings?" the jockey asked.
"Yes I am" I replied with a smile on my face.
"Nice Job!" he said. "That is pretty good, picking the last two teams standing before the playoffs even started."
"Well hey, thanks for reading." I said as the jockey waved and scurried back into a stable.
"And what the hell is in the bag?" I asked.
"You will see!" said Dos Guapos as we pulled out of the stable area in his 70 something white Cadillac with gold trim. "It will all make sense later."
As we drove north on the 5, I told Dos Guapos about how exciting the Baltimore at Missouri game was. How the first half ended with an amazing Sosa goal that sent the Comet into the locker room riding a wave of momentum, but then Dantas killed the Comets momentum shortly into the 3rd with a quick goal. I also told him about how the game was full of crazy goals, amazing plays, and a ton of emotion. I also explained how Missouri went to the sixth attacker and scored two goals to come within a goal of the Blast before giving up a goal that ended their hopes of an amazing comeback.
"After that goal I turned off the game and walked down to the beach."
Dos Guapos looked at me with big eyes and a look of shock saying "so you didn't see the hard foul that received a red card?"
"Nope."
"Or all of the bickering in front of the ref box?"
"Nope."
"Or the head butt after the game?"
"Nope."
"Holy Smokes dude!" he said as he guided his land yacht into Sleazy El's driveway, "I didn't even watch the game, but I heard all about that." Sleazy El came stumbling out of his house with a cooler in his hand and jumped into the back of the Caddy.
"What are you guys talking about?" asked Sleazy.
"The Baltimore Missouri game." answered Dos Guapos.
"The game that you correctly predicted despite some naysayers giving you guff?" Sleazy asked me.
I explained that he was thinking about the Friday game in Baltimore, and that we were talking about Sunday game in Missouri. I also told him that "even though I accurately called the Blast winning on Friday, that I was wrong on the Las Vegas game. I thought the Legends would win at home and that the Flash would win at home, and the game would have gone into a mini game, but I was wrong about the mini game."
"Wow" Sleazy said, "That is the first Las Vegas game you got wrong in a long time. I mean, you picked them to beat San Diego at the Orleans, and you picked them to beat Sacramento, and then you picked them to beat the Fury in the first round of the playoffs, and then to beat San Diego at home. You were on a roll."
"Yeah I know, I was surprised to see them lose at home to the Flash, but they did almost mount an epic comeback." I said. Just then we pulled into the Oceanside harbor. Dos Guapos parked his white and gold land yacht, taking up two spaces like a jerk, and we walked out to the dock where all of the boats were moored.
"Whose boat is this?" I asked as we climbed into it and prepared to cast off.
"Mine," said Dos Guapos, " I won it in a card game from a degenerate, he wanted to give me his car, but I was all, I got one of those, what I don't got is a boat. So here we are."
We cast off and went out a few miles into the ocean. Sleazy passed out the beers, and Dos Guapos pulled out that paper bag that he had received earlier from the horse jockey and opened it up, reveling that it was a bag of pills
"What is that and what are you up to?" I asked.
"Horse tranquilizer, watch this." he said as he opened up the box with the Mackerel and took out a fish. He open the mouth, put in a pill, poked it down its throat with his pinky, and then turned and threw the fish out into the water.
"Help me out." he said. So we started grabbing fish, stuffing them with horse tranq, and tossing them out to see. When we were done we cracked some more beers and sat back and talked about the upcoming games.
"What are the lines on the first game?" I asked.
"Baltimore minus one and a half, over under fourteen and a half." he told me. "What do you think about the game Lavishly?" he asked.
"Well," I said, "Baltimore has the advantage in the first game because they are playing at home. Even if Monterrey gets there early, nothing beats the familiarity of sleeping at home, playing on your home field, and not having to travel. On the other hand, Monterrey travels well. They have never lost on the road, and they have plenty of veteran experience that will help with the mental side of playing in such a big game. Genoni Martinez is a salty player that will have the Flash defense ready for the Blast, and if Erik Tovar keeps up his play, he will have the attention of Pat Healy. Tovar had a hat trick and an assist in his last game, which against a good defense like the Legends is no easy feat. Baltimore is going to have to stop Tovar, and find a way around Genoni. Baltimore, on the other hand, will need to get the ball to their three D's, Donatelli, Dantas, and Dos Santos. Those three have had a strong post season and need to see a lot of the ball. Vanzela and Healy are going to have to be on their game against the Flash because they move up and down the field quickly, and they can fire off shots from anywhere. They key in this whole series is the mental side of things. Both teams have their agitators and emotional players that can either throw or be thrown off of their game when tensions are high and emotions are running wild. I think the game goes over, and the Blast cover. But that is only in the first game. I will have to see what happens in the first before I can take a guess the second game."
Just then Dos Guapos jumped to his feet with a whoop and pointed out into the water. "Here we go baby, mira! mira!"
I looked out and in amazement I saw all sorts of fish floating up to the top of the water. Yellowfin, Big Eye, Dorado, Bonito, Rockfish, all sorts of fish were floating up to the top of the water.
"Are they dead?" I asked.
"Nope," replied Dos Guapos "just stoned out of their freakin' minds, they don't have a clue what is going on," he said as he laughed
We drove the boat around and picked out the biggest fish, and left the ones we didn't want. Then we went back into the harbor, cleaned up our catch, drank the rest of the beer in the cooler to make room for the fish, and split before the game warden showed up. The last thing we needed was a federal official asking about doped up fish lying around the water's surface, and why all of these pelicans who had eaten some of those fish and were now flying in erratic patterns, crashing into each other, and lying around on the beach letting children pet them.
No comments:
Post a Comment