Keller's Comics Corner: More Strange Sports Stories

Background, Part 1

The late 1950's and early 1960's were a very experimental time for comic book companies. In addition to re-introducing super-heroes, which had not been popular for over a decade (Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman notwithstanding), DC Comics dedicated two titles to short-run tryouts for popularity as ongoing series, Showcase and The Brave and the Bold. Aside from super-hero revivals and teams, these books tested the waters on unexplored genres such as underground adventures, time-travel adventures and undersea adventures. In issue # 45 of the Brave and the Bold, cover-dated December 1962-January 1963, DC decided to see if there was a market for stories about sports. This first issue of their foray into the genre contained an essay to readers on the subject:

When you consider that the term sports includes such diverse activities as baseball, football, bowling, tennis, golf, boxing, wrestling, basketball, hockey, track-and-field events, fishing, horse and auto racing, etc., it is evident that sports are the most popular pastimes of both young and old – whether they be enjoyed as player or spectator.

It’s a wonder then that there are no comic magazines devoted to sports fiction. On further consideration, it’s no surprise at all – for it’s extremely difficult to do a sports story in the words and pictures of the comic book medium – and keep the story fast-moving, exciting and suspenseful.

That was the problem that confronted us when we decided to fill this void in comic magazines. Tackling the problem first from a literary angle, it occurred to us that a gimmick was needed to turn a straight sports story from an ordinary yarn into one that would grip and hold the reader. Searching about for this device, we hit upon the idea that science-fiction could well serve this purpose.

All of a sudden our sports horizon broadened! The entire universe could serve as our playground! Instead of using cliche motivations for the winning of a baseball game, we could now play for much higher stakes – such as the urgency for winning a ball game in order to save the Earth!

(some material snipped)

So there you have it, fans. How well we’ve scored with this first issue of STRANGE SPORTS STORIES we leave to you "grandstand managers" and "Monday morning quarterbacks!" Have we hit a grandslammer, scored a touchdown – or did we strike out, fumble the ball?

Let’s hear from you one way or another. If there’s any second-guessing to be done let’s fight it out here verbally in this department which we’ve fittingly called THE SPORTS ARENA.

I do not know if any of the other try-outs started with a full-page, direct appeal to readers for validation, and I'm not inclined to buy the back issues just to find out. But apparently the readers of 1962-1963 didn't respond in great numbers, because Strange Sports Stories lasted all of five issues - ten stories - and did not, like other try-out features in The Brave and the Bold, get a second try-out or graduate to its own title. Two of the ten stories were baseball-themed. One of these, the lead story in the final issue of the run, was the subject of the article prior to this. The other was the leadoff story:

While the team in question does indeed appear to be missing their heads, their hands are also not apparent, and in fact, their entire bodies (though not their clothes) are invisible. Why the writer or editor didn't think "The Challenge of the Invisible Baseball Team" would be an equally intriguing title, I have no idea. I will also give away up front that their invisibility is the most minor of plot points - they're aliens whose skin would be burned by the sun, so what we're seeing is the effect of SPF ∞ sunscreen.

Play Ball!

The story opens in the top of the ninth of the final game of the World's Series (sic - is this 1962 or 1922?) with the New York Jets, the home team, leading 2-1. (Incidentally, the name of this fictional team wasn't borrowed from the football team of the same name, as that team was still called the Titans until April 15, 1963, six months after this issue hit the stands. It might have been a rhyming take-off of the Mets, or simply invented with no real-life inspiration behind it.) The Jets' (unnamed) opponents have no outs and runners at every base.

World's Series game

New York Jets
Catcher	"Chopper"
Pitcher	"Lefty" Clark

There is also a Jet wearing uniform # 10 on the field for the flag ceremony after the game, but he might have come from the dugout, or he might be a coach rather than a player. (Not the manager - he wears # 1)

New York Jets's Opponents
Position Unknown	"Home Run" Wilcox

Lefty Clark, the Jets' "ace relief pitcher", strikes out the side, Wilcox being the last of his the three victims, to seal the championship for the Jets, and the commissioner of baseball wheels out the championship flag, on a pole topped with a ball of gold, in a transparent case.

Suddenly, a spaceship lands in center field, announcing to all they have come from a distant world and would like to challenge the Jets to a game of baseball, asking only for the flag if they win. As the ship's occupants (who we eventually learn are called the "Krann") have placed a force-field around the stadium and declared that it would not be lifted unless said game is played, the Jets' manager accepts, and nine empty-looking baseball uniforms walk out of the ship.

Worlds' Series game

We don't know the complete batting order for the Jets in this game (nor in the prior one), but we do know that Lefty Clark bats immediately after Chopper. Since pitchers usually bat last, I'll list the other identifiable Jets players before them, though it's unknown where in the order these others are.

New York Jets
Position Unknown	# 19
First Base	# 14
Catcher	"Chopper"
Pitcher	"Lefty" Clark

At least for the Jets, we know two players' batting sequence. We know nothing at all about the batting order of the Krann, who are listed below merely in order of on-panel appearance.

Krann
Catcher	# 11
First Base	# 7
Pitcher	# 9
Center Field	# 23
Position Unknown	# 5
Position Unknown	# 13
Position Unknown	# 17

Even though he's referred to specifically as a reliever, Lefty Clark starts the game for the Jets against the Krann. (I guess he's sufficiently warmed up and not tired - relievers certainly had no problem working multiple innings back then.) The Krann leadoff hitter hits a single past second base, is advanced to second on the next hitter's bunt (the on-panel illustration makes it appear that the bunter sacrificed himself, but the later text indicates that Lefty still had three outs to record. Maybe the Jets' first baseman dropped the ball or was off the bag), and is then driven home when the third batter hits a double off the left field wall. Lefty then gets out of the inning with a strikeout, a pop-up and a 5-3 ground out.

The Krann pitcher throws three perfect innings against the Jets, who finally get a hit in the fourth - a triple. However, the next batter flies out to right, stranding him to end the inning. From that point until the top of the ninth, all we know is that there is no further scoring.

In the top of the ninth, the Krann leadoff batter drops a slow roller that both Lefty and the catcher, Chopper, try to field, resulting in a collision that briefly knocks Lefty cold. When he comes to, he waves off an offer to take him out of the game, imbued with a sense that there is more at stake in his winning the game than merely bragging rights. Lefty gets the next three batters out, stranding the runner who reached first when he and Chopper had collided. In the bottom of the ninth, the leadoff hitter for the Jets foul pops out to the catcher, and the second one flies out to the outfield. Up to bat comes the catcher Chopper, who is so nicknamed because the Baltimore Chop is a specialty of his, and in executing one, he reaches first base safely. Up comes Lefty Clark, with an extreme sense of urgency to hit a home run. He "somehow just knows" that the Krann pitcher will throw him high heat and, anticipating it, smashes it over the right-centerfield wall for a home run. Final score - Jets 2, Krann 1, coincidentally, the same score by which the Jets beat their first opponents of the day.

And now...the rest of the story

Who were the invisible alien Krann, and why did they decide to challenge the World's Series Champions (sorry, I just can't get enough of writing that) to a game of baseball? The underlying plot is so insanely convoluted, you can't really tell what's what without a scorecard. So I shall supply one, in bullet-point form.

• There are two alien races involved here - the Krann, who are a warrior race, and the Ilaran, who actually live in "the Fourth Dimension". They are both telepathic.
• Protana is a special metal, only one globe of which exists in the universe, and it enables the Krann to travel to the Fourth Dimension to attempt to conquer Ilaran. Protana gives off a telltale radiation which makes it easy for the Krann to find, if necessary.
• The Krann's dealiest weapon is Kamma Ray gun, which they use in battle against the Ilarans. There seems to be only one of these. However, firing this gun causes the Protana to degrade, and now it is the size of a pebble.
• The Ilaran have Ekko Rays, which are deadly to the Krann (but harmless to Ilarans or humans). Unfortunately, the weapons using these do not have as great a range as the Krann's Kamma Ray gun.

Enath of Ilaran sneaks onto the Krann ship with the intention of destroying the Kamma Ray gun. But he telepathically overhears that the Krann have discovered that using the Kamma Ray gun degrades the Protana globe and now there is almost none left, so they were planning anyway to stop using it and are setting off to invent other weapons. Enath realizes that if he could fire the Kamma Ray gun, the Protana would be completely destroyed, and his people would be safe from the Krann. Unfortunately the trigger on the Kamma Ray gun is very well-guarded, but Enath determines that the Protana pebble is less well-guarded and steals it and escapes. Enath discovers that the Krann can track the Protana by the radiation, but that that can be blocked by gold. Using an "aurometer", he finds that the closest planet with gold is Earth, and when he lands, he finds that the closest vacant building with gold is the Jets' stadium, which has the championship flag with the gold ball atop the pole. Enath hides the Protana pebble inside that gold ball, and then to ensure that the Krann (who at least know it's on Earth) won't get to it, bathes the flag's case (but for some odd reason not the flag itself) in Ekko particles. As it turns out, the Krann caught Enath in the act using a different tracking device, so knew where the Protana was and that they couldn't get near the case. The only weapon they had to threaten Earthllings into handing over the flag was the Kamma-Ray gun, which they couldn't allow themselves to fire. To get Earthlings to open up the case and hand them the flag, they'd have to actually win it as a baseball trophy. (Or maybe they could have...asked them for the pebble inside the golden ball? Nah, too easy.)

All this was communicated telepathically by Enath to Lefty Clark while Lefty was knocked out following his collision with Chopper; since the Krann were telepathic as well, and were reading the minds of the Jets (which is how they were able to score early and then keep the Jets off the board), he couldn't risk direct communication to a conscious mind. When he woke, Lefty had only a sense of extra urgency to win as an impression of the story on his unconscious mind. And a telepathic tip from Enath was what really how Lefty knew what pitch to expect from the Krann pitcher during that final at-bat.

After the Krann are defeated, they leave Earth, but (as they cannot get the Protana back anyway) they attempt to destroy Earth with their Kamma Ray gun in revenge. Fortunately for the blissfully ignorant Earthlings, Enath had jammed the Kamma Ray gun before he slipped away from the ship to Earth, and the Krann blew themselves up instead. Enath, unable to return home now that there's no more Protana, settles into life on Earth, disguised as a human being and probably supporting himself using his aurometer to find gold.

Background, Part 2

If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. In 1970, DC dedicated issue # 7 of its reprint series DC Special to "The Strangest Sports Stories Ever Told" (four stories from that run in The Brave and Bold plus one sports-connected sci-fi story that appeared in one of the their standard sci-fi books) and reprinted the essay and appeal almost verbatim. This time, positive reader response was significant enough that the concept got its own title, but that run of Strange Sports Stories only lasted six issues (twelve stories), not much longer than the first try. Despite expanding the strangeness of the stories to include the supernatural as well as science fiction, it seems that the difficulty of writing compelling, suspenseful sports stories was just as difficult to overcome in 1973-1974 as in 1962-1963. This was certainly true of the lone baseball story, the premiere story of the 1973 title.

This story, like the first one reviewed, is not set in the real world, as it features the fictional "Meteors" team, perhaps intended to be the Metropolis team from the mainstream DC Universe (although their manager, "Skip" Wilson, does mention the real-world Shea Stadium at one point). Having won the "Eastern League" pennant by 15 games, they are on a chartered plane bound for the west coast, where they are to play in the World Series (at some point between 1962 and 1973, DC Comics evidently got the memo about the apostrophe-s being dropped) against what I assume are the pennant winners from the "Western League". (The players refer to them as "hitless wonders," but that's all we know of them.) Suddenly, the plane is caught in a storm and starts to dive. Skip rushes to the cockpit to see what's happening, but instead of the pilot, he finds the devil sitting at the controls! The devil offers to save the team's lives if the Meteors can beat "Hell's All-Stars" in a baseball game, their souls at stake. What could Wilson do but agree?

Play Ball!

The devil summons four demons to act as umpires (promising that they will call the game by the book) and fills the stands of his infernal ballpark with demonic spectators. And then he introduces his team...it's all himself, using nine different names! There's only one devil, but he can disappear and reappear all over the field when needed. The first five names in the batting order are also the only five for whom positions are identified.

Hell's All-Stars
Catcher	Lucifer	This name for the devil is a Latin translation of a reference in Isaiah 14:12 to the planet Venus "falling from heaven" (which allegorically referred to a king of Babylon), later conflated with the Christian story of the devil as an angel cast down from heaven
Third Base	Beelzebub	This name for the devil is Hebrew for "Lord of Flies" and refers to an ancient Philistine deity, mentioned in II Kings 1
Center Field	Asmodeus	This name for the devil refers to the king of demons in Talmudic stories about King Solomon
Shortstop	Mephisto(pheles)	This name for the devil first appears in the medieval story of Faust. In that story, he is only an agent of the devil, but the name has come to connote the devil himself. Marvel Comics's Mephisto is an example of this.
Right Field	Old Scratch	This name for the devil first appears in 19th-century English-language literature.

The devil is also seen pitching and playing first base, although it's uncertain what "names" are used for these positions. Second base and left field are not seen on-panel, so we don't know if the devil had to play those positions at all in the course of the game, though I suppose he still had to bat under those "names."

The Meteors players are completely un-named. We only know the order in which the first two batters (identifiable by uniform number) came to bat, after that, the Meteors are listed in order of on-panel appearance:

Meteors
Position Unknown	# 8
Position Unknown	# 6 (or possibly # 16)
Pitcher	# 21
First Base	# 19
Catcher	# 33

A Meteor wearing uniform # 5 is also seen on-panel, but not in field action, so he might not have been playing the game.

The devil takes the mound with the rest of the fielding positions empty. He throws the first pitch, burning a fastball past the Meteors' leadoff hitter, and immediately disappears from the mound to re-appear behind the plate as "Lucifer" to catch it. After the leadoff hitter strikes out, the next hitter grounds out to third, with the devil appearing at third to field the ball, throwing to first, and then re-appearing there to catch it. The top of the first ends with a fly out to center field, caught in supernatural manner by "Asmodeus."

In the bottom on the first, "Lucifer" homers on the first pitch to give his "team" a 1-0 lead, but just as the Meteors despair of any chance of winning, the devil starts making outs. The game proceeds through the top of the eighth with neither team scoring any further, until Skip Wilson figures out the key to victory: the devil can flit from place to place, but can't be in two places at the same time, which is why he's hit a home run and made out (two true outcomes!) but never had an at-bat that resulted in a man on base. At his manager's instructions, the Meteors' pitcher intentionally walks the devil, who realizes that his strategy has been figured out. The devil decides that his best strategy is to get picked off, and when the Meteors pitcher throws the ball to first, believes himself successful, but the Meteors' manager has outsmarted him:

Note how tautly the devil's tail is stretched - how seriously could he have been trying to get picked off, if his tail was slack enough to not feel he was being pinned? Additionally, getting picked off was hardly his best strategy. I'll assume that having declared himself to be his entire roster that he couldn't just summon a random demon as a pinch runner or pinch hitter. I'll also assume that somehow physical contact negated his ability to disappear and reappear at will. But trying to get picked off and staying just a few feet, maybe even only a few inches, off the bag? Why not simply go all out and try to steal second base, third base and then home? Safe or out, the Meteors would not have the option to keep him stranded on base. Alternatively, since he does not care about being called out, why not just abandon first base to head home and get called out for running the bases backward? Either strategy would have revealed to him that his tail was being pinned.

The home plate umpire, who had ordered the devil to get his next batter up, and then warned him that he has one minute to comply, then declares the devil to have forfeited the game, and the Meteors win by the forfeit score of 9-0. (This is a bit strange given that they're supposed to be umping completely "by the book" and the rules say, about a batter who refuses to step into the box, that the umpire is simply to call automatic strikes. Of course, refusal to obey the ump's orders could be grounds for a forfeit, but why would the umpire do that when the thing to do is right there in the rule book?) The devil, true to his word, banishes the team from Hell. Suddenly, Skip Wilson wakes up on the plane, flying in perfectly calm weather, and wonders if the game against the devil was merely a dream, but he finds himself in possession of the devil's lineup card, with an admission to Skip that he was a better manager. (There's no indication if the rest of the Meteors, apparently asleep, were aware of the game or if the experience was Skip's alone.)

And now...the rest of the story

The story does fails answer the question posed on the cover - Why did the devil challenge the team? It's more of a "How" and the "Why" is never even questioned. In the classic literary "deal with the devil" plot, which this story would seem intended to use, someone whose soul would otherwise not be condemned to Hell trades agrees - either succumbing to devil-offered temptation, or initiating the diabolical contact - to exchange his or her soul for some sort of Earthly favor, sometimes outright, and sometimes as the stake for a contest. The devil agrees to this in order to collect a soul to which he (the devil is depicted in this issue and in most other media as male, though it's not universal) would otherwise have no claim. This quid pro quo relationship is the reason why in some examples of the trope, the devil needs to engage in a contest to win the soul he desires. In this issue, though, the devil initiates the contact and brings the Meteors straight to Hell, and, already having the ability to keep them there, offers them the chance to play their way out. If the devil wants souls, why would he do that? While there were some entertaining stories in the second run of Strange Sports Stories, poorly-thought-out efforts like the baseball story proved that the concept still didn't really have legs.

Background, part 3

Aside from one special story, the Strange Sports Stories concept was dropped until 2015. That was when it re-surfaced as a four-issue limited series published by DC's "mature" label, Vertigo Comics. In addition to publishing ongoing series with mature content and/or with the creator retaining some degree of ownership, it was also used as a platform to showcase writers and artists who are up-and-coming, or who have compiled a body of work outside of mainstream comic book publishers. Showcases such as these took the form of themed anthologies, often with titles repurposed from older DC Publications, including Strange Adventures (original), Weird War Tales (original) and Weird Western Tales (original). Out of sixteen total short stories (four per issue), two dealt with baseball, one in the first issue, and one in the third:

"Refugees" (the story referred to on the cover as "¡Viva la Baseballution!") is less a sports story than a young woman's musings, mostly about her relationship with her ex-boyfriend, on her voyage escaping some sort of bombing attack on an unnamed American city (looks to me like New York, but that could be my hometown bias). The raft that she and some others (including said ex) are floating on eventually arrives in Cuba, where they find that the disastrous war that stripped them of all their American comforts has not affected the already-impoverished Cubans at all. The story ends with the characters joining the happy Cubans to watch baseball, which transcends all misery, whether the everyday poverty of the Cubans or the world beyond in flames. The baseball game in question is clearly being played in the real-world Estadio Latinoamericano in Havana and the home team is the Industriales, the perennial powerhouse of Cuban baseball. The visiting team is not identified, but if it's meant to be an existing real-world Cuban team, then judging by the uniform colors, it's probably Santiago de Cuba, though the uniform more resembles their home ones than their road ones.

Play Ball!

Industriales
Pitcher	# 74

Industriales personnel wearing numbers 12 and 95 are also seen, but not necessarily playing in the game. In any case, of the game, all that can be seen is the pitcher going into his windup against the anonymous opposing batter.

And now...the rest of the story

There's really nothing else to the story, though it does end with a wide shot of the stadium and the world being bombed and aflame seems a lot closer in the background than it did as the story's main characters landed in Cuba. Not sure if it's merely a trick of the art, or meant to actually hint that the war has in fact spread to Cuba, but baseball remains a refuge (the story's title serving a double meaning) nonetheless. The character whose thoughts provide the narration still hates her ex-boyfriend. I'll also note that the writer of the story is Ivan Brandon, who brings to this story the perspective of one whose parents immigrated from Cuba.

"The Most Cursed" (referred to on the cover as "Your Favorite Team Is Cursed!") is certainly a baseball story, though not one of a single game. Written by "Chicago Made" pro wrestler CM Punk, it weaves together movie references and somewhat altered real-world occurrences into a humorous account of the Chicago Cubs' hundred-year history of hard luck. (Intriguingly, the story never names the Cubs outright, even though it is not shy about clearly naming the Tigers and Pirates.) Channeling The Naked Gun, the story opens with pitcher Colt McCullough being attacked by a tiger in the middle of a game and losing his right arm, supposedly cursing the team when he is released as a result. By the next season, he has taught himself to pitch with his left hand and pitches undefeated for...the Tigers, ironically. The story also shows an earlier incident of undead Native Americans attacking the team due to the stadium having been built on an ancient tribal burial ground (referencing the book and film Pet Sematary) and off-handedly mentions that some people believe it started when a local was denied entry to the park with his goat, but "who would really believe that?"

The story then flashes forward to 1988, when the team was seemingly primed to win. To ensure that things would go smoothly, they hired McCullough as their manager to appease his curse, had a Native American who also played for the local hockey team (referencing the fact that the Chicago hockey team is named for a Native American) exorcise the spirits of those buried there, and even invited fans to bring goats one night (that turned out to be a bad idea). Then they brought up from the minor leagues a pitcher named Bart Mann (yes, you see where that's going), whose unkempt, hirsute appearance earned him the nickname "Wolf". And on 8/8/88, for the first time ever, baseball was going to be played at night in that team's park.

Play Ball!

"Cursed Baseball Team" whose name is never mentioned
Pitcher	Bart "Wolf" Mann
Position Unknown	# 34 (seen sliding home safely)

The game started well, and the team scored at least one run at some point during the first two innings. But then, the sun went down and Mann started losing it, loading the bases on twelve straight pitches (what we Royals fans know as 75% of an "Asencio special"). The reason for that soon became apparent: the moon was full, something the team never had to contend with at home before, and it turned out that "Wolf" Mann was actually a werewolf! McCullough, who had been at the mound to calm his pitcher, lost an eye to the werewolf's attack and both he and Mann declared a new curse on the team. Both manager and pitcher were dismissed from the team. McCullough, now sporting an eyepatch, was hired by the Pirates and led them to being undefeated (so the text says - I'm not sure what it says about me that I can suspend disbelief more readily about a pitcher turning into a werewolf on the mound than about the a baseball team going undefeated for an entire season) the following season. (Although shifted to 1988 in order to incorporate the Cubs' first night game, this would appear to be a reference to the 1989 Cubs, and the werewolf pitcher a reference to "Wild Thing" Mitch Williams. After the Cubs failed to make the World Series that year, it was the Pirates who won the division the year after.) The pitcher dropped out of sight completely, but was rumored to be somehow responsible for the team's failure to win the pennant in 2003.

(In case you're wondering, 8/8/88 was indeed the real-world date of the first Wrigley Field night game, but it was not a full moon, the moon's phase was waning crescent. A shame, because that bit being true would have made the joke even funnier.)

And now...the rest of the story

The story concludes with the narrator saying that despite it all, the team is the best because the fact that they play hard every day continues to give their fans the feeling that "Next year is our year." To underscore the point, a gull-winged Delorean is seen outside the stadium in this story, published in 2015, the year that the Cubs were predicted to win the World Series in Back to the Future Part II. That closing line, to the delight of generations of Cubs fans, turns out to have been prophetic.