But it's really about "hopeless dreamers looking for a second chance," pursuing passion, bucking convention, and loving life. One of the Mavs' star characters was the former Yankees big league star Jim Bouton, who visited MTSU in 2013 and regaled us with stories of his glory days, and of his best-selling expose Ball Four. He also spoke of his involvement with fellow Mavericks associates in an improbably-successful venture marketing a bubble gum product called Big League Chew.
Jim Bouton's story ended sadly last summer when he succumbed to brain disease and dementia, but I'd say he made the most he could of the finite time of his life, by giving himself freely to what he loved most. As his book (and his Times obituary) concluded, “You spend a good deal of your life gripping a baseball, and in the end it turns out that it was the other way around all the time.”
What I found so enjoyable with the Battered Bastards was the “goodness” of the whole adventure. Bing Russell’s love of the game, and love of the details of the game. His creation and management of a team for all the “right” reasons. The “meaning” it gave to the lives of all those mavericks who became Mavericks. I am reading now about Hume, and it occurs to me that the impressions those guys experienced, and the resulting memories, are of the Good, and that for the rest of their lives they could reflect on them, and find a guide to the meaning of life. No God necessary.
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