Stamp Out Literacy :: Diamondback Batista, Comes Out As Writer, Shape Shifter

Arizona Diamondbacks pitcher Miguel Batista shocked the sports world on December 7th by officially coming out as not only literate, but a confirmed writer. Unable to keep his literary proclivities to himself any longer, Batista announced the publication of a full-length work of fiction, "The Avenger of Blood." Sports professionals and fans, who have long clung to professional baseball as one of the few remaining sanctuaries from the plague of literacy, have widely expressed their distress and disappointment by professing not to know who Batista is.

Speaking with the East Valley Tribune (AZ), Batista revealed the dark secret that he has been writing since the tender age of 13, when he started on the gateway formats of "poetry, short stories" before turning to what Tribune writer Michael Grady terms "much stronger stuff," the novel, at age 16. "I wrote a lot of stuff," confesses Batista. "The Avenger of Blood," a sordid legal fantasy about a 14-year-old serial killer, began as a depraved fact-finding obsession. "I started researching for about 2 1/2 years before I began writing, because I wanted to get the facts straight," says Batista, admitting that there was tension between his "day job" as a respectable sportsman and his hidden word-lust.

In fact, the wordsmithing monster that he was becoming was so contrary to his nature as a baseball-playing human that he was compelled to assume a different form when he pursued his key-pecking perversion : "I'm dedicated to playing baseball. So, to write, I became kind of an owl." His choice to take the form of a predatory, bone-vomiting bird clearly telegraphs his twisted drives. This did not escape the notice of his community prior to the release of the novel, as Batista admits, "I got into the (Arizona State Prison) at Florence and the Maricopa Psychiatric Hospital." However, institutions of that type are ill-equipped for dealing with Dominican raptors who can become "an owl" at will, and Batista demonstrated just what sort of flight risk he was when he fled to Toronto to join his avian brethren the Blue Jays.

"Baseball is about sportsmanship, pride, and adjusting oneself," avers Diamondbacks fan Allen Lyle, "It's not about spreading all kinds of words around. As far as the owl thing goes, well, I think baseball's always been kind of 'don't ask, don't tell' on that. But obviously, there's a reason folks get uncomfortable with it -- look where it led Batista. Now my 8-year old twins are going to start asking when they can write a novel, and I'll have to have that conversation with them."

Batista says that his novel is "a suitable story for our times, when people must choose between their faith and evidence." Indeed, it seems unlikely that his fans will retain their faith in baseball as the All-American pastime, when the evidence points to its being populated by sick, book-pushing shapeshifters.

Read more on this tragic turnabout at
http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/index.php?sty=80228