Unit 4A - A Fan's Notes
A sportswriter thinks he's met another crank. Instead, he finds a true winner.
A Fan's Notes
Bill Plaschke
The e-mail was in some respects similar to other nasty letters I receive. It took me to task for my comments on the Los Angeles Dodgers and argued that I had got everything wrong. However, the note was different from the others in at least two ways.
This note contained more details than the usual “You're an idiot.” It included vital statistics on the team's performance. It was written by someone who knew the Los Angeles Dodgers as well as I thought I did.
And this note was signed. The writer's name was Sarah Morris.
I was impressed. I wrote her back. Little did I know that this would be the start of a most unusual relationship.
May I ask you a question? For two years I have been running my own website about the Dodgers. How did you become a baseball editorialist? That is my deam.
This was Sarah's second e-mail, and it came just as expected. Every time I smile at someone, they ask me for a job. But something else caught my eye. The misspelling in that last line. The part about “my deam.”
Maybe Sarah Morris was just a lousy typist. But maybe she was truly searching for something, yet was only one letter from finding it.
It was worth one more response, I asked her to explain.
I am 30 years old. …Because I have a physical handicap, it took me five years to complete my associate's degree. …During the season I average 55 hours a week writing game reports, editorials, researching and listening and/ or watching games.
Sarah called her website Dodger Place. I searched, and found nothing. Then I reread her e-mail and discovered an address buried at the bottom: http://members.tripod.com / spunky / dodgers.
I clicked there. It wasn't fancy. But she covered the team with the seriousness of a writer. Still, I wondered, is anybody reading?
Nobody ever signs my guestbook. I get one letter a month.
So here was a physically handicapped woman, covering the Dodgers as extensively as any reporter in the country, yet writing for an obscure website with an impossible address, with a readership of about two.
That “deam” was missing a lot more than an r, I thought.
I started my own website in hopes of finding a job. No luck. So what if my maximum typing speed is eight words per minute because I use a head pointer to type? My brain works fine. I have dedication to my work. That is what makes people successful.
A head pointer?
I ask her how long it took her to compose one of her usual 400-word filings.
Three to four hours.
I did something I've never before done with an Internet stranger.
I ask Sarah Morris to call me.
I have a speech disability making it impossible to use the phone.
That proved it. This was obviously an elaborate hoax. This writer was probably a 45-year-old male plumber.
I decided to end the correspondence. But then I received another e-mail.
My disability is cerebral palsy. … It affects motor control. … When my brain tells my hands to hit a key, I would move my legs, hit the table, and six other keys in the process.
When my mom explained my handicap, she told me I could accomplish anything I wanted to if I worked three times as hard as other people.
She wrote that she had become a Dodger fan while growing up in Pasadena. In her sophomore year at Blair High, a junior varsity baseball coach asked her to be the team statistician. She did it, with a typewriter and a head pointer.
Her involvement in baseball had kept her in school, she said — despite her poor grades and hours of neck-straining homework.
Baseball gave me something to work for. … I could do something that other kids couldn't. … I wanted to do something for the sport that has done so much for me.
Okay, so I believed her. Sort of. Who, in her supposed condition, could cover a baseball team without the best equipment and help? I was curious, so I asked if I could drive over to see her. She agreed, giving me detailed directions involving farm roads and streets with no names.
I drove east across the stark Texas landscape. On a winding dirt road dotted with potholes the size of small animals, I spotted what looked like an old tool shed.
But it wasn't a shed. It was a house, a decaying shanty surrounded by tall grass and junk.
Could this be right?
A woman in an old T-shirt and skirt emerged.
“I'm Sarah's mother,” said Lois Morris, grabbing my smooth hand with a worn one. “She's waiting for you.”
I walked out of the sunlight, opened a torn screen door and moved into the shadows, where an 87-pound figure was curled up in a wheelchair.
Her limbs twisted. Her head rolled. We could not hug. We could not even shake hands. She could only stare at me and smile.
But that smile! It cut through the gloom of the battered wooden floor, the torn couch and the cobwebbed windows.
I could bear to look at nothing else, so I stared at that smile, and it was so clear, so certain, it even cut through most of my doubts. But still, I wondered. This is Sarah Morris?
She began shaking in her chair, emitting sounds. I thought she was coughing.
She was, instead, speaking. Her mother interpreted. “I want to show you something,” Sarah said.
Lois rolled her up to an old desk on cinder blocks. On the desk was a computer. Next to it was a TV. Her mother fastened a head pointer around her daughter's temples.
Sarah leaned over the computer and used her pointer to call up a story on the Dodger Place website. Peck by peck, she began adding to that story.
She looked up and giggled. I looked down in wonder — and shame.
This was indeed Sarah Morris. The great Sarah Morris.
I had contacted Sarah Morris months earlier looking for a fight. I realized now, watching her strain in this dark room to type words that perhaps no other soul will read, that I had found that fight.
Only, it wasn't with Sarah. It was with myself. It is the same fight the sports world experiences daily in these times of cynicism. The fight to trust that athletes can still be heroes.
In a place far from such doubt, with a mind filled with wonder, Sarah Morris had brought me back.
参考译文——一位球迷的评论
一位体育专栏作家以为他碰上了一个怪人。结果他却发现了一个真正的赢家。
一位球迷的评论
比尔·普拉施基
这封电子邮件在某些方面与我收到的其他刻薄的信件相似。它痛斥我对洛杉矶道奇队的评论，并争辩说我把一切全都搞错了。然而，这个评论与其他的评论至少有两个方面不同。
与通常那些“你是个白痴”的评论不同的是，这一评论含有更多的细节。它包含了该队比赛表现的关键数据。写这篇评论的人对洛杉矶道奇队的了解绝不亚于我自认为对它的了解。
而且这一评论是署名的。作者的名字叫萨拉·莫里斯。
我被深深打动，于是给她回信。一点也没有想到这一封信引出了一段非同寻常的来往。
我可以问您一个问题吗？两年来，我一直经营着我的道奇队网站。你是怎么成为一个棒球评论专栏作家的？这可是我的梦。
这是萨拉的第二封电子邮件，它的到来一点也不意外。
我每次对人微笑一下，人家就向我要一份工作。但是另一个事儿引起了我的注意。这就是信的最后一行字里的拼写错误，是关于“我的梦”那一部分。
也许萨拉就是一个打字很糟糕的人。但也许她真的是在寻找某个目标，但就是一字之差，还没有找着。
我今年30岁。……因为我身有残疾，花了5年的时间才读完大专拿到文凭。……在棒球赛季，我每个星期平均花55小时写球赛报道，写评论，做研究，听比赛或者看比赛。
萨拉称她的网站为道奇地。我搜索了一下，什么也没有找着。后来我重读她的电子邮件，发现在她的电子邮件最底下挂了一个地址：http://members.tripod.com/spunky/dodgers。
我点击该地址。网站并不花哨。但是她以一个作家的严肃态度对该队进行了详细报道。不过，我还是不禁要问，有人读吗？
从来没有人在我的来宾登记簿上签名。我一个月收到一封信。
所以，这里是一个身体残疾的妇女，她对道奇队的报道之广泛不亚于美国任何一个记者，可她却在为一个几乎不为人知的网站写作，网站的名字很怪很难记，读者大概有两个人。
我建起了自己的网站希望能找到一份工作。不过运气不佳。因为我使用一根绑在头上的小棒打字，最高的打字速度是每分钟8个字，可这又有什么要紧的呢？我的脑子挺好使，我对工作非常专注。这才是人们成功的关键。
使用一根绑在头上的小棒打字？
我问她要用多少时间写她那通常为400字的文章。
三到四小时。
我做了一件我以前从来没有和互联网上的陌生人做过的事情。
我让萨拉·莫里斯给我打电话。
我说话有障碍，无法使用电话。
这就证明了我的怀疑。这显然是一个精心策划的骗局。这一位所谓女性作家很可能是一个45岁的男性管子工。
我决定结束与此人的通信。可就在那时我又收到一封电子邮件。
我的残疾是脑瘫。……它影响肌肉神经的控制。……当我的脑子告诉我的手去敲击字键时，我会挪动我的腿，碰击桌子，并在这一过程中同时碰击六个其他的字键。
当我的母亲解释我的残疾时，她告诉我说，如果我比别人努力三倍，我就可以成就我要做的任何事情。
她写道，她在帕萨迪拉长大的时候成了道奇队的球迷。她在布莱尔高级中学上二年级的时候，一位校少年棒球队的教练叫她去做球队的统计员。她做了，用的是一个打字机和一根绑在头上的小棒。
她说由于她跟棒球结了缘，她才得以留在学校里，尽管她成绩不好，每天还有数小时的令她脖子酸痛的家庭作业。
棒球给了我努力的目标 ……我可以做别的孩子做不了的事情 ……我想为给了我这么多的棒球做一点事情。
不错，我就这么相信了她。有几分信吧。在像她所称的那种情况下，有谁能没有最好的设备和帮助而报道一个棒球队呢？我很好奇，所以我问她我能不能开车过去看她。她同意了，并详细告诉我路怎么走，其中提到乡下的泥路和没有名字的街道。
我开车向东驶去，穿过得克萨斯的荒凉地带。在一条蜿蜒曲折布满小动物大小的坑洼的泥路上，我看到了样子像旧工具棚的屋子。
但这不是一个工具棚，这是一所房子，一个被高高的杂草和废弃物包围的正在朽烂的小棚屋。
是不是这个地方呢？
一位身着旧T恤衫和裙子的妇女从棚屋里走了出来。
“我是萨拉的母亲，”洛伊·莫里斯一边说一边用她那粗糙的手握着我光滑的手。“她在等你呢。”
我从太阳光下走进去，打开一扇破烂的屏门，走进了阴暗的棚子，棚子里蜷缩在轮椅上的是一个87磅重的躯体。
她的四肢扭了一扭。她的头转了一转。我们无法拥抱，甚至也无法握手。她只能张大眼睛看我，向我微笑。
可她那微笑里充满了光芒！它穿透了由破烂的木地板、旧躺椅和结满蜘蛛网的窗户围起来的黑暗空间。
我不忍心看别的任何东西，所以我的眼睛只盯住她那微笑，它是那么清晰，那么自信，它甚至令我的多数怀疑一扫而光。但我还是要问，这就是莎拉·莫里斯吗？
她开始在轮椅里摇晃，嘴里发出声音。我以为她在咳嗽。
可实际上，她是在说话。她的母亲为她翻译。“我要给你看点东西，”萨拉说。
洛伊把她推到搭在煤灰砖上的一张旧书桌前。桌子上放着一台电脑。电脑旁是一台电视机。她的母亲将一根小棒绑在她女儿的太阳穴上。
萨拉趴在电脑上，用绑在她头上的小棒调出道奇地网站上的一篇报道。她开始一啄一啄地在这篇报道上添字加句。
她抬起头看我并发出咯咯的笑声。我低头看她，心里充满了惊奇—还有羞愧。
几个月前我与萨拉·莫里斯联系的时候是想跟她干一仗。现在看着她在这个黑暗的房间里吃力地打着字写一篇或许根本没有人看的文章，我明白了这一仗是怎么一回事。
不过，这一仗不是跟萨拉打，而是跟自己打。这一仗和体育界在现今玩世不恭的年代里每天都在经历的一模一样。那就是要相信运动员仍然可以是英雄。
在一个远离这种怀疑的地方，一个心智充满神奇的萨拉·莫里斯帮我找回了信任。
Key Words:
response [ri'spɔns]
n. 回答，响应，反应，答复
contained [kən'teind]
adj. 泰然自若的，从容的；被控制的 v. 包含；遏制
unusual [ʌn'ju:ʒuəl]
adj. 不平常的，异常的
vital ['vaitl]
adj. 至关重要的，生死攸关的，有活力的，致命的
impressed
adj. 外加的；印象深刻的；了不起的；受感动的
baseball ['beis.bɔ:l]
n. 棒球
performance [pə'fɔ:məns]
n. 表演，表现; 履行，实行
address [ə'dres]
n. 住址，致词，讲话，谈吐，(处理问题的)技巧
extensively [ik'stensivli]
adv. 广泛地，广阔地
obscure [əb'skjuə]
adj. 微暗的，难解的，不著名的，[语音学]轻音的
impossible [im'pɔsəbl]
adj. 不可能的，做不到的
associate [ə'səuʃieit]
n. 同伴，伙伴，合伙人
n. 准学士学位获得
seriousness ['siəriəsnis]
n. 严肃，认真
covering ['kʌvəriŋ]
n. 覆盖物，遮避物 adj. 掩护的，掩盖的
tripod ['traipɔd]
n. (摄影机的)三脚架，三脚用具，三足鼎立
dedication [.dedi'keiʃən]
n. 奉献，献词，献堂礼
typewriter ['taip.raitə]
n. 打字机，打字员
compose [kəm'pəuz]
vt. 组成，写作，作曲，使镇静
vi. 创作
filings ['failiŋz]
n. 锉屑；锉末
baseball ['beis.bɔ:l]
n. 棒球
accomplish [ə'kɔmpliʃ]
vt. 完成
involvement [in'vɔlvmənt]
n. 包含，缠绕，混乱，复杂的情况
hoax [həuks]
v. 欺骗，哄骗，愚弄
n. 愚弄人，恶作剧
disability [disə'biliti]
n. 无力，无能，残疾
plumber ['plʌmə]
n. 水管工人
cinder ['sində]
n. 煤渣，灰烬
certain ['sə:tn]
adj. 确定的，必然的，特定的
smooth [smu:ð]
adj. 平稳的，流畅的，安祥的，圆滑的，搅拌均匀的，可
baseball ['beis.bɔ:l]
n. 棒球
detailed [di'teild]
adj. 详细的
landscape ['lændskeip]
n. 风景，山水，风景画
v. 美化景观
shed [ʃed]
n. 车棚，小屋，脱落物
vt. 使 ...
figure ['figə]
n. 图形，数字，形状; 人物，外形，体型
curious ['kjuəriəs]
adj. 好奇的，奇特的
stare [steə(r)]
v. 凝视，盯着看
strain [strein]
n. 紧张，拉紧，血统
v. 劳累，拉紧，过份
cynicism ['sinisizəm]
n. 愤世嫉俗，讥笑，冷言冷语 Cynicism:犬儒主义
参考资料：
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