Prayer Request

I have not been a great blogger lately. I've come here less and less more and more. My appearances have sometimes been limited to flogging my latest piece of writing elsewhere (usually in some newspaper or magazine you have to pay to read) and then sending you there (and, on top of that, asking you to write the editors of said journals to tell them what a swell guy I am.)

In other words, I've been a jerk.

I offer that blanket apology (and a small blanket it is; if it were winter, you'd freeze...) because I really do have a serious request to make. I want you to offer up some prayers.

They're not for me; I wouldn't be that selfish when I've been so casual with our relationship. They're for a good friend of mine, Big Jay Atton.

Big Jay, maybe 2011?

I've known Jay for 18 years. When we met, he was a kid of 20 and I had just been asked by another ballplayer to manage a softball team over in South Boston's M Street Softball League, a premier fast-pitch league in Boston. The first player I met on the team was Jay. As I say, he was 20. However, it was hard to judge his age. I only found it out years later by doing retrograde math. Jay was maybe 6' 6" and weighed probably 270, but he had (as now) a real baby face. He could have been anywhere between 16 and 25.

Jay, 1998

He was -and still is - the most enthusiastic lover of softball I'd ever met. I was a nut about the game, always keeping stats and coming up with arcane formulations for comparing one player to another, and he was ready to talk strategy for - literally - hours at a time. We hit it off immediately. And we've been teammates, in more than that one league, every year since then. I've managed him, on occasion he's managed me, and when neither one of us was the manager, his Uncle Jack usually took the job.

BIG Jay, somewhere around 2007, I think

 

OK, I could go on and on telling you about my relationship with Jason Atton, but maybe you're wondering why he needs prayers. I apologize for keeping you in suspense for so long.

This past weekend, Jay suffered a heart attack while visiting with family in Houston Texas. Once hospitalized, we all found out that Jay had been keeping something from us. His kidneys were bad. He has had almost complete kidney failure and, in addition to his heart troubles, it is likely he will need a kidney transplant. Barring that, he's looking at dialysis for the foreseeable future.

So, as might imagine, he needs every prayer available.

Not that you have to have some sort of sparkling record for God to hear prayers about you, but Jay deserves them. He's a huge gentle giant with the joy of a kid. One of the funniest men I know, his size and demeanor sometimes leads people to believe he's not as intelligent as he is. And let me tell you - Jay Atton is THE smartest ballplayer with whom I've ever shared a field. I mean that in the way it reads, that he's savvy about softball in ways most people are not, but I also mean it as testament to his real-life intelligence. He's one smart cat. I've had teammates who are as intelligent as Jay, but none more so. It took me a while to realize that to a full extent, since he's always being so (usually intentionally) goofy, but it's true.

 

One of my favorite photos from softball.

L to R - me, Fast Freddie Goodman, Big Jay (with Joe Baszkiewicz lurking almost out of frame to the right.)

 Notice, if you will, the way the bench area tilts towards the field. Jay is standing on the lower end of it, while I stand on the higher end. He still makes me and Fred look like midgets.

I could go on with Big Jay stories and I'm sure I'll write a few more as time goes on. But, for now, I'll just ask, once again, for your kindest thoughts and prayers. The Big Man, one of my dearest friends, needs them. He's strong-willed, so he'll take it from a certain point and beat the hell out of it, but he could use your hands right now.

Soon, with (God willing) more better stuff.