Jack And The Beanstalk


Once upon a time —actually, it was 1888, but this isn’t a history textbook, you know, so we don’t have to get all boring
and technical. Once upon a time, there was a young lad named Jack. Jack had come to the big city to try out for a baseball team, the Boston Beavers. The Beavers were a great team, managed by that legendary figure, Big Lip Leo.

Listen as Leo gives one of those legendary pep talks. “Men, we got a great ball club here. There’s only one little thing that keeps us from being the top team in the country... We’ve never won a game.”

True, the Beavers had lost 597 consecutive games. But then again, they had never had Jack on the team. Now, Jack wasn’t exactly your garden-variety baseball player. He didn’t chew tobacco. He didn’t scratch himself in embarrassing places. He didn’t show up for “Yell at the Umpire” practice. And strangest of all, he had never played baseball before and knew not a single thing about the game.

“Hey coach,” he would shout. “When do I get to make a touchdown?”

“No,” the coach yelled. “Just run, run!”

“Ummmm. Where would you like me to run?”

It didn’t look good. But hard as it is to believe, Jack wasn’t as dumb as he sounded and looked. He had an ace up his sleeve, an ace he got to show at the season opener. The Beavers went up against the Poughkeepsie Pirates, who would probably play better if they stopped wearing those eyepatches and drinking rum. Anyway, it was the bottom of the ninth, the Beavers led 4 to 3 and needed just one more out before they won the game.

The Pirates’ best player stepped up to the plate—or, actually, limped up to the plate, as he had a peg leg. The pitch, and crack! The ball sailed high over center field.

“What a hitl” shouted the announcer. “That ball is going, going. Hey, what’s this?”

For at that moment, Jack pulled a magic bean out of his pocket, planted it in center field, watered it, and jumped on top of it. Rumble, roar, and whoosh! Jack was carried skyward on a huge beanstalk that grew straight up into the air. That fly ball landed smack in his mitt.

“Yerrrrr out!” shouted the umpire.

The fans went wild. The Boston Beavers had finally won a game. Of course, some of the Pirates weren’t all that overjoyed and began showing the Beavers some extreme close-ups of their knuckles and cleats, But the rule books said nothing about banning beans. So the decision stood.

In the weeks that followed, the team won game after game with the help of Jack and his magic beans. In fact, Leo changed the team’s name to the Boston Beans. The guys in the stands started selling beans along with franks. And Jack became a national celebrity, getting his picture on the front of People magazine, Sports lllustrated, and Legumes Weekly. (“Bean There, Done That!” read the cover.)

Then came the big day for the final game of the season—the Beans were to play the Giants. It’s no coincidence they were called the Giants. You could install observation decks on their foreheads and charge five bucks for entrance. It was going to be a rough game.

“Why couldn’t we play the Plattsville Midgets?” whined Leo. “Or the Nantucket Napoleons? Or even the San Diego Men of Average Height?”

But the Giants it was. And right from the start, it was a fight to the finish. The Giants smashed ball after ball over center field, but Jack always managed to zoom up on his beanstalk and catch them on the fly.

Both teams gave it their all, and the scores shot higher and higher. Finally, at the bottom of the ninth, it was all tied up, 66 to 66. The Giants had the bases loaded, and Whitie Goober, their best hitter, came to the plate.

Whoosh! He let the first pitch go by. Whoosh! He let the second pitch go by. Two strikes on him. On this last pitch. Jack reasoned, Whitie would swing for the fences! Figuring he should prepare. Jack planted three beans, hopped on top, and shot up into the sky on the biggest beanstalk of all. “Take that, Mighty Whitieeeeeeeeee!” he yelled.

But Mighty Whitie, instead of slamming the ball, just gave it a dainty tap, and it dribbled out into center field. Jack was too high to anything. Two players scored and the Giants won.

“I goooooooooofed!” yelled Jack.

But no one could hear him. That big beanstalk carried him straight up into the sky for hundreds of miles until it finally poked through a strange cloud where Jack saw a huge castle and heard these mysterious, booming words:

“Fee, Fi, Foe, Fum! I smell the blood of an English man!”

Now if Jack were an Englishman, he’d be playing cricket, not baseball. But he had no time to make that correction. He had to deal with more pressing problems—namely some extremely large molars about to give him a chewing out. 

But that’s another story.