Part Two: El Vato Loco in Camelot

When they awoke the first sight they saw were the nurturing eyes of the woman that saved them from certain death. But something strange was in the air; they were not at the river side but on a lake shore. There were no militarized ICE agents waiting no polleros waiting to take them to the safe house and no trash or litter of any recognizable origins along the shore line. The smell in the air was pure and unadulterated. On the wind were the scents of poppies and lilies from the fields, earth and manure from farmlands recently tilled and the intoxicating scent of fresh pozole.

The Lady by the Lake was not Espiritu Santo but a gentle woman from Vera Cruz that had made the same journey as they did many years earlier. She made her way in this new and mystical land by trading sarapes and tamales for necessities from local tenants of the land. She spoke of the a magical affect her cooking now had on those that consumed it and a man that went by the name of Merlin that happened upon her one day while she simmered a pot of carnitas. The dish had a magical effect on Merlin and soon he was speaking on any number of subjects without pause and then he informed her that they were not in the 21^st century but the 6^th century and loyal subjects under the rule of King Arthur. Through the magic of the pozole, the family and the Lady of the Lake all began to dream wide awake and visions of their future appeared bright and in full color before their eyes. The woman spoke directly to Mijo, telling him that where they sat was the Arboretum and beyond the thick of trees was a hill he would do great things upon and that one day soon he would be a Titan sitting prominently amongst the Knights of the Mound Table.

It twas the year of our Lord 513 AD and King Arthur having lost his sword in the battle of the Oregon Regional ‘12 broken off by elimination and the Major League draft at the forte searched the land far and wide for another implement of power. A vehicle of force that would drive the point of victory into the heart of those it opposed, maintaining velocity, arm slot and mechanics a fistmeile o’ times through a batting order with a mild arm stab during delivery that could bring sovereignty to the Titan Empire. He turned to his most trusted advisor Merlin and together the two pondered long and hard before deciding to seek council and comfort from the Lady of the Lake and her magical culinary manifestations.   As usual the Lady of the Lake brought out copious amounts of food to welcome The King and his advisor and while they indulged on savory sopes the King begun to feel strength beyond compare. The spice of the hot refried beans in a magical dance with the coolness of the cotijo cheese rang out in a gleeful chorus accentuated by the crunch of the shell so loud that they could scarcely hear a young man’s cry for help.

When they had reached the rocky shore along the lake they discovered that the young Mijo while doing chores to help repay the Lady of the Lake had triggered a landside of stone that brought him down with it. Pinned down under the immense weight of the stones, 26 round ones to be exact, he was stuck. A mob of villagers had ascended upon the scene and were trying with every manner available to free him to no avail. Time was running out and it seemed nothing could be done to save him, least by mortal hands. From atop the crevasse King Arthur leapt down and by the one arm that protruded from the stone pile he pulled Mijo from the stone and up to the safety of his waiting family.

The Lady of the Lake spoke first, “You have combed far and wide, you have pondered long and hard now what you seek is within your grasp and on your bench”. Arthur was puzzled by her comments for standing before him was a young man not more than 5’ 10” and a 160 pounds but the Horchata he had drank with his sopes had given an extremely open mind and he listened. A strange fog rolled out of the pot of arroz con leche she was preparing for dessert and began to spill out onto the lake creating a magnificent screen to which Arthur saw the future; the future of his kingdom, the future of Titan Baseball and the future of Saturday nights. He must have been the only one to have seen it because tugging at his kilt was the mother and father of Mijo thanking Arthur for the life of their son and offering a minimum commitment of 3 seasons of service from their son to the king in his court. King Arthur accepted and agreed to allow him to take a seat amongst the knights of the Mound Table. Before leaving he turned to the Lady of the Lake and asked” of what shall thy call this boy?”

“From now until Odin sounds his trumpet he shall be known as Mex-Calibur, The Sword of Titan Baseball” proclaimed the Lady of the Lake.

Mex-Calibur took his place among the Knights of the Mound Table; called this because of the symbolic significance of the mound, round in design to symbolize equality and room for only one at a time to stand tall and take a stance upon the slab proclaiming courage and valor amongst the corps. All of Britain had slipped into darkness in the absence of the Roman armies in the cold months prior to the commencement of another D-1 baseball season. Saxons raiders had begun attacking the coast while teams across the Big West begun to inter-squad scrimmage. Some clubs played to full house exhibition games as Anglian invading parties came up from Engla Land in the south. Rogue tribes from the Northern region breeched the Wall of Hadrian and the ’13 College Baseball Season was underway. Mex-Calibur engaged in the repression of the invading enemy immediately and would engrave his name as the sword of sovereignty in the first of 12 battles against the advancing Saxon hordes and D-1 opponents alike.

At the mouth of the river Glein they met war parties from Lincolnshire, NE. For the first time in D-1 battle Mex-Calibur was unsheathed and the light that refracted from the hilt upon which he stood burned brighter than the glow from a multitude of suns burning the eyes of those that stood against the mound. The gleam of the blade from the three quarter slot as it begun to ascend into engagement illuminated the night like a lighting strike silencing the spectators gathered for the back end of a double dip and try as they might they could not break thine eyen for the way he dispatched his opponents 1 through 9. From his grip came a fastball war bird that screeched across the night clutching in its talons a severed dragon’s tail and delivering it across the dark side of the zone still convulsing and wiggling and establishing heat for a strike early.

The outcome that day was victory and credited with his first D-1 win was the gift from the Lady of the Lake the righty so wrought with power and deceptive illusion that word quickly spread of his exploits. The second, third, fourth and fifth battles all had the same end result, consecutive W’s notched in the left hand column and the stories of Mex-Calibur begun to take life. Fable took flight along the shores of the River Blackwater as the Titan armies met the pooling war parties of Horned Frogs, Strathclyde Britons and Oregonians. Residents of Linnuis region told tale of the epic battles that ensued on the shores of the muddy peat moors and of the gallant weaponry King Arthur unleashed upon unsuspecting D-1 opponents. Demolishing TCU batters through 7.1, the sombrero upon his head brilliant as any crown a king may sit under and a berth of a brim wide enough to provide shelter for all the knights of the Mound Table stole the breathe from those that trembled before it as though the barboquejo that secured it to his head now choked the life from the hostile 3900 they stood against.

Defending their encampment and avenging the loss of a brother in arms Nick Hurtado, the knights of Fullerton Lay siege upon advancing Ducks. The winds of mayhem blew with force that day for the memory of #56 and billowed the great poncho worn by Mex-Calibur blotting out the sun for the Ducks ranked 14^th in the nation and handing them defeat. Charging hard from their home fort upon the armies of The Duke of A&M; Reveille IX the Titan armies of King Arthur collapsed the battlements and tore down the draw bridge. Not with manner of explosive acquired from Merlin but with the pachyderm known throughout the land as Tuffy that Mex-Calibur chose to mount over the traditional horses used. The Titan armies captured the flag and Mex-Calibur rode off with the crown of Big West Pitcher of the Week swinging from his bandoliers accentuating the brilliant sequence of embroidered silver buttons that ran the length of his pantalones.

The streak of consecutive victories peaked upon the wings of Golden Eagles at 5 highlighting a career high thus far of 9 K’s for the freshman but nary was a loss seen under the force of King Arthur and his mighty sword Mex-Calibur that season. Rainbow Warriors were delivered the wrath of shut out upon their heads for insolence to the king with the Royal Vaquero throwing 8 scoreless in the island invasion. Returning home Mex-Calibur now 9-o turned his sights on division revivals The Dirtbags. After the no-decision from an earlier non-conference matchup he was determined to dispense some of Montezuma’s Revenge in conference play. He did so with authority facing one over the minimum through 6 and allowing just one casualty through 8 frames, securing his 10^th win, the 5^th in conference play before marching on the Highlanders on the shores of the River Dubglas, pillaging his 11^th W and setting the Knights of the Mound Table up for a post-season run at sovereignty.

Legend has it that in game two of the Battle of Mount Badon at the Fullerton Regional of ’13 The Bonita Bandito led the charge against ASU in a bloody hard fought contest that would drive the Sun Devils defeated, back into the Devils Brook. Dripping from the tongues of babes and elderlies alike were the engagement spawned tales of Mex-Calibur charging into certain death, in one hand a shield upon which the image of Guadalupe was emblazoned and in the other a flag tethered to the end of a war spear. On one side of the flag were the colors blue and orange of King Arthur’s court and the other side of the flag no one from this region or era for that matter had ever seen. The three colors it bore, red, white and green were divided evenly in vertical bands across the face of the flag and in the center an image of an eagle perched upon a cactus with a serpent clutched in its beak. The war cry he emitted was in a language unfamiliar to those indigenous to the region “Viva Poncho villa, Viva Zapata” came as a wall of sound the likes of an avalanche from the modest frame of Mex-Calibur as he bore down on his enemy.

It was a fierce and bitter defensive confrontation between old foes with a one on one scrum at the center of it as fierce as a tornado spiraling out of control, creating an open arena in the center of the converging armies. Locked in a joust to the death was Mex-Calibur and Sir Ryan Lord of Kellogg in a fierce exchange of weaponry and scoreless innings that badgered and bloodied up each other’s batting order. Fastball Lances pounded the zone dismounting both knights with the sound of trees falling in the forest and the thunderous slap of runners silenced on the base paths keeping the game scoreless through three. Drawing quickly to their feet they brought forth destruction with the mace of change keeping batters off balance, off the fastball and off the score board through the 4^th, 5^th and 6^th innings. In the middle innings Mex-Calibur drew forth his cutter of a dagger and cut he did, keeping runners from ever reaching first in the 5^th, 6^th and 7^th, tying a career high in strikeouts with 9 and in a single charge laid low 960 men by his hand alone. The bell tolled in the bottom of the 7^th for Lord Kellogg from the precise placement of a Titan arrow of the royal archer Jake of Jungle Face, much like the grand slam in win #2.

Soon thereafter the contest was over and the Kingdom of Fullerton did rejoice in being one game away from hosting a Super-Regional. They did not advance to Omaha that season but sovereignty was restored to the Big West and Titan Providence through the Sword of Titan Baseball, Mex-Calibur. Upon returning to Camelot he was bestowed with the grandest of gifts from lands near and far being named to several All-American Teams, 2013 Fullerton Regional MVP and upon his crest was the Big West Pitcher of the Year 2013.Protruding upward with majestic fashion from the gauntlet of ’13 were the Gadling Spikes of a 2.03 ERA, a team leading 95 strike outs to the meager 17 walks and the 0.88 WHIP.

To Be Concluded…..