A Tim McCarver dream, dreamed during the 2004 World Series.

I was standing in my parents’ basement, near the oil burner, which looked more like an old time furnace. Flames were shooting out the furnace, licking the ceiling and lighting the wooden beams on fire. Freddy Kruger himself stood before me, decked out in his striped t-shirt and signature hat. He was holding a baseball bat in one hand (I recognized it as my signed Dan Pasqua bat, long since forgotten about) and was wearing a catcher’s mitt on the other hand. Long, sharp claws extended through the worn leather of the mitt.

As the fire raged all around, Freddy’s face started to change. In rapid succession, his face changed a million times at least, each new face disappearing too quickly for me to figure out who I was looking at. The changes occurred in a morph-like way, from top to bottom, and it looked like a slot machine with an endless supply of faces had embedded itself in Freddy’s face. The Pope, Karl Rove, my boss, my dentist, Johnny Damon, Johnny Depp, the genie from Aladdin - they all made millisecond appearances on Freddy’s face.

The slot machine movement finally slowed down and settled on one face: Tim McCarver’s. I tried to scream but, of course, nothing came out. Tim started yelling about extra innings, waving the bat around and clawing at the charred beams above the furnace. One of the beams fell down on him, crushing his chest. When he fell to the floor, I went over to him and pulled the beam off, revealing a gaping hole where his heart should have been.

For some reason, I reached for McCarver’s wallet. I was suprised to see it was cheap leather, not the real thing. Inside the wallet were three pictures: one of Al Leiter and two of Tim McCarver. As the flames danced around me and the heat became almost unbearable, my only thought was: who the hell would carry a picture of himself in his own wallet, let alone two? Then I noticed a piece of paper tucked behind the photos. I pulled it out. It was a blank absentee ballot from Florida. I thought to myself, I wonder who Freddy Kruger would vote for? I grabbed my Dan Pasqua bat off the floor, smashed Freddy/McCarver in the head.

I was finally able to find my voice and I screamed with each blow “Just. Shut. Up!”

Then I got tired and woke myself up.