Stories from the Stage

ANDREW SHELFFO: I figured somewhere along the time I was ten or 11 years old, the only thing I needed to make my life complete was to pitch a no-hitter.

AJAY GALLEWALLE: While rest of the India is obsessed with the game of the cricket, I grew up playing baseball.

And nobody outside of my town knew anything about baseball.

SHANNON CANTAN: And I told him, "Don't screw this up," and he said, "Whatever."

(audience laughs) There's no whatever in baseball!

(audience laughs) GALLEWALLE: I'm Ajay Gallewalle.

I came to United States from India in 1994 as a software engineer.

So I understand that you have a Marathi-language website.

The name of the website is Maayboli, which means "mother tongue."

OKOKON: Hmm.

When I came to United States, I'm very active in the local New England Marathi community, but there wasn't any resources available, so I basically created a platform where all people who speak Marathi will be able to communicate and converse and write, publish in Marathi language.

So I started about 22 years ago, 1996.

So it was sort of like a Facebook for Marathi people.

Mmm.

And so it continues to grow.

Currently, it reaches about 1.8 million people in 27 countries.

OKOKON: That's wonderful.

Tell me about how you got into storytelling.

How did you become a storyteller?

I'm new to storytelling.

I just got into this just a year ago.

And when you first got started, did storytelling come naturally for you, or was it difficult?

It came, actually, very naturally.

And people started telling me that I'm a really natural storyteller, which, I didn't anticipate it, but that also helped me.

Now I'm... it is very tempting these days that maybe I should get into either politics or become a con artist.

(laughs) One or the other.

GALLEWALLE: Imagine you grew up in Foxborough, Massachusetts, famous for Gillette Stadium-- New England Patriots, everything with football-- but you grew up playing Ping-Pong.

(laughter) That's how I felt when I was...

I grew up in a small town called Aurangabad in India.

While rest of the India is obsessed with the game of the cricket, I grew up playing baseball.

And nobody outside of my town knew anything about baseball.

There was no internet, there was no TV, there was no professional game, there was no books.

And still, kids in my town played baseball.

How?

No one knows how it began.

But a sixth-grader will teach a fifth-grader, a fifth-grader will teach a fourth-grader.

We had informal teams among kids, and if we find a space, we'll play baseball there.

And we still end up playing close to real rules.

I was in the fifth grade, and our team was about to face a very strong team.

And this game was very, very important to me.

I had a crush on a girl, and her brother was in the rival team.

I have decided she's my soulmate and I'm going to marry her.

(laughter) Of course, she had no idea about that.

But I knew, if I lose this game, I will be ridiculed by my in-laws forever.

(laughter) I can't let that happen.

So how to somehow figure out ways to-- some kind of thing-- to win this game?

I'm a Hindu, and according to scriptures, we Hindus have 3.3 billion gods.

There is a god of rain, there is a god of water, there is a god of everything.

So I thought there must be a god of baseball and we should appeal to him.

(laughter) But my idea was immediately shot down because no one has heard about god of baseball, and why a Hindu god will help baseball, which is a Western game.

(laughter) But I wouldn't give up.

I went in search of Rajiv.

Rajiv was in the sixth grade.

He had taught me baseball.

He was my mentor, guru, and answer to everything.

I had a lot of respect for him.

So I ask him about god of baseball, and he says there is no such thing.

(laughter) I was devastated, because I don't want to believe that.

And I lost complete respect for him forever.

(laughter) But I also saw an opening here.

If the god of baseball does not exist, why don't I create one?

But my first, biggest worry was, what if my mom finds out?

And what if there is some kind of a license fee?

Or if there is a tax on god creation?

(laughter) But then my fifth-grader brain also thought, "If there are 3.3 billion gods, it will be a while until someone realizes there is a new god in town."

(laughter) So I could sneak in a new god under the radar, get him followers, and make him really powerful.

And because we are creating this god from scratch, so I'm just going to have a rule that this god only helps my team.

That's going to be our winning strategy.

So I went to the team, I lied to them and told, "Okay, we could create a new god of baseball."

And everybody become creative.

And so my friend Nitin said, "God of baseball likes new haircut."

Vikram said, "Hey, when we are hitting, "we need to sway our hips like that.

Because god of baseball likes that."

(laughter) Umesh said, "When we are pitching, "we need to look like that.

"Because that will make god of baseball happy, and he'll make the hitter strike out."

So the day of the game came, and we all came with a new haircut.

(laughter) We started swaying our hips and pitching with the looking deep in eyes.

But nothing was working.

(laughter) At the bottom of sixth inning, we were down 0-4.

I was pitching, and it was not looking good.

I looked at the sky and said to god of baseball, "Hey, I created you and got you followers.

"Now you have to help me here.

(laughter) "Because if we stop believing you, you won't exist anymore.

"Do you realize this is... this is your life at stake here?

Do you understand?"

And suddenly, everything start working well, as we wanted.

We finally won that game, 5-4.

(cheers and applause) But god of baseball also had limitations.

Outside of the field, we needed a god of friendship, and there wasn't a divine intervention when our team broke apart.

Several years later, I moved to Boston, and one day, I went to Fenway Park.

What a day!

Fenway Park was so big!

It was way bigger than I thought.

And then I saw there is a whole religion of baseball here with its own followers and rituals.

(laughter) But when you see professional baseball players have the same superstitions and rituals and insecurities like we had when we were playing the game in fifth grade, thousands of miles away in India, you start wondering, "Is there a divine connection here?"

(laughter) Since that summer, I haven't created any new god.

I'm still a proud Hindu, but those adult talk I had with my parents really were more useful and practical for day-to-day life.

So these days, I rely more on my humanity than the divinity.

But if there is a god of baseball, I'm pretty sure he currently lives in Boston.

Thank you.

(cheers and applause) It's a funny story, but more than just the fun, it talks about interplay between humanity and divinity, and how we are all, irrespective of wherever part of the world we are, we are the same, um... weaknesses and strength, and they somehow come closer together in strange ways.

CANTAN: My name is Shannon Kameha'ikana Shayne Cantan, currently living in Hyde Park, Massachusetts, but I was born and raised on the Big Island of Hawai'i in a small town called Ka'u.

I am studying for the LSAT, and hopefully will begin law school next year.

And I understand that you do stand-up comedy, is that right?

I do do stand-up comedy, yes.

And what made you get interested in that and, you know... what appeals to you most about stand-up?

CANTAN: I got into stand-up after a break-up (laughs) So... That's common.

As a stand-up comic for 20 years, I, I have seen that.

Yeah, it was just like, man, you know what, this...

I've always loved comedy, and that night after the break-up, I'm like, you know what, I don't know if I can feel worse, so even if I get booed, it's all right.

So I have to ask, how has your perspective as a blind comedian influenced your material and your approach to comedy?

I was born with vision, but my vision slowly went down.

And I had a lot of defense mechanisms because you're either fighting or trying to make someone laugh.

Because I was in denial of my blindness for a good portion of my life.

So making people laugh about me accidentally sitting on someone or bumping into something was where my comfort is.

But as a blind comedian, in terms of material, I try not to go for that low-hanging fruit.

Like, I think it's kind of hack if someone goes up on stage and they're blind, they're turned the wrong way and they're like, "Ha, good-looking crowd!"

That's not my style.

But I do talk about blindness.

I remember in Florida, I was probably nine months in, and I was avoiding the topic of blindness a lot.

'Cause I'm, like, "I don't want to be the blind comedian."

But I went up on stage and I bombed.

And this O.G.

comedian came up to me.

He's, like, "Hey, young blood, "you gotta address the elephant in the room, man.

"You're not the comedian you think you are.

People want to hear your truth."

And that impacted a lot of what I do.

I can talk about being blind.

It just so happens to be who I am.

Just like I am Hawaiian, I am Filipino, I am from Hawai'i.

None of those are the jokes, but it does weave into my material.

This is the story of the time I got to witness the historical Boston versus New York battle for the very first time, live.

Score was 8-6.

It was the bottom of the last inning.

There were two outs, and Boston just battled back from an 8-3 deficit.

The athletes were leaving everything out on the field.

It was everything you could imagine that battle to be.

Except it wasn't the Red Sox and the Yankees.

(laughter) (chuckles): No.

It was the Long Island Bombers versus my Boston Renegades.

Oh, yeah!

(cheers and applause) That's... Not only did I get to witness, I got to be part of it.

The Boston Renegades and Long Island Bombers are two beep baseball teams.

Now, beep baseball is an adaptive form of baseball for the blind.

The balls beep, the bases buzz, the pitcher and the catcher are on the same team as the batter.

So they're not trying to strike us out.

Yeah.

(laughter) That's not what they do.

This is the first time I got to play an adaptive sport.

I'd been playing sports all my life-- ran track, wrestled.

I even played high school football against sighted athletes.

I played center.

So if my quarterback wanted me to block to the left, he tapped my left hip.

He wanted me to block to the right, he tapped my right hip.

He wanted me to block straight ahead, he didn't tap me.

(audience laughter) Yes, I guess he didn't do it, I guess.

So it was 8-6.

Bottom of the last inning, and the next batter up was supposed to be Tony.

And as Tony was walking to the plate, one of the bases had a malfunction.

And as they were fixing the bases, I heard the dreaded words I was hoping to never have heard.

(sighs) "Tony, out, Justin, in."

Oh, those words were dreaded for me.

When Coach Rob said those words, I'm, like, "The base is not the only thing malfunctioning.

His brain is also malfunctioning."

I mean, that's... "Who's Justin?"

you're wondering.

Justin is my brother.

(chuckles) We both grew up in Hawai'i, in a family of six.

Three of us happen to be blind.

I was the athlete-- Justin was the academic.

He wasn't known for hitting baseballs.

He was known for renting Mariah Carey albums from the library.

(laughter) Yeah.

All I want for Christmas is to never hear that song again.

That's, that's... (laughter, applause) Yeah.

I learned about beep baseball.

This was both of our rookie years.

I learned it from a professor of mine whose husband just happened to be blind.

The way Justin learned and got involved was, he just happened to accompany me to one of the practices, and Coach Rob offered and said, "You want to try it?"

And he said, "Sure."

It wasn't my idea, guys, that wasn't... (laughter) So Justin was walking up to the plate.

And I said, "Don't mess this up, this is..." Up, up to this point, my entire high school football career, I had the same amount of wins that we had traffic lights in my little hometown of Ka'u, which was zero.

(audience laughter) So, I, I needed this win.

And I told him, "Don't screw this up."

And he said, "Whatever."

(audience laughter) There's no whatever in baseball!

(audience laughter) He walked up to the plate, and we were doing a thing called a cadence.

That's how we know when to hit in beep baseball.

You say, "Coach," and the pitcher says, "Set, ready, pitch."

And somewhere in that, you pick a spot to swing.

For example, I'll start my swing right after "pitch," and my brother probably will start his swing before he even gets up to the plate.

He doesn't have much bat speed, but... (laughter) "Set, ready, pitch."

"Foul ball."

And I'm standing there, and I'm, like, "Oh, no.

What do I want for dinner?"

That's...

I, I gave up before, you know, like, "I want steak tips," that's... (laughter) "Set, ready, pitch."

"Foul."

Everyone's, like, "Man, he could do this."

I'm, like, "You don't know him like I know him, man."

(chuckles) (audience laughter) "Set, ready, pitch."

"Foul."

And another foul, and another foul.

Everyone on our bench is saying, "He could do this."

And I started to believe maybe he can do this, but I don't even know if he knows how to run, so that's... (laughter) "Set, ready, pitch."

He makes contact.

And he's running.

And he scores!

(cheers and applause) (chuckles) Yeah!

He scores.

(cheers and applause) Score is 8-7.

And we ended up tying the game, and we went into extra innings.

And it was my turn!

(audience laughter) To go to at bat.

And as I'm walking up to the plate, he tells me, "Don't screw this up."

(laughter) And I said... (blows out): "Whatever."

Which is more athletic way of saying that, so it was okay.

So I'm walking up to the plate, and you can't hear anything.

And I feel my heart racing.

"Set, ready, pitch."

Swing.

"Foul ball!"

I just hear someone say, "Man, these Cantan brothers love drama, man."

Yeah.

(audience laughter) I took a deep breath.

"Set, ready, pitch."

Crack!

Made good contact, and I'm running.

And I touch the bag, and we win!

We... (cheers and applause) And by we, our team won, I won, and my brother also got his first win.

And in that moment, I realized that just because you think you know someone doesn't mean you should underestimate them.

Thank you.

(cheers and applause) SHELFFO: My name is Andrew Shelffo.

I live in East Hampton, Massachusetts.

I grew up in New Jersey.

I currently work at a private school where I teach English and also oversee the school's technology.

Was storytelling a part of your life from a young age?

SHELFFO: I think it was.

I'm one of six kids, and my father was an enthusiastic, repetitive storyteller.

He would tell the same stories over and over again.

I'm just curious, of your siblings now, are you the storyteller?

If there had to be one, or is it someone else?

I'm going to say yes, I'm, I'm the one, I mean I'm the one who gets the opportunity to do great things like this.

Um, yes, everyone in my family tells stories, some better than others.

I think I've taken it as something that I want to improve upon.

It's like a skill that I want to hone.

And I'm just curious, what do you find challenging or do you find any elements challenging to this day?

You've been doing this for some time.

I think the idea of saying, "Okay, I'm gonna tell a true story about myself "and I'm gonna maybe reveal some things that I normally wouldn't reveal to an audience of strangers," that's a challenge.

And I think every person who's either written a story or told a story has also faced the challenge of there's a blank page there.

How am I going to fill that up?

And we talk a lot about good endings and good beginnings and what are the transitions and all those things that, there's constantly a challenge to tell a good story.

It's a Friday night, and I'm in the bar with my best friend John and we're watching the game.

And somewhere around the second inning, he opens up his wallet, and without looking at me, he takes out a slip of paper and he slides it across the bar to me like I'm a spy or something and he's handing me the nuclear secrets of his country.

John and I have known each other since we were five years old.

We grew up next to each other, and we were incredibly lucky because we lived in a neighborhood that had a lot of kids close in age who all liked to play sports outside.

Every spring, we would take spray paint and we'd spray paint lines on the street so that we could play touch football.

We'd also spray paint bases so that we could play baseball.

But on those days when we couldn't find enough kids for those games, we would retreat to our backyards, where we would play Wiffle ball.

Wiffle ball is the game you play with the yellow bat and the white ball with the holes on one side.

And if you throw that ball, it makes a distinctive sound.

And to me, it's always sounded magical, almost like, like a baby dove giggling.

And the bat, when you would swing and miss, it would make the sound that gives the game its name-- whiff.

And the best part about the game is that the equipment is cheap.

So in some ways, Wiffle ball is the perfect game.

And every backyard had its own rules, which just added to the fun.

In some fields, if you hit a home run and it went over two fences, it would be an automatic grand slam, no matter who was on base.

At another field, you pitched against the garage.

But you had to be careful, because you didn't want to break the window.

And at a third field, the whole back stoop was the strike zone, which led to argument after argument.

I didn't play organized sports when I was a kid.

It just wasn't for me, and I didn't play high school sports either.

Wiffle ball was the only game that I played.

It was the only thing I was good at, and it was massively important to me.

And I figured somewhere along the time I was ten or 11 years old that the only thing I needed to make my life complete was to pitch a no-hitter.

And this is because Wiffle ball is a pitcher's game.

No one who's ever played Wiffle ball says, "I can hit any pitch you have."

Everyone who's played Wiffle ball says, "I have a pitch you just can't hit."

I had a pitch you couldn't hit.

I would throw it really hard, right at your head, and while you're standing there trying to decide whether or not to duck, it would suddenly dip and then curve into the strike zone.

It was beautiful.

As I got older, my friends, they started spending less time in the neighborhood because they would go play their high school sports.

So there are fewer opportunities to play Wiffle ball.

And I realized that getting that no-hitter was going to be a little bit harder.

What had started out as kind of an abstract notion, it became something, I don't know, maybe it was kind of an obsession.

I wanted it that badly.

Now I could have just forced my younger sister to play against me.

But that wouldn't have been the same thing, because I knew that the no-hitter had to come against decent competition.

I'd come close many times, usually against my friend John, but there'd always be that one hit late in the game that would just break my heart.

And as I got older, I graduated high school and then went to college, and then I got a job, I still carried around in the trunk a yellow bat and a white ball just in case a game broke out.

But I realized that my opportunities were slowly slipping away.

Now John and I are in our late 20s.

We don't play Wiffle ball as much as we used to, and we probably played each other about a thousand times in our lifetime.

But we still try to do it as much as we can, even though sometimes when we play it feels a little bit vestigial, or childish, which is why we don't really like to talk about it.

It's like when you were a kid and you had a crush on Marcia Brady, but you didn't want anybody to know about it.

So we'd only talk to each other about it.

And I opened up the piece of paper that John gave me, and it's a little article from the newspaper that he ripped out, and it says that there's a Wiffle ball tournament the next day in a town 20 miles away.

We both looked at each other, because we know we have to play.

The next morning we get there early, because we're excited and we're nervous, and because as soon as we decided to play, we left the bar early so that we could get some sleep.

And we go through our warm-up exercises, which consists of some light jogging and some stretching, things we never would have done when we were ten or 11 years old, but which we now have to do.

And while we're doing that, our opponents show up, and our opponents are two teenagers.

And we have to beat them in order to get to the next round.

And their pregame warm-up routine consists of sitting on the bleachers and eating Buffalo wings while drinking Mountain Dew out of two-liter plastic bottles.

After I finished my warm-ups, I start throwing some warm-up pitches, and I throw a lot more than their pitcher does.

And I'm feeling good, because I know how good John and I are and I know that we have experience and I know that we have wisdom on our side too.

And, oh, I think we're better at getting up early on Saturday morning than they are.

And then the game starts, and we lose 4-0.

It was over so quickly, I didn't even really know what had happened.

And I walked to the car and I tried to think of a silver lining of some sort.

And I went over the game in my head and, you know, yeah, I had a couple of good hits, but I just didn't pitch that well.

I had too many walks.

And John and I get to our cars, but we linger for a little bit because we don't really want to leave.

We have chores that we have to do when we get home.

I have to mow the lawn, I have to do some weeding.

I have to grill a sensible dinner and then probably fall asleep on the couch later.

And then I realize something.

"Hey John, I didn't let up any hits.

"It was all walks.

I threw a no-hitter."

John looks at me and he laughs, but there's no humor in his laugh.

And he gets into his car and he drives away.

I can still hear that magical sound, that white ball with the holes that it makes when I throw it, that baby dove giggling.

But I know that my Wiffle ball glory days are long past.

But I tell myself, at least I have that no-hitter.