Road tripping to the All-Star Game

Somewhere along the line Heath Bell knew there’d be girls, visions, everything; somewhere along the line the pearl would be handed to him:

Bell was among the last All-Stars to arrive at their hotel, checking in at 10:17 a.m. Monday after he, Padres teammate Adrian Gonzalez, Gonzalez’s wife, Betsy, and batting practice pitcher Ray Krohn drove the final three hours of an 18-hour trip. A mechanical delay following a three-hour layover in Las Vegas caused the San Diego traveling party to miss their connecting flight in Indianapolis.

“They said the earliest we could get to St. Louis was 1:30,” Bell said. “Me and Adrian looked at each other and said, ‘Let’s just rent a car.’ So we got our luggage and threw it all in a minivan. “On the way we were like the movie Dumb and Dumber— who needs a radio? We sang a little, talked about movies.”

When they got to St. Louis, they danced down the streets like dingledodies, and shambled after as they’ve been doing all their life after people who interest them, because the only people for them are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones that never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn . . .