The Opening of "Stick & Ball"--a gay romance
Chapter 1: Agustin
Thirty-thousand polo fans, both Argentine and others, were on the edge of their seats, all holding their breath. After a week of rain delays, the finals of the Argentine Open was almost at an end and with only a minute to go, the Tigre Blanco and Alto Viva teams were tied. While it would be impossible to determine which was the crowd favorite, there was no doubt that most eyes were focused on Tigre Blanco’s Agustin Ramos, playing the number three position. The men were watching his prowess with the mallet, while the women were entranced with his movie star looks. And, in some cases, the vice versa was also true.
Agustin seemed to have been bred to play polo, almost as much as the ponies he rode. He was one of a long string of Ramos men who had competed on this very spot in the heart of the Palermo neighborhood of Buenos Aires. His grandfather first won the Open in 1953 and would take the cup three more times before he retired to coach the next generation. Agustin’s father and his father’s youngest brother played throughout the 1970’s and would take the cup twice, falling short of besting their own father. Agustin and numerous cousins were on the backs of horses from almost the minute they could walk.
While all the Ramos’ progeny seemed talented, it was Agustin who shone above the rest. As a junior, his standing as a polo prodigy had been quickly secured. He won more youth tournaments than anyone else by the age of 15. By the time he was 18, he had already been designated a 10-goal player, becoming the youngest player to do so, beating his hero Adolfo Cambiaso who was 19 when he was awarded that distinction. Adolfo’s own son would subsequently beat Agustin’s record at the age of 17 a few years later.
The mallet seemed to be a natural extension of his arm, and the crowd loved watching as he bounced the ball on the face of it while at a full gallop. He seemed to be everywhere on the field, shifting between offense and defense, always seeming to know where his other three teammates were to receive a pass. But it was his accuracy on the penalty shots that set him apart. Regardless of where the mounted umpires placed the ball, Agustin was able to shoot the ball through the goalposts, lofting the ball in a gentle upward arc so as to prevent it from being blocked by any opponent’s upward stretched mallet.
But something seemed to be off for Agustin on the very day his team needed him to be at his best. He had missed two penalties, one at the sixty-yard mark and one at the thirty. Had he made those, Tigre Blanco would be up by two goals at this point in the match. Now they were fighting to avoid a sudden death situation, but with the ball deep in their own territory they were not in an ideal position to do so. Agustin was trying to keep his focused trained on the moment at hand—sixty seconds was a long time in polo. He couldn’t accept that he would be the reason his team might lose the most important match of the year.
