Ping and Percy in Florida.

Good for you if you surmised that Percy was an ostrich.

Better for you if you guessed that Ping was an Italian ballplayer.

Ping Bodie pretended that his name was Ping Bodie because he was an Italian ball player before the great DiMaggio. He was hiding his nationality.

Some of the word got out but not all of it.

To this day, Ping's real name is still unknown.

His first name might have been Filamano.

His last name might have been Insalaco or Sanguedolce.

Only Ping and his family, whoever they were, knew for sure.

All that anybody in Florida knew for sure about Italians back in the day was that they liked spaghetti.

Afrter collecting eleven hundred hits in the majors, Ping was on his way down and Florida is about as far down as you could get back then even thought Jacksonville was near the top of the bottom.

Jacksonville was Percy's home town.

I suppose the conflict between Ping and Percy was inevitable.

Now if you guessed that Percy was an ostrich and that Ping was a ball player, I compliment your reading comprehension and assume that your reading anticipation is high as well so you probably know what happened next.

Or some of it.

Stay tuned.