{"id":21663,"date":"2022-07-19T15:32:30","date_gmt":"2022-07-19T19:32:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/?p=21663"},"modified":"2022-07-22T21:33:51","modified_gmt":"2022-07-23T01:33:51","slug":"the-mendoza-line","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/the-mendoza-line\/","title":{"rendered":"The Mendoza Line"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"position: relative; padding-top: max(60%,326px); height: 0; width: 100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"position: absolute; border: none; width: 100%; height: 100%; left: 0; right: 0; top: 0; bottom: 0;\" src=\"https:\/\/e.issuu.com\/embed.html?backgroundColor=%23e3e3e3&amp;d=finalpdfs07_18_22&amp;hideIssuuLogo=true&amp;pageNumber=122&amp;u=portlandmagazine\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\" sandbox=\"allow-top-navigation allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation allow-downloads allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-modals allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>BY JOHN MANDERINO<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">M<\/span><span class=\"s1\">om told me to quit making the sign of the cross before stepping into the batter\u2019s box. \u201cIf you\u2019re that afraid of getting hit by the pitch, you shouldn\u2019t be playing.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p4\"><span class=\"s1\">I told her that wasn\u2019t why I did it. \u201cIt\u2019s for good luck.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p4\"><span class=\"s1\">She said that was worse. \u201cThe sign of the cross isn\u2019t for good luck\u2014it\u2019s for praying, and if you want to pray for something, pray for your grandmother,\u201d she said, choking up a little.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p4\"><span class=\"s1\">Gram was in Maine Medical, dying. She was about a hundred and fifty years old, so it didn\u2019t seem all that tragic. Plus you see players on TV making the sign of the cross all the time, and it\u2019s not for their grandmother\u2014it\u2019s for help in getting a hit, and when it works they point up towards Jesus, mouthing, \u201cThank you.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p4\"><em><span class=\"s1\">Read the full story in the digital magazine above.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"p4\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-large wp-image-21665\" src=\"http:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/mendoza-1024x536.jpg\" alt=\"mendoza\" width=\"1024\" height=\"536\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/mendoza-1024x536.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/mendoza-300x157.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/mendoza-768x402.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/mendoza-200x105.jpg 200w, https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/mendoza-620x324.jpg 620w, https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/mendoza.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Fiction by John Manderino<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21666,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8,112],"tags":[1204],"class_list":["post-21663","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-fiction","tag-julyaugust-2022"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21663","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21663"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21663\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21667,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21663\/revisions\/21667"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}