Oh Yeah...
Oct. 20th, 2004 09:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pecuniumThey did it.
My favorite team in the AL, just beat the Yankees. Life is good.
I am a Dodger fan. My second favorite team is whoever plays the Yankees, and tonight... I'm happy.
There's a bar in Ayre, Mass, where I know the crowd is happy (they forgave my being a Dodger fan because it was NL, and I despise the Yankees). My first grand slam, at the park, was a shot over the Green Monster (in the old Fenway) withcluefairy and her (then new[ish] boyfriend) husband.
Such a comeback. After last night's game (and A-rod's asininity) I calledlibertango (because he owns no TV) and we talked. We gabbed about the Yankees; how they have been failing all century, how they have lost more Series than anyone else (and I need to look and see what thier average is... yes they've played in more series than anyone else, but how do they stack up against other multiple Series teams).
Sports are at once a trivial, and glorious thing. Vicarious thrills, and sublime achievements, all wrapped together in a painful enterprise (my $100 a year in receipts are part of the huge gross the owners pay to the players, and source of the conflict... how much of the gross ought to be shared between those who make it possible, and those who own the franchise... a question for The Sages).
Baseball is the only sport I follow. Not the only one I understand. I know shooting (not riveting to watch, even in skeet) and gymnastics (I used to announce it in high school) and fencing, and dressage, and jumping, and track and hockey and (after the last winter olympics) curling and... but baseball is the one I follow.
It speaks to me. There are any number of people who speak on why this is, they are all correct, and all talking bunk. For whatever reason baseball makes me happy. It's not frenzied (though anyone who knows the game will tell you it isn't ten minutes of action packed into three hours of play). It's not prone to vicious fanatcism (even in Yankee Stadium tonight, there were fans of the BoSox) it can be aprehended in its entirety, and to the devotee it is like Go, possessed of a simplicity which has depths beyond anyone's ability to completely comprehend.
It is, more than any other sport I know, a social event. At home, with cup of coffee and the radio, or at the park, with a beer and a Dodger dog, it is best with a friend, someone with whom the minutae can be recalled, the wonder at a play being made, the sense that this moment is precious; all this can be shared, and recalled later.
It has a continuity, a tradition which transcends the now. I can imagine Ruth hitting the ball, Ty Cobb sliding into second; spikes high, Maris having his reacord breaking season, and Dimaggio his 54 game streak.
And, like Gettysburg, and the Golden Spike and the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and My Lai, it has a history I can share with millions of others.
It knits me to the present with them, because we can share a common past.
My favorite team in the AL, just beat the Yankees. Life is good.
I am a Dodger fan. My second favorite team is whoever plays the Yankees, and tonight... I'm happy.
There's a bar in Ayre, Mass, where I know the crowd is happy (they forgave my being a Dodger fan because it was NL, and I despise the Yankees). My first grand slam, at the park, was a shot over the Green Monster (in the old Fenway) with
cluefairy and her (then new[ish] boyfriend) husband.Such a comeback. After last night's game (and A-rod's asininity) I called
libertango (because he owns no TV) and we talked. We gabbed about the Yankees; how they have been failing all century, how they have lost more Series than anyone else (and I need to look and see what thier average is... yes they've played in more series than anyone else, but how do they stack up against other multiple Series teams).Sports are at once a trivial, and glorious thing. Vicarious thrills, and sublime achievements, all wrapped together in a painful enterprise (my $100 a year in receipts are part of the huge gross the owners pay to the players, and source of the conflict... how much of the gross ought to be shared between those who make it possible, and those who own the franchise... a question for The Sages).
Baseball is the only sport I follow. Not the only one I understand. I know shooting (not riveting to watch, even in skeet) and gymnastics (I used to announce it in high school) and fencing, and dressage, and jumping, and track and hockey and (after the last winter olympics) curling and... but baseball is the one I follow.
It speaks to me. There are any number of people who speak on why this is, they are all correct, and all talking bunk. For whatever reason baseball makes me happy. It's not frenzied (though anyone who knows the game will tell you it isn't ten minutes of action packed into three hours of play). It's not prone to vicious fanatcism (even in Yankee Stadium tonight, there were fans of the BoSox) it can be aprehended in its entirety, and to the devotee it is like Go, possessed of a simplicity which has depths beyond anyone's ability to completely comprehend.
It is, more than any other sport I know, a social event. At home, with cup of coffee and the radio, or at the park, with a beer and a Dodger dog, it is best with a friend, someone with whom the minutae can be recalled, the wonder at a play being made, the sense that this moment is precious; all this can be shared, and recalled later.
It has a continuity, a tradition which transcends the now. I can imagine Ruth hitting the ball, Ty Cobb sliding into second; spikes high, Maris having his reacord breaking season, and Dimaggio his 54 game streak.
And, like Gettysburg, and the Golden Spike and the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and My Lai, it has a history I can share with millions of others.
It knits me to the present with them, because we can share a common past.
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no subject
Date: 2004-10-21 05:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-21 06:05 am (UTC):) yay bosox!
no subject
Date: 2004-10-21 12:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-21 01:32 pm (UTC)Yes, Steinbrenner is an ass and has worked hard to beat down the history and legacy of the Yankees to foster the "corporate mindset" for baseball. I'll be glad when he's gone. But for most people I meet, "Yankee bashing" just because they're successful makes no more sense than "America bashing" for the same reason.
no subject
Date: 2004-10-21 05:39 pm (UTC)My dislike of the Yanks is, in part, because they are the Yanks, and I a devoted Dodger man.
But they are also over-rated. Yes, they have the most series wins. Course they also have the most series losses (I need to run the numbers and see how they compare to other teams with multiple series appearances, for average).
They also stacked up most of those wins before expansion. And this century, well as one poster said at last night's game (though directed at the Sox) "if history teaches us anything, it teaches us they lose."
Yankee fans, to this L.A. boy, are also part of why I don't care for them much (same with the Giants, though the historical rivalry... they are right at .500 career with each other, for what, a century...?). I got to see the Yankees beat the Dodgers (though it was a 2-1 Dodger's series) and there was a guy declaiming that Jeter was the best thing in baseball. Everytime the Dodgers made a great play (and it was a swell game, just not the ending I wanted) his quip was, "Yeah, that was good, but the Dodgers are just average."
It was sweet to watch A-rod, who had been saying Gagne wasn't all that much, whiff the at bat he got against him. Straight down the pipe, and not a chance.
Better luck next year... though I want to see blue beat stripes.
TK
no subject
Date: 2004-10-21 02:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-21 04:56 pm (UTC)I may even watch - not a big baseball fan, but to miss this world series...just seems wrong, especially since I live in Boston.
no subject
Date: 2004-10-24 04:18 pm (UTC)Anyways, yeah... I'm in Mass, and we were all going crazy when they won. A very happy moment. :)
no subject
Date: 2004-10-24 08:46 pm (UTC)I feel it to be one of my locals. Part of that is because of how much tavel I do, but part is because I've talked baseball.
TK