Baseball has another vision. It is a spectacle of fairness as well as of accomplishment. What are we watching when we watch a game of baseball? We are witnessing the progression of a struggle toward an outcome through which the skill and power of the players and the team can be expressed, like in any sport, but we are also watching the lines of a moral universe being demarcated in a game played, uniquely, without time. The error declares that might is not always right, that win and loss is an insufficient measure of the experience of human contest. The error belongs to the moral dimension of American life—a highly systematic, entirely futile effort to imagine the terms of a perfect world inside even so minor a forum as the official rulebook of a boys’ game.
You could probably skip it if you are not a fan, but I found it worth a read...
That means just a few more chances to see David Ortiz play.
The proximity to Bean Town has me thinking about that.
For a guy who is rarely on the field, Ortiz is a special player to watch.
A craftsman, professional.
Dude crushes baseball for a living.
Anyway, The Atlantic has a nice article on the guy.
A summary of his career, his place in history.
A generation of baseball fans has watched him in the biggest moments, in the most important games, late at night and late in the season. He helped his team break an 86-year title drought and then, nine years later, win its third in short succession, with a galvanizing speech to a wounded city in between. Whenever he has stepped on the field, he’s given a sometimes stodgy game a sense of uncut fun, of release from ceremony.
Here is a link to it, if you are down for some baseball reading...
Differing from the typical Suzuki post you might see here...
Did you hear that Ichiro passed Pete Rose on the pro baseball hit list?
Well, he did, but there is some moaning about how part of the number comes from Ichiro's pro ball in Japan.
Anyway, I am a fan.
Since living in Seattle and seeing him play for the Mariners...
He is a marvel to watch playing baseball, much of it doesn't translate in a televised game.
Snow sucks. Opening day snowed out...
(Keep your climate change jokes to yourself.)
So, it's today.
Hell they had games on Sunday, too, which is just weird...
Where is my head on the season?
Red Sox hope, I guess.
Perhaps, I have been assimilated on the front.
My optimism on Betts has been unbroken since seeing him here on the minor's roster. Dude is good.
The rest of the line up, ehhh, I need to see how all these guys play together, a bit. There is a lot of talent.
I look forward to the Sox, likely, building up my hopes only to slowly destroy them in mid-August.
Maybe that is just my own pessimism, or emotional defense...
Other coast?
Well, the Giants have their line up pretty well sorted. They'll get runs, for sure.
The rest of it, I don't know enough about, but they are a damned reliable factory.
What else...
The Phillies, probably not a great season. Rebuilding and all that, you know...
They'll be fun to watch what evolves from that, maybe.
Christ, couldn't we all just let the Cubbies win one. We won't talk about it, but maybe?
Astros? I think they might get somewhere this year, which is something I haven't thought, well, ever.
Maybe Harper carries the Nat's to the series?
Who cares that there are inches of snow on the ground here and forecast temp's in the teens tonight?
It's baseball season - and that is a season of hope...
College football recently done, now the basketball...
The NFL dealing out another slow build to another Super Bowl.
Never been much of a fan for any of that stuff, as you might know.
I mean if you have tickets to any game, sure, I am going with.
To sit down and watch most sports eek across a television screen, I can skip any of that...
Last weekend I was out and about, for a snack and to tip some glasses. The inevitable sports stuff was on, on every screen minus one, in my destination pub. Some big deal NFL action had the crowd exercised and when that had gone to yet another commercial, well, everybody fixated on Midwestern college teams doing the basketball.
And then, oddly, on a tiny TV in the corner was playing some giant ski slalom action. Not this, obvioulsy, but like this...
Nobody was watching.
I mean, I guess I was.
People didn't even glance at that screen when all the other were commercials for random prescription drugs (for soft dicks, or high blood pressure, high cholesterol, anxiety, depression - no comment on this but clearly targeted advertising).
And I was baffled.
Here were these warriors, heaving themselves off an icy cliff, down the side of a damned mountain.
Bashing barriers, skidding against the glacial abyss, quite literally flying to victory...
Nobody even saw it in their periphery...
All eyes were on some similarly dressed men, in a big room, waiting for other differently attired men to review video footage of their last momentary burst of actual action and tell them to have at it again, but just right after a commercial break...
Now, I know we all bring our own baggage to these things. We like teams for this reason or another, even me. It involves us, or connects us to something, perhaps provides an aspirational comfort by association.
Shit, I don't know. People like sports...
What I was wondering was - do we like certain sports because they have become easily packaged, commodified and delivered? Is our interest shaped by the delivery of the media content?
Certainly, it must be easier to find two dudes who played basketball somewhere and can carry on conversation about the sport, send them to a game with four guys who can work a camera and deliver that to a television time slot than trying to cover a giant slalom?
Is that why we collectively care about Jayhawks basketball, or NASCAR more than Olympic skiing or the Dakar?
Because it is simply the more convenient, cost effective sporting event to cover and push as content?
(Golf would be the obvious exception to this premise, sure-it's an individual sport, hard to cover, with minuscule actual action, but well represented in the mainstream media. I'm bullshitting here, so just go with this...)
I mean, I don't know...
People get into that team stuff as kids and maybe keep loving it?
It's fucking winter, so who wants to go freeze when there's beer and nachos - and some game on?
My hometown or alma mater is better than yours, that seems like a big deal to some folks?
Why do you care about the sports you care about?
Are they covered in any effective way, by the media?
Why, still, do women's sports get shafted if we watch for the love of a game?
It's all fine, mindless distraction from whatever awful thing is happening someplace, all the time...
Late yesterday afternoon I get a text...
"You want to go see the Sox tonight?"
Given our location, I gotta ask...
"Paw or Red?" while simultaneously checking the schedules for both.
Reminded that this weekend is the Yankees stand. I realize this might be my last chance to see Jeter in person.
Remember the Sox are almost a different team following the trade deadline on Thursday...
A response text finally hits my phone...
"Red, good seats"
"I am in." was the only correct answer.
Serendipitous night. All the weird coordination and planning to get there sorted itself out. Sold off a spare ticket to cover expenses. Bought beers as somebody said "Play ball." Found the seats for the first pitch. Great game, Sox won.
Sorry if you are into watching the World Cup. I probably just ruined it for you. You will start noticing that awful logo, again and again. It will haunt you and spoil the whole experience. Apologies...
Somehow, it took me two years to get around to seeing the Paw Sox play...
I don't know why.
They are the local minor league team for the Red Sox, in case you have never heard of them.
Located in Pawtucket, which is pretty much Providence if you miss the sign as you drive along 95.
Get the name now?
Paw Sox.
Apparently that came about during a particually cash strapped season for the team. Couldn't even afford uniforms, to suit up the players, they were so down.
Some Boston Sox boss thought that was shitty and sent down some forty-eight used uniforms, to get broke Pawtucket fuckers through the season. Being broke, the Pawtucket dudes thought it would be cheaper to replace the "Red" on the fronts of those jerseys with "Paw", rather than getting all new stuff stitched up...
That story cracks me up...
Anyway, it's a little park and a scrappy team.
Some of the Red Sox big timers pass through, every summer, working of a DL stint. So you get a bit of that, here.
Tickets are cheap.
Hot dogs are cheap.
Beer is not too pricey.
The park, itself, is great.
It's two bucks to park.
Crowd is a little slice of New England.
And they play solid baseball.
Now I still love Fenway and the big boy Red Sox.
But I gotta tell you, I would rather drop a twenty to go see these Paw Sox hit fly balls than spend a buck-twenty to watch the Red Sox do the same.
If they lose, I feel a lot better about the whole experience...
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