Bob Wire Has a Point (It's Under His Cowboy Hat)
Enjoying the World Series in Semi-Ignorance
Doesn't it always seem like you're gorging on Halloween candy during Game 4?By Bob Wire, 11-02-09
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| "If I'm curt with you, it's because time is a factor. I think fast, I talk fast, and I need you to act fast if you want to get out of this inning. So pretty please, with sugar on top, STEAL SECOND BASE." | |
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I am thoroughly digging this World Series, mostly as an educational event. That’s because I don’t have much of a stake in either team, beyond a mild dislike for the Yankees, and having a gonzo cartoonist/tattoo artist friend from Philadelphia. So I’m pulling for the Phillies, but when they lose a game I’m able to let it go by the time I climb out of the recliner to fetch a post-game barley pop.
As a casual baseball fan, I don’t even start to pay attention until the playoffs. Even then, I embarrass myself in conversations, with pronouncements like, “It would be kinda cool to see the Twins get back in the Series. Maybe Prince would sing the national anthem,” only to be told, “Yeaaaaaah. Um, they were swept in the divisionals two weeks ago, Mr. Baseball.”
I’m the first to admit that I don’t know a lot about our national pastime, or the crazy-ass lingo that goes with it. But I still like watching it. Up until last week, for example, I thought the “Mendoza line” was where you stood while waiting to purchase a “backdoor slider,” which I assumed was a greasy burrito. A “Baltimore chop” is not a slice of pork, I learned, and a “Texas Leaguer” is not a baseball team owner from the Bush family. I’m still being taken by surprise by these arcane, colorful terms. When I heard some announcer refer to a home run as a “dong,” I nearly spit out a mouthful of tater. So much to learn.
But now at least I have a firm grip on who’s playing, and I’ve been lucky enough to watch each of the first four games of the Series. I’m enthralled by the details, the quirks, the mystery and the drama. Like, for instance, why is Harvey Keitel coaching first base for the Phillies? When was he acquired from Detroit? And what’s up with the multiple beanings of A-Rod? Dude has more balls coming at him than Elton John.
CC Sabathia is fun to watch. At 6’7” and crowding 300 lbs, his pants flapping like a pair of jodhpurs, he’s truly imposing. He looks like a nose tackle trying to hit somebody with a golf ball. He looks like he ate Eddie Gaedel. But the best part is watching him bat. It’s like watching Shaq shoot free throws.
My favorite Yankee is Mariano Rivera. I love the fear and reverence that’s heaped on this guy, the most reliable “closer” in the game (and here I’d always thought the “closer” was the guy who swamped out Mendoza’s after hours). The snake-faced right-hander has more zeroes in his annual salary than there are people in the small village where Yankee scout Albert Brooks found him selling Toltec Ruins t-shirts in 1990. Like a Latin Chuck Norris, Rivera waits silently watchful in the dugout, spitting out small bits of testosterone until he is called up in the eighth or ninth inning to come in and save the day. Seriously, the guy is so good he can strike a batter out with only two pitches. Rivera made $15,000,000 this year, and most Hollywood screenwriters delivered more pitches than he did.
The Yankees, of course, probably have that much money in their change jar on the dresser. That’s why there’s a ton of pressure on them to win this (and every) World Series. George Steinbrenner sends his army of scouts worldwide every off-season, their backpacks stuffed with cash and green cards. They spare no expense to assemble a team that is so crowded with superstars, they had to build a second stadium just to hold the ego overflow. They’ll stop at nothing: I saw on ESPN this morning that the Yankees have just purchased the entire Dominican Republic.
And yet they haven’t won it all since the Subway Series of 2000, when they beat the Mets in five games. This year’s Series is the 105th, and the Yankees have won 26 of them. That’s just crazy. That’s one out of every four. Ridiculous, but not so impressive when you consider that from 1904 to 1972, there were only three other teams in the league: the Albuquerque Paraplegics, the Lake Charles Lepers, and the Cleveland Indians.
Of course, the players aren’t the only interesting things to watch. TV technology makes huge leaps forward every year. Fox Sports has the capability to track a baseball from the pitcher’s hand to the catcher’s glove, and show if it passes in or out of the strike grid. Well, hello, if we HAVE this technology, why do we still have umpires and referees out there? I guess it wouldn’t be all that entertaining to see a manager get into a red-faced, dirt-kicking, spit-spraying argument with an inanimate digital device. (You want to see that? Give Windows 7 about three weeks.)
I’m still not used to seeing Johnny Damon in a Yankees uniform, because like everyone else caught up in the Red Sox resurgence of 2004, I had a man-crush on the jaunty outfielder with the rugged Cro-Magnon good looks and the flowing locks. But after he left the Sox when Steinbrenner jiggled a wheelbarrow full of diamonds and a Bic razor under his nose, I lost interest and moved on.
But he’s back in the Series, wearing the pinstripes and ready to play the hero for his team. I was baffled by the play in Game 4 when Damon beat the throw while stealing second base, and suddenly took off for third. I mean, the goddamn baseman was standing RIGHT THERE, with the ball in his hand! If any of us do this in D-league softball, we are immediately tagged out by the bemused third baseman, the play is scored as a “bonehead,” and we leave the field hanging our head, walking directly to the parking lot where we get in our car and drive home.
But here was Damon, bolting for third like he knew something we didn’t. He did. There was nobody on third. Not even a “back in 5 min.” post-it note. I replayed the sequence several times, trying to figure out what the hell was going on. Did the third baseman’s contract expire during the commercial? I was picking up the phone to text Eli, my sports guru bud, when the announcer said that the third baseman had abandoned the bag to cover second because of a “defensive shift.” Well, that explained why he wasn’t there, I thought, setting down the phone. But I had always thought a defensive shift was something you did to maintain your place in the Mendoza line.
So watching this World Series is frequently baffling, but always entertaining. But, rather than constantly searching the internet like a porn addict with priapism, or feeling guilty about my ignorance of the game, I just brush it off and bask in the constant stream of enlightenment that comes with every inning I watch. And there’s a lot of it, because the announcers have to fill a lot of standing-around time. That’s what baseball is: 96% dicking around between pitches, spitting, scratching your junk, shooting snot out of one nostril using the “gym teacher’s handkerchief,” and 4% panicky, pajama-crapping excitement.
Here we go: top of the ninth, Rivera is slinking onto the field, ready to strike out the last two Philly batters, ending their hopes of evening the Series at two games apiece. Rivera toes the rubber, focusing his reptilian gaze on the catcher’s crotch.
I feel a backdoor slider coming on.
[Boy, it sure feels like this blog went seven games. Bookmark NewWest.net/BobWire and make it a part of a healthy breakfast. Like rum and orange juice.]
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