April 2, 2007 — 11:15 AM
20th Opening Day
I woke up slowly today, paging through veils of consciousness as the NPR Subconscious News Programme played in my bedroom. In my heart, though, I knew that today was Opening Day, a day for the return of Spring, a day for the Resurrection of Baseball and my own personal Easter. I went through my bag twice this morning to make sure I had all the needed parts: tickets. camera. batteries for camera. scoresheet. rosters. cash. wallet. laptop. All the piece assembled, I walked out of the door, once again 9 years old in April of 1988 when Dad, Erik and I drove into Oakland from Davis.
We walked up to the tippy top of the Coliseum, as our season ticket plan (much like my own now) did not include Opening Day, and so we headed up to Bob Uecker's seats and enjoyed a night in the chill of Spring, watching through binoculars as our A's beat the Mariners 4-1. Dave Stewart pitched against Mark Langston, going eight and a third, allowing just one earned run. Hendu homered. Canseco homered. The A's would win 104 games that year. Walt Weiss was rookie of the year. But, most of all, it began my love affair with the game that continues even today.
Happy Opening Day everyone. See You at the Ballpark!
October 10, 2006 — 11:03 PM
A Paucity
The Playoffs continue apace tonight, with the A's down by five in the seventh, causing my ulcer to flare up a bit and make me squirm. The worst part of the playoffs is the announcing, though. No one out there can match the poetic eloquence of Vin Scully. No one can match the exuberant enthusiasm of Bill King, may he rest in peace. There isn't one member of the Fox's post-season team that carries the broadcast well.
Lou Piniella is a hack, much like his career as a manager, no surprise there. Brennenman and Lyons and Myers are just no-name broadcasters filling up seats while the talented folks like Jon Miller remain at home.
Why do network broadcasters have to suck this much? There are so many good radio announcers out there, why can't they just bring in the best available radio personalities? Bob Uecker. Vin Scully. Lon Simmons. Jon Miller. This is just off the cuff, mind you. Go get them, we'll all benefit from it. Bring back some of the poetry of the game, and not the foolish sculduggery that I'm hearing come from my television.
August 30, 2006 — 12:08 AM
Moments of Relief
Been a really tough day. Now, at the end of it, when I've beaten the mail server back into submission, I turn on the TV to catch...
The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball.
As America's rolled by like an army of steamrollers, it's been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again.
Baseball has marked the time.
This field, this game, it's a part of our past, Ray. It reminds us of all that once was good, and could be again. Ohhhh, people will come Ray.
People will most definitely come.
I love baseball. I love that movie. I love the symbolism of that Quixotic quest of Ray's, to do the unthinkable. It makes me weep with the joy and love of the game.
Thank you, James Earl Jones. Thank you, W.P. Kinsella.
April 16, 2006 — 3:23 PM
The Zen of the Game
Anyone who's ever attended a baseball game with me knows that I am a practitioner of the ancient art of scoring a game. I have a large notebook with tabloid sized sheets of paper with which I track the progress of any baseball game. It's become a zen art for me, tracking each pitch (ball or called/swinging/foul strike), number of pitches in an atbat, end result of the atbat, how it all went down. It's not so much that I seek to reconstruct the game later, or that I'm interested in season statistics, it's that I love the artistry of the whole thing.
Scoring a game is like good calligraphy. It edifies and instructs as well as looks beautiful.
Robert sent me a great piece on the life of MLB.com stringers who score the games as they happen and power ESPN's system as well as the one on MLB.com, and it's just fascinating. Talk about distilling baseball down to its barest points! Go read, it's worth it.
April 11, 2006 — 7:44 PM
Opening Day
Today was Opening Day for the Nationals at RFK, and Tiffany and I went with our friends Adam and Lynne, as well as Ben D, and Ian. The experience left me wanting for the first time since we were harassed over and over again for Steve Karsay's first pitch ball in Oakland in the early 1990s. I won't go into the details right now, but I will mention the one thing that I can think about now that makes me smile:
The Nats' Backup Catcher is Wiki Gonzalez. Awesome.
March 12, 2006 — 11:47 AM
Days Two, Three and Part of Four
Day Two saw us in Surprise to watch the A's face the Royals in a Split Squad Game. The weather was unseasonably cool on Friday, with high in the upper 50s. Of course, I wore shorts. And a jacket. The winds were picking up the dust off the dry valley floor making a haze that was absolutely uncapturable in digita, but was absolutely amazing.
Rich Harden looked damn good, through into the upper nineties with his rocket-man fastball. Sadly, though, they pulled him after 50 pitches and 3 innings, leaving the game in the hands of the A's bullpen which was promptly clubbed like a baby seal. The A's lost 9-4, though I found this game much easier to score despite all the craziness. Not being a National League Game, there were no positional switches in the order, just simple substitutions.
Day Three saw some of the most bizarre weather I've seen lately, with snow falling on Black Canyon City. For the first time in over 20 years. Sadly, the White Sox/Padres game was rained out, so we headed back to home base to recover and get warm. This also involved some MacGyvering of the telephony kit here in BCC, as the line running from the demark to the house was damaged in what appears to be a gardening incident. We first noticed that the voice line wasn't particularly working, and that the internet was a bit more slow than usual. Cursory inspection of the demark showed the cable into the house was nearly severed. I was unable to restore telephone service, but the DSL here appears to still be working. I am not really honestly sure why the internet is working if the telephone is not, unless they are pair shifting the phone and data here. In a bit, we're going out with some electrical tape, wire-strippers and some other accoutrements and we're going to try to patch the voice capability in for the time being.
Day Four is today, and that means we're headed back to Surprise to see the A's battle the Rangers this time in yet another Split Squad Game. Then it's off the airport and back to warm DC.
Baseball is a great thing, and I've enjoyed this preview, but it's sad to leave and wait nearly a month for it to happen in DC again.
March 8, 2006 — 4:19 PM
Rituals and Memories
Every year for the last three or four, I've flown to Phoenix to meet my parents for Spring Training Baseball and a nice preview of what the warm weather will be like in Washington once the seasons shape up. It's become part of a ritual for me, the celebration of the Lent of Baseball. Though perhaps Advent might be more apt, the length of Spring Training is more akin to Lent, not to mention the suffering that we take part in as the rosters thin, and we discover dormant injuries and watch the human drama of the new squad.
We sit in the sunshine at Surprise or Peoria or Papago Park, the green of the outfield soothing the remaining rawness of winter from our eyes, the red rocks of the American West reminding us of the great frontiers that this nation has. Baseball is a collection of rituals and traditions. To say otherwise is to ignore the nuance that makes the game great.
Players have their rituals; Nomar Garciaparra has a whole at-bat ritual that I'm told takes up to 45 minutes to complete if he accidentally steps out of the batter's box. Sure, some of that is superstition, but it also brings a familiarity and consistency to the moment, a guide for focusing one's self prior to action. Outfielders will sweep the short grass with their feet and reposition before the next pitch. Pitchers will walk around the mound, grab the rosin bag, and touch their cap twice.
Managers have theirs, too, much like it seems that Frank Robinson has this ritual whereby he removes the pitcher at exactly the wrong moment, just after he's given up the grand slam, or in the middle of the at-bat when the hurler has pitched himself back to 2-2 against the opposing team's slugger.
But I think fans have the best rituals. Many of us cart out notebooks with our own scribblings, a scoresheet and a pencil sharpened down to its last inch to track the game's progress for our edification. We come, game after game, through the same gate, marching up the many stairs and ramps to our seats, sitting with the same family of people year in and year out, cheering for the same team, despite changes in roster and position. We read the box scores each morning. We live and die by our team's efforts.
So I come to the grand western frontier, amongst the red rocks and saguaros as part of my preparation rituals for this game. I learn how to watch and score again. I learn how to spot a rookie who might just have what it takes. I listen to the soundtrack from the Natural as we drive the desert highway south from Black Canyon City into Phoenix, letting Randy Newman's horns and violins sing out and exult in the triumph of fictional Roy Hobbs. The open fifths are reminiscent of Copland and the grand tradition of Cowboy Music.
I read the work of Kinsella and others, rejoicing in the rich and mysterious tradition of this game that is the same from its invention over a hundred years past. Baseball does mark the time, despite this nation of steamrollers and its even passing army of progress. The game that was my grandfather's at Crosly field in Cincinnati in the damp heat of the summer, that is my father's and his memories of the Big Red Machine, and became mine with the late 1980s Oakland Athletics will be my children's game, and their children's game, as well.
So I begin my ritual with a long flight and some introspection. Music, memories of Dave Parker, Kirby Puckett, Mark McGwire, Ron Hassey, Tom Candiotti. Charley and Sandy who sat behind us at the Coliseum then Adam and Lynne, Rob and Mr. Terio, our friends at RFK. The lawyer who got mustard on his tie (I was 12, Erik was 11, we gave 'em hell. It was great.) Seats Bob Uecker would've turned down, but we loved (Opening Day, 1988, Oakland Coliseum) and Cold nights in Oakland in September. Walking down out the portal into the great view at Camden Yards my first year in DC, then snow there in 2003 on opening day and the coldest I've ever been at a baseball game. Sunburned in Kansas City with my cousin Paul at Kauffman Stadium. Jacobs Field with Decesare and the gang (despite a rain delay, and then the sandwiches aftewards). Wrigley with Dan Daily, John LaRaia and Imran (I still have no recollection how we made it back that night. Really.) and games at the old horrible Cinergy Field in Cincinnati.
Baseball is a game of memories and rituals. Tomorrow my Dad and I will sit in the stands somewhere, score the game, and remember Bill King on the AM radio so many summers ago. We'll revive our love for the game with those who make it their living.
Listening to: The Whammer Strikes Out from the album “Natural” by The Natural Soundtrack - Randy Newman
Technorati Tags: arizona, baseball, Oakland A's, rituals, spring training
March 7, 2006 — 11:09 PM
Touch 'em All, Kirby, Touch 'em All.
I was driving up to Bethesda this afternoon to retrieve the newly repaired Lysander (thank you John) and I managed to catch part of the Venezuela/Dominican Republic game on XM Radio. It seemed that not an inning went by that someone didn't remember Kirby Puckett today, and I think that's an amazing thing. Kirby was a great ballplayer. He didn't look the part, but his giant smile, incredible bat-speed and ever present work ethic made up for whatever he lacked in the looks department.
When I was much younger, Kirby was the star for the Minnesota Twins, my grandfather's favorite team. I remember long summer nights spend sitting on the floor of their house up north of Duluth watching the Twins and Kirby Puckett play. Though I was a through and through A's fan, even then at the age of ten, Puckett transcended rivalries, he was the guy you just loved rooting for because he loved the game so much.
I remember in 1991, it didn't look so good for the Twins. They were down 3 games to 2 in the World Series against the hated Braves and their corny tomahawk chop, and Kirby Puckett said that the Twins were going to force a game seven that night in Minneapolis. Puckett was the soul of that squad, and sure enough, he robbed a Brave of a homer in the ninth to force extra innings and hit the home run in the 11th that forced that game 7.
They replayed that famous call as Puckett's home run went over the fence at the Metrodome, the announcer's voice raising in pitch and volume with it, "Touch 'em all Kirby! Touch 'em all!"
Godspeed, Kirby. Touch'em all.
I am off to Spring Training in the morning, expect lots of baseball themed posts.
February 16, 2006 — 10:16 PM
First Day of Spring
On the way home from a client today, I listened to Charlie Steiner and Jon Miller just talk about life and baseball on XM. Suffice it to say that I am suffused with baseball joy today. Listening to baseball announcers, especially good ones like Jon Miller, is a treat we are cruelly deprived of in the winter, and to listen to those old friends talk tonight, it awoke the senses. Suddenly, I could smell hot peanuts, and the damp hot of summer at RFK. I could hear the stadium announcer at the Coliseum introducing Mark McGwire, and I am 10 years old again at the ballpark with my brother and father.
The Lent of Baseball is here, the days when we wait in joyful hope for the return of baseball players, and the game we love. Cherish them.
Technorati Tags: baseball
January 20, 2006 — 2:34 PM
Winter Moments of Hope
I've been sent a few emails today about the article in today's Post about the gift of a lifetime pass, which is really phenomenal.
We're in the Lent of baseball, waiting in joyful hope for the coming of the new Season. This is when I miss the games the most, when it's cold and dark out, when all I want is to hear the voice of the announcer over the roar of the crowd. Read, and enjoy.
