10 Things I Love About Baseball

I'm watching the Padres and Cubs on ESPN in my room at the Warwick Hotel in Houston.  The Pads are down by four at the moment.  Uh-huh.  They are coming off the best May in their history and the best in baseball this year.  They're in first, three games ahead of the Damn Diamondbacks.  I am a fan.  Actually a fan of the game, though the Padres are my team because I live just a handfull of blocks from Petco Park.  I was a Braves fan when I lived in Atlanta and I'd proabaly be a Brewers fan if I lived in Milwaukee. 

It all began with the Braves, actually, in 1965.  That was the year they moved to Atlanta from Milwaukee.  Their stars were Hank Aaron, Eddie Mathews, Phil Neikro, Filipe Alou and Tony Clonniger.  For years the team sucked, but we didn't care:  they were ours.  I went to many ballgames at Atlanta Stadium where there were six or eight thousand fans.  Those games were soooo fun.  You could buy a cheap bleacher seat and easily wander down a row or two behind home plate.  Nobody cared.  They were just grateful that you came out to see the hapless Braves.  In fact, they were called the Hapless Braves so often that for awhile everyone thought that was actually their name:  the Hapless Braves. 

Ted Turner bought the team and they continued to suck, but Ted, the innovator, made the brilliant decision to broadcast Braves games on his cable Super Station.  Now the Braves had fans everywhere . . . but there was even less incentive for people in Atlanta to drive into town for the games.  They'd just watch them on TV like the rest of the country.  Soon we were calling the Atlanta Braves (who had been the Hapless Braves), the 'Video Braves.'  Like the Jews and like the mythical team in Phillip Roth's 'Great American Novel,' the Braves seemed desitened to play all of their games on the road with the video feed of their usually horrendous performance beamed into millions of households around the country. 

Jeeze it was great.  I remember sitting behind home plate with a few thousand other fans when Al Hrabowski, the Mad Hungarian, came in in releif for the Cardinals.  My brother and I would be dead drunk by then and we'd be screaming at Mad Al from our stolen perch behind the Umpire.  One night, I remember Al -- who had been unsuccessfully projecting his consciousness into the ball in his between-batter psych outs -- began to notice us.  He glared at us,  He made a face or two.  He spit and grabbed his crotch.  All of which incited us to be even more vocal.  I remember feeling bad about that as we staggered to our car.  Truth is we liked Mad Al.  He was one of the people who made Baseball interesting. 

It's now 5-0 Cubs in my Padre game . . . top of the 7th.

When I lived in Orange and LA Counties, I gave up on baseball.  I didn't get into the Angels or the Dodgers (ooooh I hated the Dodgers) and weened off the Braves too.  But on our arrival in San Diego, my interest was rekindled.  Especially in the winning season of 1997. 

The Pads were trying to convince the voters to build them a great new ballpark and do another absurd ticket guarantee.  They knew they needed a winner to sway the vote in their favor . . . so they did the most American of things:  they went out and bought a winning team. 

They stocked up with high priced free agents and fielded a very different team that year.  Bruce Bochy finally had something to work with, however short lived the new stars' tenure.  And they did it.  They won the NL West Title, and beat the Braves to win the Championship Series.  But when they faced the Yankees in the World Series, they were easily swept. 

Ce La Vie.  We didn't care.  They'd given us more thrills that year than we'd ever had from baseball . . . and we turned out in throngs to vote for that new stadium.  They ploy worked.  The voters proved to be as easily led as the team owners believed and the Padres were given a new ballpark, gratis. 

The city has terrible financial problems now, due in part to this bit of corporate sports manipulation . . . and I have difficulty forgetting that.  But hey:  the Padres are winning this year and somehow it starts to hurt less and less. 

I'm the only person in town who doesn't like the new ballpark.  Although it's been praised as intimate, classic and beautiful, I find it cold, steep and far removed form the players on the field.  I actually thing the lower level of the old Quaalcom Stadium was more intimate. 

But I'm spoiled.  I've been to Fenway Park.  At a conference a few years back, I went to a Boston Red Sox game at Fenway and it was the most perfect baseball experience of my life.  I knew neither of the teams and couldn't of cared less who won . . . but that ballpark, that cathedral of the game . . . I could have watched female jello wrestling there and raved about it.  If you like baseball at all, you owe it to yourself to make it to at least one Red Sox game at Fenway.  You will understand why Baseball is a great game like you've never understood before.  It is a near religious experience. 

This year I'm all excited about a few players:  Ramon Hernandez, the catcher with the hair who delivers.  Khalil Greene, the little surfer kid who is an absolute wizard at short-stop.  Trevor Hoffman, hell's bells and all, who is now number three in the all time rankings for saves.  Wow. 

But that's all about ME . . . and it's all background crap.  Without further delay, her are my 10 favorite things about baseball. 

10.  Action in the stands can be as interesting as action on the field.  I've seen men dump full cups of beer on women in their quest for a foul ball.  I've seen fights between guys who were friends before the game.  I once saw a Braves fan bite part of an ear off a Cincinatti fan. 

9.  Hispanic ball players.  Yes, the white guys are hot and the black guys are hot . . and even the handful of Japanese guys are ok;  but the Hispanic guys, the latte colored ones with the perfect skin who look so good in the white home uniforms . . . Oh my oh my oh my. 

8.  Personal ideosyncracies of ballplayers.  Whether it's a spitting ritual or a crotch pulling ritual or a special way of crossing themselves before batting, ballplayers seem to have more weirdness about them than rock stars. 

7.  Good pitchers.  Oh, it's true:  a wonderful pitcher at the top of his game is a beauty to behold.  The concentration, the graceful wind and the explosive delivery . . . it is ballet in dirt. 

6.  Triples.  Not doubles or homers;  triples.  A double is a long and lucky single, a homer is wonderful but involves nothing more than knocking the ball outa the park.  Triples . . . not there's a thing of beauty.  The ball must remain in play, but must be so well placed as to take a long time for the outfileder to recover and throw the ball back into play.  Triples are like orgasms . . . 'nuff said.

5.  The food.  I don't care where you get it, no dog is as good as a ballpark dog.  No beer is as refreshing and never have you tasted better peanuts.  Just keep it coming.  The crap you consume should cost as much as the ticket you used to get into the place. 

4.  The asses.  I'm not going to elaborate.  I don't think I have to.  You know what I mean. 

3.  The laundry.  How the hell do they get those white home uniforms clean after a night of sweating, slides and grass stains? 

2.  The nature of the game.  It's about head and heart, cerebral and emotional.  Rarely does the physical dictate excellence.  Again:  look at Khalil.  What a phenom.  But he's a little bitty kid, a baby.  Young and small he brings it every time he plays. 

1.  At times, during the course of a 3 hour game, I can become sufficiently involved to completely forget all of the pressures and worries of my day to day life.  Now, That's entertainment.