Tonight is a very special night, because tonight of all nights of the year is the night upon which Game 1 of the 2009 World Series will be played out between the New York Yankees and the Philadelphia Phillies at the Yankees’ brand-new, ritzy stadium. It is the culmination of a long 162-game, six-month season in which the field of contention was whittled down to just eight playoff teams – four each from the National and American Leagues. Then the Division Series whittled that down further to just two teams from each league, who battled it out in the League Championship Series. And now there are two, and we all know there can be only one champion.
The World Series is made up of seven games, and the first team to win four of them takes home the title of World Champion of Baseball (for instance, if the Phillies were to win the first four games, the next three would be irrelevant and thus never played). America is not the only country that plays baseball, but we invented it and have christened it as our national pastime – thus our championship series is the best and most closely watched in the world, and thus it is the World Series.
It is a magical time of year. Anything can happen in a baseball game in late October (although this will be only the second time that a World Series will have been played in the month of November; the first was in 2001, when the terrorist attacks delayed the season), and it usually does. One only needs to look back on the history of our World Series to see how exciting it can be.
The World Series has been played in one form or another for over a hundred years, since 1903. In 1904, the American League came into existence and the National League champion refused to play the AL champion because the former thought the latter inferior. Thus there was no World Series that year, and it only happened again once, in 1994, when pouty players went on strike in the summer, cutting short what would have been a fabulous season. But other than that, nothing – not even two world wars, economic and political unrest, and terrorism – has been able to strike out a World Series. We have almost always set our calendars for October, when the world stops (or should) to sit down and watch the World Series.
My fellow Houstonians know how exciting it is when the World Series finally comes to your town and your team. The Astros got there in 2005, and even though we got swept by Chicago’s White Sox, it was a ride of a lifetime for many of us fans. That’s the feeling that the New York and Philadelphia fans are cherishing right now (and the Philly fans are experiencing it for the second straight year).
You ask for exciting moments? None are more exciting than when the Series goes to a full seven games. The last time that happened was in 2001, when the Arizona Diamondbacks beat the Yankees with a base hit in their very final at-bat of the game. Since then, we’ve had mostly four-game sweeps and five-game outcomes – but it’s still exciting, because you never know.
There have been other dramatic moments. In 1993, the Toronto Blue Jays won the Series over the Phillies with a home run in Game 6 by Joe Carter – that hasn’t happened very often. Drama takes other forms, like when Yankees (and later Astros) pitcher Roger Clemens picked up a broken piece of bat and chunked it at New York Mets catcher Mike Piazza (neither liked the other very much) during a game in the 2000 All-New York City “Subway Series”. It snowed in a World Series, in Cleveland in 1997. More frighteningly, there was an earthquake in the 1989 World Series between the Oakland Athletics and San Francisco Giants – the big Loma Prieta earthquake in San Francisco. The quake struck just as the teams were about to start playing, and the drama was caught on live national television.
There were other great moments in the days before any television cameras could picked them up. In 1932, Babe Ruth, the greatest ballplayer of them all, called, as legend would have it, his own home run before he hit it at Chicago’s Wrigley Field. I say “legend” because the stories of the event vary. I personally believe he did, because the Babe was that kind of a ballplayer. His equally legendary teammate Lou Gehrig hit a home run immediately after that, but no one remembered because they were too busy talking about the “called shot”.
I have some history in the World Series. No, I’ve never played in one, though I would have liked to. My great-grandfather, Joe Boley, a light-hitting, slick-fielding shortstop for the Philadelphia Athletics, went along for the ride as his team went to every World Series from 1929 to 1931, winning it twice. In 1929, he singled and scored a run in a furious 10-runs-in-one-inning Athletics comeback over the Cubs. Those A’s teams were some of the best you never hear about, with such greats on them as Jimmie Foxx, Al Simmons, Lefty Grove, Mickey Cochrane, and manager Connie Mack.
There are other moments I’m thinking of. In 1956, pitcher Don Larsen of the Yankees did what nobody else has ever done in a World Series – limit the opposing team to exactly no hits, no runs, and no bases reached on fielding errors. In baseball nomenclature they call this a “perfect game”, and Don did it in ’56 to the crosstown rival Brooklyn Dodgers.
What magical moments await us this year? Nobody knows for sure. What I do know is that I will planted firmly in front of my television set, watching this year’s World Series from start to finish. Why don’t you join me, in spirit if not in person? It’s televised on a national network, as it always is. Oh, and by the way – I’m rooting for the Phillies.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Re-Connecting; or, Hello Again
Many of you will not know what this is. A very few of you will have a very momentary feeling of déjà vu, as if you have seen or experienced something vaguely like this before; but that will quickly dissipate. If there is any one out there who immediately recognizes this and has any kind of familiar reaction to it (whether of welcome or disgust), I would be surprised. In fact, I myself have trouble reacquainting myself with what this is, even though I probably should know it best.
I will say it slowly, lest the brain of the reader not be able to process it all at once. Well, actually, I will type it at normal speed and ask the reader to read it slowly lest they not be able to process it all at once.
This is a blog entry.
Some of you will have completely collapsed out of your computer chair at this point. Depending on your frame of mind and on your personal level of clumsiness, you will also have knocked the computer chair itself over, or caused the computer monitor to shake (or even fall over), or thrown the computer tower onto the floor, or ripped the mouse out of the USB port in the back of the computer, or hurled the keyboard up into the air, or spit out whatever it was you were drinking or eating all over the keyboard or monitor. If this is indeed the case, I will pause (or ask the reader to pause, since word processing is not at all like music and cannot stop for anyone) and allow the shocked reader to take the necessary measures to restore their computer area to some semblance of normalcy.
Now then, I will repeat it – this is a blog entry. There was a time – long, long ago – when I used to publish such things rather regularly. I have so completely fallen out of that habit as to run the risk of forgetting how to write and of convincing my former readers that I had given up the activity forever. The purpose of this particular blog entry is to break that vicious cycle, begin the old habit anew, recover and restore my writing ability, and assure the not-so-crowded public square that I have not and shall not give up writing.
It shouldn’t be surprising that things got this way. Amid all the getting up early two out of five weekdays to go to school, spending all day at school once I’m there, reading in my free time, working on assignments, and studying for or taking tests, I have a lot less time than I used to have for thinking of and writing new blog entries. It’s not that I have a shortage of material, but a shortage of time. I am sure there are plenty of things I could write about at least a couple times a week. Even if there weren’t, my readers know well my penchant for what we in the business call a placebo – a misleadingly dressed-up version of the real thing that really has no substance to it.*
In any event, this blog entry represents a renewal of my efforts to write more regularly. That is not to say that it is a good entry, for anytime you are coming off a couple of months in which you published all of two blog entries, you do not exactly have a wealth of momentum at your back. I am writing, shall we say, with that same spirit that swells in the heart of the one who, not having had a campfire in a long time, decides to build one in his backyard.** The effect is nothing like the real thing, but it so sufficiently reminds one of the real thing that he or she immediately purposes that they will go camping in the near future, and that they shall have a real campfire, rain or shine.
And so, I hope, future blog entries will soon seem more like real blog entries. I hope to make time to write and eventually get back into the old swing of things. It always does me good to fashion my impressions of everyday life into something I can share with others. My days have been a little less enriched for not having done so as often as before. Here’s hoping I can get back in the habit in earnest.
*Author’s Note: I am fully aware that “placebo” is a term used only in the medical profession. I do not mean to imply that I am a doctor, nor that I play one on television. Literalists should note that the sentence herein duly noted by the author is what we in the business call a tongue-in-cheek joke – one that you either get or don’t get. Whether you do or don’t is out of the author’s hands.
**Author’s Note: Some of you may be taken aback (or even appalled) at the idea that any civilized person could or would make a campfire in their backyard. As a denizen of that most uncivilized place, Rosharon, let me assure you that it is not as uncommon as all that. In our neighborhood, fires in backyards are as common as automobiles on cement blocks and old refrigerators on front porches. We burn wood, trash, grass, and anything else we may not need or want at the moment. And I have actually had a campfire in my front yard. I believe it was on Christmas Day, at that.
I will say it slowly, lest the brain of the reader not be able to process it all at once. Well, actually, I will type it at normal speed and ask the reader to read it slowly lest they not be able to process it all at once.
This is a blog entry.
Some of you will have completely collapsed out of your computer chair at this point. Depending on your frame of mind and on your personal level of clumsiness, you will also have knocked the computer chair itself over, or caused the computer monitor to shake (or even fall over), or thrown the computer tower onto the floor, or ripped the mouse out of the USB port in the back of the computer, or hurled the keyboard up into the air, or spit out whatever it was you were drinking or eating all over the keyboard or monitor. If this is indeed the case, I will pause (or ask the reader to pause, since word processing is not at all like music and cannot stop for anyone) and allow the shocked reader to take the necessary measures to restore their computer area to some semblance of normalcy.
Now then, I will repeat it – this is a blog entry. There was a time – long, long ago – when I used to publish such things rather regularly. I have so completely fallen out of that habit as to run the risk of forgetting how to write and of convincing my former readers that I had given up the activity forever. The purpose of this particular blog entry is to break that vicious cycle, begin the old habit anew, recover and restore my writing ability, and assure the not-so-crowded public square that I have not and shall not give up writing.
It shouldn’t be surprising that things got this way. Amid all the getting up early two out of five weekdays to go to school, spending all day at school once I’m there, reading in my free time, working on assignments, and studying for or taking tests, I have a lot less time than I used to have for thinking of and writing new blog entries. It’s not that I have a shortage of material, but a shortage of time. I am sure there are plenty of things I could write about at least a couple times a week. Even if there weren’t, my readers know well my penchant for what we in the business call a placebo – a misleadingly dressed-up version of the real thing that really has no substance to it.*
In any event, this blog entry represents a renewal of my efforts to write more regularly. That is not to say that it is a good entry, for anytime you are coming off a couple of months in which you published all of two blog entries, you do not exactly have a wealth of momentum at your back. I am writing, shall we say, with that same spirit that swells in the heart of the one who, not having had a campfire in a long time, decides to build one in his backyard.** The effect is nothing like the real thing, but it so sufficiently reminds one of the real thing that he or she immediately purposes that they will go camping in the near future, and that they shall have a real campfire, rain or shine.
And so, I hope, future blog entries will soon seem more like real blog entries. I hope to make time to write and eventually get back into the old swing of things. It always does me good to fashion my impressions of everyday life into something I can share with others. My days have been a little less enriched for not having done so as often as before. Here’s hoping I can get back in the habit in earnest.
*Author’s Note: I am fully aware that “placebo” is a term used only in the medical profession. I do not mean to imply that I am a doctor, nor that I play one on television. Literalists should note that the sentence herein duly noted by the author is what we in the business call a tongue-in-cheek joke – one that you either get or don’t get. Whether you do or don’t is out of the author’s hands.
**Author’s Note: Some of you may be taken aback (or even appalled) at the idea that any civilized person could or would make a campfire in their backyard. As a denizen of that most uncivilized place, Rosharon, let me assure you that it is not as uncommon as all that. In our neighborhood, fires in backyards are as common as automobiles on cement blocks and old refrigerators on front porches. We burn wood, trash, grass, and anything else we may not need or want at the moment. And I have actually had a campfire in my front yard. I believe it was on Christmas Day, at that.
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