10 Aug 2010, by Eric
The fan was about fifty years old and if it weren’t for the beach ball we never would have noticed him at all. He had a regular middle-aged build, thinning hair, and two boys – maybe twelve and fourteen years old – in tow. They sat across the aisle in our same row. For a few innings there was nothing exceptional about them.
Dodger Stadium will always be my home ballpark. I saw my first game there. I had childhood birthday parties there. I got Hideo Nomo’s autograph at the height of hysteria, I shook the hand of Tommy Lasorda, I walked past Vin Scully, I caught a ball thrown into the crowd by the cannon arm of my favorite player, Raul Mondesi. I even made a foolish vow to not eat another Dodger Dog until they won the World Series. I learned Dodger Stadium – the secrets of its many cavernous stairwells and the physics of its mile-long urinal troughs and the temperaments of its geriatric ushers – the way kids with different childhood interests learned the geography of Middle Earth.
But I was a child then. I appreciated the old scoreboard and the short-lived outfield wall murals and the even shorter-lived presence of King Taco concession stands. But I failed to appreciate the way the stadium’s tiers cascade over you like swooping cliffs when you’re seated at field level behind home plate. (Unless our tickets were for one of the outfield pavilions, which are disconnected from the rest of the stadium, we always snuck down to field level.) I failed to appreciate the unique natural scenery of a stadium literally carved into a small mountain. I failed to appreciate – or cringe at – the genuine meanness that Dodger fans are capable of when confronted with supporters of another team.
I also failed to appreciate the diversity of the Dodger Stadium crowd. It turns out that Chavez Ravine is a fine place for both baseball-watching and people-watching. The crowd is more varied, more eccentric, more bizarre, than any baseball crowd I’ve seen elsewhere – New York stadiums included. The diversity extends beyond race and class and age to fashion and attitude and the very aesthetics of how people pass their evenings. The diversity extends to the fan in the next aisle
He went unnoticed until a beach ball floated down from the Lodge section above. It bounced around once, twice, and finally landed in his lap. He stood up. He looked around. And slowly, without any expression of satisfaction or remorse or villainous superiority, he deflated it. A few people booed, reflexively. The game went on.
“Look at his shorts,” my mom whispered. And I saw them, they were short and white and cotton and their blue pinstripes matched the blue pinstripes on his Dodgers tee-shirt. The whole outfit appeared to have been purchased in the late 1970s. So did the identical shirt his younger son wore.
“What kind of guy wears clothes like that to a baseball game?” I asked. My parents and brothers shrugged He was probably a season ticket holder, we figured. Maybe the shorts and shirt were good luck charms. But wasn’t he cold? The Dodger Stadium breezes are deceptively chilling, even in the summertime.
We remembered that in the 1990s, my dad would bring home free Dodger tickets from work associates. The most common seats were on the second level, the Loge, and they were great. In front of us always sat the same 30-something, bespectacled man. He was noticeable because he always listened to the radio on giant headphones and because he always kept score and because he kept the seat beside him open – and on it he piled editions of Baseball Weekly and printouts of scouting reports and all kinds of other miscellanea. He ate copious amounts of junk food. And he was always alone. The empty seat was just for storage. There is no rule that says baseball has to be enjoyed with company, that it must be a social event. But it seemed so sad. He seemed so lonely.
The fan in the shorts was not lonely. He was, by all visible measures, having a great time with his family. And yet here he was, destroying a beach ball, staring seriously at the game, as if he could have prevented Hiroki Kuroda from allowing Will Venable to crush a 3-run homer by sheer meditative focus. So what was his deal? Did he lose a bet? Or was he just a character, the kind of aberration you see at any public place?
My evening at Dodger Stadium with (most of) the family got me thinking. It got me thinking about men like the fan in shorts and the fan with the empty seat and whether there is a right or wrong way to enjoy baseball. It got me thinking about what, exactly, makes for a positive or negative evening at the ballpark. It got me thinking about how we watch the game in person – in short, the Stadium Experience. For the foreseeable future, I’ll try and explore these things on the blog. Maybe we’ll even ask some friends to drop by and do the same.
King Taco image via flickr user Daniel Incandela
05 Aug 2010, by Ted
[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="The Blue Angels, via flickr user afferent"]
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In this podcast episode, we tangle with the awe-inspiring patriotism of the Blue Angels while discussing A-Rod's 600th home run and what records mean in the age of steroids, we discuss some of the trade deadline action, and get excited about Brad Pitt, Philip Seymour Hoffman and the improbably awesome-sounding Moneyball movie.
[podcast]http://roguesbaseballindex.com/pnp_podcasts/PnP_018.mp3[/podcast]
Links:
Joe Posnanski on milestones
Nolan Ryan and Co. buy the Rangers
Even Stevens starring Shia LaBeouf
The Blue Angels
Right click here to download the episode.
01 Aug 2010, by Ted
[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="image via Flickr user abbygdawson (click-through)"]
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You would be hard-pressed to find another franchise that's had a two-day period the likes of the Astros recent whirlwind. Not only in terms of volume of activity, but when you consider that the Astros traded away the two players who have defined the team for the last decade. Two pillars, gone, in two days.
As I mention occasionally, deep down I'm an Astros fan (despite a recent diversion to the Mariners). I grew up on them, cut my teeth in the Astrodome, etc. Lance Berkman has been one of my favorites since he played at Rice University in Houston. He's charming and self-deprecating ("I think any great performer or athlete has to have a little bit of a gut to be great." - from an interview with Dan Patrick). He has a sweet swing. In short, he's a great franchise player, who is both likable and awesome.
Oswalt isn't as likable, but his manner of pitching makes up for that. He's always had a somewhat distinct style, with his hard, straight fastball, excellent command and a loopy curveball. His stern-faced business-like manner was the counterweight to Berkman's more jovial nature.
Other Astros came and went--great players and nobodies--but there was always the feeling that Berkman and Roy-O would be around. They were the main planetary bodies and the rest of the team orbited around them. They were drafted by the Astros and came up with the Astros, signing large contracts when they didn't need to. If timelessness and aesthetic consistency is your baseball jam, then these two were Hall of Famers.
They're gone now. Both of them. In days. Even from my displaced POV, this is a shock. Like if your parents sold off your childhood home and moved to a condo without telling you. Reasonable, yes, and probably necessary. But strange and disconcerting nonetheless.
The sense that there's nowhere left to go home to. But that's growing up for you, and growing older, and the most any of us can do is make a home with what we have, right where we're at.
Today, I've got my Berkman t-shirt on. It's clean, and fits me well. And I look forward to see him wear Yankee pinstripes, odd as that may be to say. Great players should play on big stages, and though he's past his greatest days, his swing is still pretty and he does well what the Yankees like in their players: getting on base and playing well calmly. Same, too, for Roy Oswalt, though he'll be in the same league. He'll show some new fans what he does well, and that's something.
There is pleasure to be had in seeing something well-known and beloved in a different setting. You can't stand still, after all. You've got to move forward.
Jump to: it's a couple of days since I wrote the above. I've watched Berkman play in two games. In the first, he went oh-fer. Today, he had a ringing single. In a reverse of roles, I was as glad as a parent to see him get his first Yankee hit. Watching Lance make his way in the big wide world, out of the comfort zone of Houston. When others bestowed praise on him, I accepted it personally.
The brain adjusts quickly to change, even if previously the prospect seemed unbearable. My brain's new challenge is to accept the Lance Berkman of the Yankees, and the Roy Oswalt of the Phillies, and to get on with it, taking pleasure where I may as the Astros (slowly) nurture new heroes. After all, Chris Johnson's having a pretty good month....
22 Jul 2010, by Eric
For the last four months I've kept my Dodger fandom at arm's length. I've tried to stay cool, like an MI6 Agent or Steve McQueen or Big Pink era Bob Dylan, and for the most part I've pulled it off. I've engaged in the rest of the baseball world. I've put together a pretty good fantasy team (Clear Eyes, Full Hearts, Can't Lose!). I've held back the tears at each sight of Carlos Santana stepping to the plate in an Indians uniform.
But now it's over. Composure gone. After the skid to start the second half. After Joe Torre and his staff's low-budget reenactment of Custer's performance at Little Big Horn last night. And most especially after Chad "A New Hope" Billingsley's Complete Game Shutout of the Giants tonight, I am left unable to play it calm and collected. Despite my knowledge that things will likely end badly, that the season will collapse, that my dreams will be shattered, I am now embracing the turbulence. American League baseball be damned. Lebron James be damned. Senatorial primaries be damned. If you need access to my heart and mind in the next ten weeks, you'll find them wrapped up in the journey of the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Seatbelts.
Bonus link: Jon Weisman's amazing writeup of the Dodgers' meltdown against the Giants on Tuesday. He uses George Sherrill's middle name to great effect.
19 Jul 2010, by Paul
The author of this post is Paul Franz. Ted and I invited Paul to contribute to Pitchers and Poets with the idea that he would bring a new perspective. Already, he has wowed us by writing an insightful essay built around a poem by W.B. Yeats. Please welcome Mr. Franz to PnP with open arms. For more of his work check out Nicht Diese Töne. --Eric
There comes a moment in the career of a topflight ballplayer when he is no longer a star. The moment is often followed, in short measure, by an even more painful moment when the player is no longer even league average. Then he falls to replacement level or below. Finally, the player retires, often because no one will sign him, or because his team forces him to.
THAT is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees
- Those dying generations - at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.
Sometimes the process is protracted, like it was for Ken Griffey, Jr., whose injuries kept him off the field for the better part of the decade. The Kid pushed back into the All-Star Game and even found his way to the MVP discussion with big years towards the end of his stay in Cincinnati, but upon his return to Seattle he found himself unable to field, unable to run, and, increasingly, unable to hit.
Sometimes the collapse is more rapid, like it has been this year for Todd Helton. The Toddfather hasn't been a star for quite some time, but he was well above average last season, plugging along with his 10-20 homer bat and his consistently high, .400 plus OBP. While his body was clearly falling apart, only this year has Helton lost the rest: he's not walking as much, he's striking out more, and the power is all but gone.
An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.
It's at this unfortunate stage where a player's “character” and “leadership” start to stand out. Media, fans, and other players will talk about the wisdom of players like Griffey and Helton, their joy while playing the game, and their tremendous skill. They'll talk as if that skill is immortal, as if this season's numbers are only a blip, a slump that will undoubtedly end any game now. No doubt those magnificent numbers Griffey and Helton put up in the late 90s – when today's stars were watching after their Little League and Legion games – speak to the vain, unarticulated hopes of Franklin Gutierrez and Troy Tulowitzki: some players, great players, are different. Those players are forever.
It''s hard to blame someone who has spent his entire life being paid millions of dollars to do something because he was so much better at it than almost everyone else for refusing to believe that he can't do it anymore. You might as well ask a writer not to write, a musician not to play, or a chef not to cook. Baseball is, in fact, much crueler than that, because it is the realm of the young, caught up in body and motion and justly irreverent towards the stuffy work of the mind. What right has some number-cruncher to tell Griffey he's not good enough? What does Helton care for his line-drive percentage? It is difficult enough to ask for self-knowledge from any man or woman, let alone from a ballplayer.
Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.
No wonder so many baseball players stay in the game as announcers, coaches, and scouts. That innate knowledge is something they must share, because it is in leaving the game that they truly understand it. Meanwhile their statistics are engraved into the History of the Game, a testament to their superior ability. At last they are satisfied to take a less agile form, to leave the field quietly. A lucky few, like Griffey, will have busts made in Cooperstown, commemorating their prowess, and acknowledging that, really, they are the stuff of myth. For the rest, well, not everyone makes it to Byzantium