Thougths on .... Baseball

Note to followers - I'm noticing a pattern emerging of something odd happens in my life, I mull it over and then decide to write here.   Guess things were fairly manageable the last two months.  eah)

My life really does seem to be on some kind of cycle.  I won't go into all that now, just to mention the first two weeks of March are preoccupied with the Iditarod.  It runs 24-7 and I can follow it via a website that includes videos and gps tracking on the sleds.   Then there's a lull and now, it's Baseball!

Nick and I are big baseball fans.  We met in the summer of 1967 - the Red Sox Impossible Dream season.  We can separately and together tell you more than you want to know about the World Series that year.  The first time we watched Ken Burn's 9 part program (rumor has it he's going into extra innings - yay!), at Inning 8, John Chancellor asked, so why didn't they win?  Without hesitating, we both yelled at the TV, Bob Gibson.  

In 1969, we moved to northern california, four years here, four in Philly area and then back here.  Still Red Sox fans.   But the Sox only come out twice a year to play the A's.  Somewhere along the line, I went from hating the A's to loving them.  Periodically, I get bugged for liking two American League teams.  I used to have two grey cats.   I understand that black and white in photography can be beautiful; I know that the world exists in infinite tones of colors.  The same holds for politics, food, religion and sports.   We have team ranking in our household.   We don't quite agree on 2 and 3, so this is my flavor:
1.  Red Sox   2. Athletics  3. whoever is playing the Yankees  4.  whoever is playing the Angels.
I also like the Mariners and the Phillies (Ichiro is amazing and as I said, we lived in Philly for a while.)  

Borealis and Denali almost were named Scutaro (Marco) and Swisher (Nick).  Both were traded from the A's before the kittens were born.  Black day when Nick S ended up with the Yankees.  But love the sight of Scutaro in a Red Sox.uniform. 

Hopefully, people who keep harassing me (yeah, happened yesterday) about this dual allegiance will read this and stop.  Yeah, I know, you never reach the people you want to reach with such messages.  so it goes.

Meanwhile why baseball?  Why cats?  What, you say??  Seriously, in both, there are long periods of calm followed by brief moments of absolute excitement!   Never know when the snoozing cats will decide to play steeplechase over you and around the house.   Nothing like that crack of ball on bat and a home run.  

The last year or so, I've become a fan of the TNT show Leverage.   It's kind of a Mission Impossible or A-Team meets Robin Hood.  The fact that it's based in Boston is a side-plus.  In this past season's finale, the crew needs a baseball team as part of the con.  Elliot (Christian Kane, previously Lindsey on Angel, a completely different role) is the extraction expert, ie "hitter"  ( the others are hacker, grifter, thief, mastermind) has to become a catcher with a AA team.  He's protesting that he doesn't like any sport where you can't score on defense.  And then he's in a game, and then he gets a walk-off hit.  (That means, he gets a runner in to score and win the game, in the bottom of the ninth inning.)   The leader Nate (Tim Hutton) says to the rest of the crew - good news/bad news:  the con is working; we've lost Elliot until the playoffs.

See, that's the allure of baseball.  It happened in the season opener Red Sox/Yankees on Sunday; it happened last night A's/Mariners.    Someday, I'd love to have a baseball film festival - The Natural, A League of Their Own, Bull Durham (hmm, just got Thelma and Louise!), Field of Dreams.   Might have to throw in Remember the Titans (different sport, same heart and Denzel.)

And now I look at the time and think, if I try, I can prepare for tonight's meeting and watch the first hour of the last Red Sox - Yankees game before leaving!  Go Red Sox!

                  Esther


© 2010 Esther A. Heller