Sports Roundup

Here are some semi-disassociated thoughts concerning sport; other than that, do not look for a theme.

Very recently, I stumbled upon a very perceptive piece online, written fittingly enough in The American Spectator’s website, by a local writer with the equally fitting name of Larry Thornberry. Thornberry at long last gives a name to the condition that all true blue baseball fans suffer from round about now: BWS (Baseball Withdrawal Syndrome). Since Brad Lidge of the Phillies recorded the last out at 9:59PM on October 29 (much to my delight, but much to Larry’s considerable consternation, I’m sure), we have both been turning to Major League Baseball’s website, where vintage games and a selection from 2008 have been available for free. And we both pay particular attention, it seems, to the older games, to remind ourselves of what baseball was like back then. Larry talks about the 7th game of the 1965 World Series, when Sandy Koufax of the Dodgers held the Minnesota Twins at bay so impressively. Larry notes the minimalist way in which baseball was packaged: no arena rock, no me-firsting behavior by the players, no trace of the game baseball became after Bill Veeck got paws on it.

At its heart, baseball is still the same to me. Oh, sure, some of the players admire their home runs rather than run hard out of the box, and the soda bottle races get rather cheesy after a while, but to me, baseball at its heart is still the same game I fell in love with when I was a very little boy. When Annie Savoy, the high priestess of the Church of Baseball, talks about it so rapturously at the start of Bull Durham, it’s all I can do not to smile, for I know Susan Sarandon’s character speaks the unvarnished truth. People have complained to me that baseball is too meditative; that’s part of the charm to me. I love baseball’s easy, unhurried rhythm and its essential innocence, purity and goodness. I love knowing that in baseball, there is almost always tomorrow and seldom is heard a discouraging word. Needless to say, I hate rain delays.

Backtracking to Larry Thornberry’s column for a moment and how he talks about the minimalist way baseball was packaged circa 1965, that’s exactly how I wish the Super Bowl would be packaged. Like Larry, I live in the Tampa area, and I consider it a small blessing in disguise that I was felled by a cold during Super Bowl weekend, the better for me to stay as far as I could from the Circus—at times, I couldn’t even bring myself to say the words “Super Bowl”. Let me put it this way: I loved it when the pregame show on teevee didn’t run north of four hours, and more than five people didn’t overanalyze the game. I would be out-of-my-mind delighted if Renee Fleming sang the National Anthem just prior to kickoff. I would be so happy, particularly in this economy, if the tickets were not priced so that only the richest one percent of the populace of this country could attend the game in person. Most of all, if the game started and ended before sunset, I would be overjoyed, and so would all the kids younger than me who are probably asleep nowadays when the game ends. But for the moment, the Super Bowl only gets harder to take with each passing year, and I find myself watching it less and less. I have seen only two Super Bowls in the past five years, and just based on seeing the logo for next year’s game, I would not watch it, either. I skipped Super Bowl XLI entirely, opting instead to watch Doctor Zhivago. Needless to say, I was very happy.

I often joke that basketball sucks since Michael Jordan retired. I have never seen a man derive such joy from playing a sport as I saw from watching Michael Jordan during the years he operated. Here was a guy who could do it all, whether dunks or long shots. Most of all, I loved watching Jordan smile on the court, like Pavarotti after nailing the high notes on Nessun Dorma. It was never a taunt; it was Michael’s expression of primal and untrammeled joy. I miss that now more than ever. If basketball gives me one guy who is so happy to be on the court, I will be back in a heartbeat.

Similarly, I joke sometimes that college football sucks since Keith Jackson left. To watch a college football game now is to miss that man. It wasn’t that Keith got the big games on ABC, it’s that he made you feel better watching them, with Mark Twain-esque turns of phrase and a voice to match. Whenever I would hear his voice, I’d want to stretch out, put up my feet, close my eyes and listen to Keith’s voice wash over me like lemonade down my palate. Everything was okay when Keith Jackson was in the booth, just the way it is when Vin Scully is in the Dodgers’ booth, when Jon Miller is in the Giants’ radio or ESPN teevee booth, when Harry Kalas is in the Phillies’ booth, and on down a very short line. Nowadays, college football games are much of a muchness; go to a sports bar on any given Saturday in the fall, and you’ll see that the marching bands, the pompous broadcasters and preening alleged student-athletes are quite interchangeable. Come to think of it, I may as well have said “any given Sunday”; the same principle would have applied, and probably amplified.

When you think of sport across its entire spectrum, you’ll see that most of them revolve around possibly doing immense bodily harm to a fellow human being. Watch football, for example, and I know I pick on it so, but you’ll see that it’s little more than 22 angry men trying to kill each other over the skin of a pig. Hockey, you ask? Twelve armed men on skates trying to kill each other over a round black disc, and they actually do a fine job at least of beating each other to a pulp. Boxing, surely you’ve noticed, is two half-naked and sweaty guys killing each other for money. Fencing? Holy Mary, Mother of Christ, Fencing? Jesus, thank God there’s body armor. Hunting? Think of what George Carlin, God bless his beautiful soul, wrote once: “You think hunting’s a sport? Ask the deer.” I could go on and on with this, but I won’t, lest I suffer a concussion.

Wrapping up this tour of sport for the moment, and going back to its semi-literary roots, I came across an old San Francisco Chronicle article recently that piqued my curiosity. Some five years ago now, Glenda Jackson, MP, made a rare visit to San Francisco to give a speech. During her visit, the same woman who had won two Oscars in the 1970’s as Best Actress attended her first baseball game, Dodgers-Giants at what was then known as Pacific Bell Park (ugh, naming rights.). Had I known, I would have given anything within reason to be in Glenda Jackson’s field of gravity as she sat with a Chronicle reporter and photographer and wondered who decides if the ball is fair or foul, and why you do not get more points for a home run. I would have loved to have welcomed Glenda to the Church of Baseball. Oh, well. We just have to get Isabelle Huppert to Yankee Stadium or Charlotte Rampling to Fenway. To that end, my phone number is…