bloggedy blog: the personal weblog of a music lover and aging punk wannabe

:: Friday, October 17, 2003 ::

More heartbreak!
First the Cubbies fell, and now the Red Sox, my second-favorite team of all time (after my beloved St. Louis Cardinals), have come tumbling down. No joy in Beantown today. My heart goes out to you, Red Sox fans. (Cubs fans, too.) That Bambino and the goat -- they sure do hold a grudge, don't they?

So now we'll have a World Series between those darn Yankees and the Florida Fish. *Yawn*

[Baseball] breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game beghins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops, and leaves you to face the fall alone.

A. Bartlett Giamatti
The Green Fields of the Mind
Quoted in Bartlett's

And now for a little treat from yours truly: a heartbreaker of a baseball story I wrote several years ago and originally posted here but am now posting on the blog for all to see:

Baseball 1971
by Andrew Careaga
(copyrighted, blah blah blah)

He was years away from his three-thousandth hit and the time when the fans of Boston would again cheer him. But today Yaz looked as old and weary as my father. Today the boos were raining down on him, weary old Atlas, adjusting his helmet, digging his cleats into the batter's box, holding his bat aloft, the way only Yaz could do it, high and straight and outstretched, like a club to fend off the catcalls from above.

Mickey Lolich was pitching for the Tigers. He was past his prime too, but today he pitched like it was Game 7 of the 1968 World Series all over again. It was an embarrassment: the hero of my youth twisting off-balance on his heels as he swung at strike three, the boos of the crowd pelting him on his long walk to the dugout. A man beside us, voice drawn hoarse by the Schafer's, muttered, "You sad, sorry son of a bitch." My father winced at the words but tried to ignore them, tried to pretend they weren't there. Tried to buy me another hot dog.

This was my first Red Sox game, my first visit to storied Fenway Park, my first glimpse at the ominous Green Monster that made Yaz look so small, so human, in left field.

The game was a rout: 11-1, Detroit. A complete game for Lolich, and old Al Kaline even hit a home run.

By seventh inning stretch, fans were pouring out of the stadium, and my father had also seen enough. "Well, boy, you about ready?" But I begged him to stay, and he relented. It wasn't every weekend he got to see me; that was my leverage.

* * *

It was the night of the All-Star Game, and Reggie Jackson had just hit a terrific home run into the upper deck of Tiger Stadium in Detroit. Mom was out, somewhere. The phone rang. It was my father, calling from a bar somewhere in humid Boston.

"Hey, son," he said. I heard the muffled silence of a lonely bar in the background. "I'm in a discussion here. We're trying to remember the starting line-up for the '67 Red Sox. Who played shortstop?"

"Rico Petrocelli," I said, angry at missing the game on TV.

"Yeah, that's right. Rico Petrocelli. Goddam. And who was the catcher?"

"There were two of them," I said. "They platooned."

"Two of them? You sure?"

"Yeah," I said. "I'm sure." Why the hell didn't he know this stuff? "Elston Howard, and Russ Gibson."

"Oh yeah," he said, in sudden revelation. "That's right. Russ Gibson. Goddam. Forgot about him."

"I'm not surprised. Gibson batted .199 that year," I said.

"Damn, son," he said, "you're a walking encyclopedia."

"Gotta go, dad."

Silence. Then, "I miss you, son. Say hi to your mother for me, OK?"

"OK," I said, and hung up.

My father loved the '67 Red Sox. He said they were the greatest team there ever was, even though they never won the prize, and even though he could never remember their starting line-up.

THE END

:: Andrew 07:16 + ::
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