My First Fan

So, it appears I am acquiring a fan base. Much to my surprise someone wrote a comment on the bunting post. And ya know what? The thought occurs to me that I may be famous and not even know it. Perhaps the power and wit of my solitary legitimate posting on this site has wrought legions of desperate fans, waiting with baited breath for the next scraps of wisdom to be tossed down from on high.

Or maybe a solitary wacko has stumbled across my site.

To come to a point, the solitary wacko (or SW for short) is the reason for this posting. He said:

“where we live there no such thing to be men over a games.
Games is only games that supposed to be fun not to be a champion.”

The words are his, not mine.

Now I in no way intend to disparage the gentleman’s poor command of English grammar and syntax, but I had to take some liberties in assuming what he meant by this. I gather that he is admonishing me for taking sports too seriously, but doesn’t quite grasp the tone of the site. Let me now address anyone who feels the same way.

The site is a bit tongue-in-cheek. Yes, I love sports. Yes, I do engage myself whole-heartedly in the fortunes of the teams that I love. But that’s what makes it fun, people. Should I scream and curse during a Jets game? Maybe not. But detached indifference can make anything seem like a chore. Except for chores. Then a detached indifference can actually make a chore more palatable.

In real life things like war, poverty, and despotism are obviously more important than sports. I’m not gonna be one of those guys who gets up on a soapbox and declares sport to be the world’s greatest ambassador and a healer of all conflicts, but you’ve got to construct a pretty specious argument to declare it a source of real ills in society.

I guess my point is that some shit’s fun for some people while other shit’s fun for other people. To all the SWs out there, try not to blame other people’s fun for shit you don’t like.

Seacrest, out!

Teach The Children Well

Everything I needed to know I learned in the 80s. I learned that real men pitch. I learned that real men always fight until the end – and sometimes whenever the hell it suits them (I’m talking to you Tim Teufel). But you know what lesson stands out? Real men bunt.

Tim Teufel notwithstanding, I’m talking about the Cardinals. God, how I hated them. I mean, they were beating the hell out of my guys. Daryl, Keith, and Gary were powerless to stop them. And what did St. Louis have? Those guys couldn’t hit a home run with a 5 iron and a bag of Nike One balls, but they sure were good around the greens.

Let’s just bring this all into perspective. The ’85 Cards had 3 guys hit 10 or more home runs, but only one guy with more than 13 (Jack Clark had 22). I know it was the 80s, but come on. From 1982 to 1987, they went to the World Series 3 times and won it once. Those are numbers only a Yankees fan could hate. And they did it with no power. They assured that for all of history, no one will ever ask if they were juiced. Well, Willie McGee probably was. I think he once hit a ball almost 375 feet.

However, I digress. They were winners. In the years that St. Louis took the pennant, their win totals were 92, 101, and 95. Pretty good numbers and all built on the three-headed monster of speed, pitching, and defense. There was a fourth head, but it’s hard to recreate the joyless flattop of Whitey Herzog.

The Cardinals could steal bases at will. Double ‘em up? Not likely. But you know what really hurts you against a team like that? They use their outs so damn efficiently. Coleman walks. Tom Herr dribbles a bunt up the line and it’s like a punch in the gut. Somehow, Coleman’s now on third with less than two outs. I don’t know how he got there, but it could be that he was using some of those firecrackers for propulsion. Now all they need is one of those gargantuan McGee bombs to the warning track and they’ve got you in the hole.

Compare that to today’s game. Now, I love those juicy homers as much as the next guy (is this sentence kind of gross?), but most Major Leaguers today are simply incapable of that series of plays. Why? They can’t execute the damn dribbler (okay, that really sounds gross). They can walk and they can hit, but they stand a better chance of bending spoons with their minds than laying one down.

Quick story to illustrate. I’m at Shea Stadium a couple of years ago, and Al Leiter’s pitching (it just kills me that he’s not a Met anymore). I don’t remember who was at the plate, but it doesn’t really matter. There’s a runner on first with nobody out, and the sacrifice bunt is clearly on. The corner infielders are creeping up the line, ready to pounce. At this point, I say to my buddy Tom, “Al should throw some high heat. Guarantee you he’ll pop it up.” I think you know what happened next. There’s 1 out, the runner’s still on first, and I’m looking like Nostradamus in a Mets jersey. The guy on first never did score that inning, but I bet you the ’85 Cardinals would have brought him home.

As a Mets fan, maybe this is all too close to my heart. It’s not just my lingering and irrational bitterness over the ’85 and ’87 NL East races, but it’s what I’ve come to see in Flushing since then. Runner’s on second, nobody out. Pop up, strike out, 2 OUTS. Runner’s still on second, but wait! Here comes that grounder to the right side to move the runner over! Hallelujah! Oh, that’s the third out. I see…

Like I said, I could just be too close to perennial incompetence to have a clear perspective on this, but I don’t think so. I think that fans from sea to shining sea (and Toronto) have seen enough and know that their team is regularly hamstrung by the same injury. Runners left on base.

How do we stop RLOB? I have an idea. The next time your guy is left standing on second waiting for somebody to bring his glove from the dugout, don’t shake your fist at the heavens and curse the death of small ball. Instead, grab your kid, your nephew, or, I don’t know, even your neighbor’s nephew, and teach him to be a real man. Teach him to bunt.

Okay Then

This is the first sentence of my new blog. May it bear the fruit of many more sentences, and may they find common cause and join together to become paragraphs.

It's late now, and I'd like to think that I'm off to a meager but positive start. Good night, and come again.