I'm not the baseball fan I once was. Still, there's something comfortable about stopping down to listen to an AM radio broadcast of a ballgame.
***
I went to Yankee Stadium about 10 years ago. The Bronx, that stadium, those fans... this boy from Angleton, Texas might as well have been on Mars.
***
Jose Canseco may have been right about most or all of his claims.
Still, the man makes my skin crawl. Ultimately he may have been good for the game, but he comes off as a creep nevertheless.
***
Hitting coach Rudy Jaramillo says that Rangers center fielder Josh Hamilton has more power than Juan Gonzalez and Sammy Sosa.
Reason #1 that I hope Hamilton stays sober: Hey, his addiction is close to my heart. Everyone's is.
Reason #2 that I hope Hamilton stays sober: MAN would I love to see him play a full season.
***
We loved Mickey Tettleton, MOBB and I. God did he murder some shots, parking them in the top of the home run porch. The guy was a warrior. I remember well his last hit, a double that he legged out despite having pretty much no cartilage in his knees. There was this look on his face. It struck me as being... relief. At the time.
Looking back, maybe it was just his way of telling himself, before walking back across the chalk one last time, that he could still play.
The best haiku I ever wrote, which dates back to that Rangers team from last century:
Mickey Tettleton
Summer swing, upper deck homer
So long, you were good
***
That game at Yankee Stadium all those years ago proved to be a rare Rangers win, at least in the Bronx Bombers' house. In a season during which they won the AL West, even then taking on the Yankees at home was a daunting task.
I bought a Yankees cap at that game. Written in the brim in Sharpie:
8-15-98
Yankee Stadium
16-5 Rangers
I have worn the cap maybe twice ever. I just... never could bring myself to do it.
The Rangers went on to face them in the playoffs, getting swept.
***
Why don't they play baseball in Heaven?
[wait]
[wait]
[wait]
Because they have no umpires.
***
Happy April, ya'll. Play ball.
***
(If you have any idea why the title of this blog is appropriate for this post, please leave a comment with your answer)
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2008
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April
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- Out of Dry Dock
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- The Yngwie Malmsteen of the Accordion!
- Weightcutting
- Engineers Explain Cats
- that 'splains it
- You, They, I
- Mr. Woolly, Reporting for Duty
- Checking My Pulse
- I AM SO DAMN MIXED UP
- Up!
- Hoppin' Down the Bunny Trail
- And So It Begins
- BB and the Brain
- Better Than Ever
- BB Be Better
- Withdrawing
- Etc.
- If Words Were Eggs, This Post Would Be an Omelette
- Daytripping with BB
- On Gifts
- R.I.P. Sandy Holloway Rigg
- All About BB
- The Beauty Paradigm: the BB Brief Polemic
- Via Negativa
- Pepper
- The Brilliant, Rotten Little Girl and Wolfboy's Ways
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4 comments:
You know, as hokey as you might imagine it, I could get you hooked up with an area vintage team (Farmers Branch, for instance). There is also one out of Cedar Hill, which I think is pretty close.
I can still get geeked about the game (though I've done much less baseball travel than you - my game going is here with the Astros), but the value to me remains nostalgia (remembering my own shallow connections with this pasttime - the feel of a bat making contact with a pitch; the reassuring smack of a well-struck ball landing in a glove, etc).
Pepper has many meanings in baseball. References to spices (pepper, ginger, etc) typically refer to energy (hustle) among players: "Show some ginger!" And in the modern world, the warm-up, batting-cage style game involving infielders and one hitter (generally the infielders taking turns with the bat) playing soft-toss and fast-hands to work out nervous energy before a game is referred to as "Pepper." And, back to the first, pepper can refer to heat, especially regarding a pitcher bringing it to the plate. I did some pitching back in those glory days (and do some now too, but the context is all different) - I unfortunately left the pepper on the kitchen counter during most of my outings.
Bryan
Kudos. I was referring to the infield game.
Farmer's Branch is pretty far from me, and actually, Cedar Hill may be farther. I love the game, but only as a spectator.
Unintended, I assume, but regarding "Pepper", there was a fairly modest film for HBO about 7 years ago about the Maris chase for 61 homers called, not ironically, "61". Obviously a Yankee movie and the actor who played Maris? His name was Barry Pepper.
See, BB, you buy a Yankee hat, and this is what you reap.
Jeff P.
Laughing... I love it, JP. Wow.
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