Walking the Berkshires

"Only Love can Break Your Heart"

The youngest members of Red Sox Nation in our household are too young to remember the dry years.  They have never seen their heroes as bums, or endured a second half of the season with the Sox slumping out of contention.  These are their years of irrational exuberance.

They came to the game when their Dad was still on the delirious crest of the 2004 Series and before the 2007 championship.    They saw their first giddy game at Fenway in June in great seats and the Sox won. The first time they saw the Old Town Team on the tube - in a Maine motel room on the way to a vacation without electricity on a magical island far out to sea - they formed emotional attachments to its marque players.  Elias naturally went for Big Papi.  Emily gave her heart unconditionally to Manny Ramirez.

I haven't yet had the heart to tell her he's gone.

Baseball teaches you to savor the rare moments of near perfection and to believe in miracles, all the while reminding you to get used to disappointment.  The lessons of the grand cathedral of the grass come from Matthew 23:12.  The homilies are all about hope and loss.  Our communion of saints is reserved for those who have passed on to a better place, not fallen by the wayside. Where are Nomar, Pedro and Lowe?  Joined another church.  Where are Boggs, Clemens and Damon?  Joined a rival sect.  Change is certain.  Give your heart and expect it to be broken.  Risk love knowing it can't last.  Some things endure.

Emily fell for Manny at first sight.  How could she not?  He was not the silent leader, brilliant behind the plate but woeful beside it.  He was not the fleet-footed infielder, that springbok in a herd of wildebeest.  No, she loved the class clown, charismatic and cute in his baggy uniform and oh so free and easy.  I knew with certainty what every father of a tender-hearted daughter learns; this love would end in heartbreak, and there was nothing I could do to spare her.  Perhaps postpone it for a day, but no more.

Most of us have been through all this before.  Sox & Dawgs describes it perfectly:

"Think back to when you were 16 and fell in “love” that first time and then all of the sudden she dumps you for the high school quarterback or the star running back. You were sad, maybe even upset that your one true love was gone and you’d never be able to go on in life. You can admit that because we’ve all been there before in our lives.

Did you get over it? Sure you did but it took time. No matter if you loved her or hated her, you got over her and moved on to one of her friends probably (women can reverse the scenario to where he left you for the head cheerleader or one of the cheerleaders).

The same applies here. You will get over the loss of Manny. Yes you were expecting him to be wearing a Red Sox uniform for the rest of his career and now are thinking that you’re going to have to change the name of your dog or cat because you loathe Manny. All normal reactions I tell you because you will get over it.

If we sit here and lament over the loss of Manny, we aren’t going to be able to move on. Sure there’s going to be that grieving period where you pinch yourself just to make sure this wasn’t just all a bad dream. Believe me, I’m with you, I wish it was a bad dream too. I am even sure you might even sneak a peak at the Dodgers boxscore tonight just to see what Manny did. You might even have stopped by here earlier in the evening when we have posted what Manny has said in his press conference this afternoon at Dodger Stadium.

No matter what you do, you will be fine."

Will her love turn to loathing, her tender heart tenderized with a 33 oz bat?  Will she carry a torch even as  he wears the Dodger Blue?  Or will she, with the wellsprings of an 8-year-old's empathy, somehow see through the casual clown to the tears within?  Today, at least, Manny Ramirez' Official Site has not yet moved on from the Sox.  Will he, ten years from now in a middle-aged funk, look back on his glory days, twisting the school rings of '04 and '07, and remember lost love?

I can tell her that this will pass, and share my own stories of Red Sox hope and heartbreak.  I can hope that she falls for that nice kid Pedroia, or wingfooted Ellsbury.  None of that will matter.  Her heart is her own. It will find its way.

Play ball. 

Take Me Out

It was 95 degrees in the shade at Fenway this afternoon.  I know because we were there.  It was the kind of heat that can make Coors Light on tap at $7.25 a pop seem the acme of the brewer's art and cheap at twice the price.  This was Emily and Elias' first major league baseball game, and mine in many years, so we braved the heat and cheered along with more than 37,000 fans as the Sox took the rubber match in its 3 game series with Seattle by the score of 2-1.

Our seats were extraordiary, a gift from my father via a family friend who also happens to be both his Godson and a Red Sox VP.  We were in the Loge Box behind the visitor's dugout and below the grandstand and in that 95 degree shade all afternoon which was a mercy as I cannot imagine how others endured the full sun.

The game was certainly not a pitcher's duel, nor were there a surfeit of hits and runs, but those there were would suffice.  J.D. Drew hit a solo shot in the 6th that put the Sox ahead (their first run was walked in by Seattle's Erik Bedard in the third).  Bedard struggled through 5 innings with 99 pitches, while Justin Masterson pitched a strong six innings for the win and the bullpen saw it through in the last three innings with Hansen, Okajima and Papelbon.

It was fun to try an imagine the experience of their first Red Sox game through my children's eyes and contrast it to my own at their age.  There is certainly less organ music than I remember, and I'm sure John Kiley didn't play renditions of "Blister in the Sun" by the Violent Femmes, though it was appropriate for this scorcher of a day.  That's a shame, because without the organ if feels slightly less like church though undoubtedly still a place of pilgrimage.  The old ball yard looks well, with the occasional beach ball dancing above our heads but nary a whiff of grass that didn't belong on the field.  Fenway today is smoke free and recycles.

No one ran onto the field from the bleachers.  There  was what might have turned into a lynching when it was discovered that someone was wearing a Kobe Bryant Lakers shirt in a sea of Celtics fans, but once he doffed his Red Sox Cap and flashed a peace sign the rising tumult was stilled and the game went on.

We sang "Sweet Caroline" and cheered for Youk and Coco Crisp and the guy who said "Hey Ice Cream Heah!"  I had that old thrill of walking up the aisle beneath the grandstand and out into all that color and sound and told Elias it was a magic door to a place of miracles. 

See if you can spot the error in the scoreboard on the Green Monster (click to enlarge).  Hint:  It is not the National League score being fixed manually by the person on the ladder. I wonder if anyone has tried to estimate how many dimples there are on the face of that wall?  Or on the smiles of young fans?  All in all, a memorable day at Fenway.

 

Great Balls of Fire, or just Flaming Out?

Note to self: "Never apologize for undisclosed mistakes in my life." It didn't work for Elliot Spitzer.  It sounds just as grim coming from Roger Clemens.

NEW YORK (AP) — Roger Clemens apologized Monday for unspecified mistakes in his personal life but denied having an affair with a 15-year-old.

The Daily News reported last week Clemens had a decade-long relationship with country star Mindy McCready that began when she was 15 and an aspiring singer. The newspaper also linked the star pitcher to former Manhattan bartender Angela Moyer and Paulette Dean Daly, a former wife of champion golfer John Daly.

"Even though these articles contain many false accusations and mistakes, I need to say that I have made mistakes in my personal life for which I am sorry," Clemens said in a statement issued by spokesman Patrick Dorton. "I have apologized to my family and apologize to my fans. Like everyone, I have flaws. I have sometimes made choices which have not been right."

The apology was first reported by the Houston Chronicle.

Clemens, his stock trading at an all-time low, does himself no favors with this vague admission of personal failings.  Too bad he's not trying to get into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  Jerry Lee Lewis made it just fine in 1986, despite marrying his 13-year old cousin in 1957. 

Warming Up To Spring

It's official.  I, as well as most everyone else in the temperate parts of the northern hemisphere, am trying to get a bead on spring.  Pitchers and catchers have already flown to fields of green.  Maybe it's the bluebirds and robins outside, and warm foggy days like today when the river swells and the foundation wall seeps.  Or it could be that we have not been able to sustain enough clear cold days for pond skating that were not washed out soon after.  At least this year, for the first time in three, the maple tree has remained dormant through a January thaw.  I think of the sap buckets and the time, coming soon, when I will find another hand-span of trunk between the faded scars to place their spiles.  I wonder if the river herring will return in hopeful numbers to Buzzards Bay, where their season has been closed for three years running.  I think of spring peepers, and red wings, and the osprey following the fish up the coast. 

And it is still February, the traditional month of deep snows and deeper freezes here in the Litchfield Hills, the Berkshires and the high Taconics.  When I was a boy - and this April I will be 40 so I get to say that - the last of the snow melted the week before my birthday.  It is anyone's guess this year, or next, what the weather may bring.  That is part of the package for us New Englanders.  But if I am having difficulty attuning to the signs of the shifting season, what must it be like for those that truly depend on this ability?  What range of variation do they sustain?  For all its astonishing resilience, life on an ecotone is made of great swings and plunges.  The edge frays between transitional and central hardwoods.  The red-bellied woodpecker takes up permanent residence, and the cross bill retreats and is seldom seen.

Somewhere in the pine woods, great horned owls are calling their mates.  Soon, very soon now.

Back to my Root Root Roots

Though I am an accumulator of all sorts of things, there's not much in the way of sports memorabilia in our house.  There are two shoe boxes of baseball cards on a shelf in the attic collected in my 3rd and 8th grade years (1977 and 1982), some ticket stubs from Yankee and Red Sox games, but not much else.  It's not like I have mustard packets from Ebbets Field, like one of my father's friends, or something signed by Ty Cobb like what Dad got from an Old Timer's game at Cooperstown.

These are largely mementos of my formative baseball years, though there is a book of Red Sox matches dated 1965, back when box seats cost $3 and the phone number at Fenway was COpley 7-2525.  The inside contains a complete list of that year's home schedule.  There were a lot of day games and double headers and even something called a Twi-night double header.  The Sox finished the season dismally in ninth position that year, though Yaz hit .312. 

Not much in the way of autographs, either.  One that I cherish is from Rico  Petrocelli wishing me a happy 35th birthday that came my way in 2003. 

There is also an All-Star Ballot from 1980, the only piece of paper I had available during BP when Yankee Jim Spencer was signing autographs.  This is all pre-digital: they used punch cards back then.  You could have voted for Bill Buckner at 1st base that year in confidence that Steve Garvey or Pete Rose would be on the bag come game time (it was Garvey).  This was back when the National League owned the All-Star game, something they have not done for nearly a generation now.  In 1980 Fred Lynn, Jim Rice and Pudge Fisk were chosen by the fans, but so was Bucky Dent.  I was rooting for the Yankees that year, as I have previously confessed, and it was the last year our family saw a game at Yankee Stadium.

These talismans live in a box of treasures at the bottom of an old green army trunk in my closet.  There are many layers of my childhood and young adulthood here, from my kindergarten letter to Richard Nixon to the name tag I wore at the Bicentennial of the US Constitution as a descendant of its youngest Signer.  These few bits of baseball ephemera, however, are of particular value to me as touchstones to my youth, and the thrill I always get walking up the ramp and seeing that great expanse of emerald grass dazzling beneath the stadium lights.

Good Things

The Carnival of Freedom is at Morning Globe.

The Festival of the Trees (Halloween Edition) is at Windywillow.

Blawg Review #132 is at Home Office Lawyer.

History Carnival #58 is at Aardvarchaeology.

And Curt Schilling is at Fenway for one more year.  Now for Mike Lowell!

update (11/7/2007) Jumped the gun (if not the shark) a wee bit in not waiting for the latest Tangled Bank at Paddy K , and later today Gary Smailes will host the next Military History Carnival.  Ah, yes, and also the 87th Carnival of Satire.  Good things, indeed.

Red Sox Sweep Rockies to Win 2007 World Series

YES!!!  Thank you, Red Sox!

Can You Feel the Love?

Curt Schilling blogs on Joe Torre:

"The Red Sox in me is happy Joe Torre is no longer in charge in NY. The person in me wonders how does a guy who obviously has the respect and loyalty of his entire roster, a guy who’s taken his team to 12 straight post seasons, a guy who exudes class and respect, how does he, in the midst of what might have been his most challenging and defining season and post season, not only have to manage his team in a best of 5 win or go home series, but also answer a billion questions about being basically told ‘win or you’re out’? How did it come to that? ...Managers don’t win ballgames, players do, and I think you’d be surprised to know how bad we feel when managers we care about get fired because we know, if we have one ounce of integrity, that our failures as players are, most times, what gets a manager fired."

Curt's blog 38 Pitches is a fascinating read by someone who is not afraid to say what he thinks but also not afraid of being wrong.  I'd imagine baseball has something to do with that perspective, where the very greatest pitchers still make mistakes and batters who only hit once out of every three at bats are considered powerhouses.  Schilling is magnanimous in his praise both for Torre and the vanquished Indians.  Can't wait to see how he wraps up the World Series...

With even Rudy Giuliani backing the Sox, can it be that there are some undercurrents of post-season respect passing between Gotham and Beantown?  Lots more "B"'s observed in the Berkshires than normal, though the Manhattan-influenced Litchfield Hills are not especially bursting with Red Sox pride.

I still have to get one of these, though.  And I believe Schilling wears one himself.

Go Sox!

Casey at the Bottle

My Great Uncle Dayt was legendary for his ability to recite "Casey at the Bat" in its entirety, frequently with a bottle of champagne as a prop as seen here at my Uncle Rob and Aunt Marla's wedding in 1977.  Once, at a Williams College reunion dinner, his classmates called for Casey and just at the climax, he lost his grip and launched a bottle of wine through a plate glass window.  But hearts were light and they dutifully passed the hat and carried on with their merrymaking.

The story goes that when Dayton graduated, his mother who was somewhat hard of hearing was astonished that her son was to receive an award for his "Latin Average", given that he had previously shown very little aptitude in the subject.  It turned out that the honor was for his "Batting Average" rather than his facility with ablative absolutes, but the thrill of the game and the love of language were one when he delivered Thayer's immortal verse. 

The last time I heard him recite Casey was in 1990 at my cousin Margaret's wedding.  He picked up the story a few stanzas on as the sturdy batsman approached the plate but otherwise never missed a beat.  At his memorial service late in 2005, I heard one of his great nephews take up the banner and deliver a grand rendition of Casey.

Tonight on the eve of the Fall classic, where anything is possible and there is always the possibility of seeing something that has never happened before, I can see Uncle Dayt standing there in the fields of Elysium, hands clenched and eyes alight, as all the heavenly host hangs on each inevitable word.  One of these eons, given the law of averages, Casey is going to knock it out of the park.

Casey at the Bat by Ernest Thayer

The Outlook wasn't brilliant for the Mudville nine that day:
The score stood four to two, with but one inning more to play.
And then when Cooney died at first, and Barrows did the same,
A sickly silence fell upon the patrons of the game.

A straggling few got up to go in deep despair. The rest
Clung to that hope which springs eternal in the human breast;
They thought, if only Casey could get but a whack at that -
We'd put up even money, now, with Casey at the bat.

But Flynn preceded Casey, as did also Jimmy Blake,
And the former was a lulu and the latter was a cake;
So upon that stricken multitude grim melancholy sat,
For there seemed but little chance of Casey's getting to the bat.

But Flynn let drive a single, to the wonderment of all,
And Blake, the much despis-ed, tore the cover off the ball;
And when the dust had lifted, and the men saw what had occurred,
There was Jimmy safe at second and Flynn a-hugging third.

Then from 5,000 throats and more there rose a lusty yell;
It rumbled through the valley, it rattled in the dell;
It knocked upon the mountain and recoiled upon the flat,
For Casey, mighty Casey, was advancing to the bat.

There was ease in Casey's manner as he stepped into his place;
There was pride in Casey's bearing and a smile on Casey's face.
And when, responding to the cheers, he lightly doffed his hat,
No stranger in the crowd could doubt 'twas Casey at the bat.

Ten thousand eyes were on him as he rubbed his hands with dirt;
Five thousand tongues applauded when he wiped them on his shirt.
Then while the writhing pitcher ground the ball into his hip,
Defiance gleamed in Casey's eye, a sneer curled Casey's lip.

And now the leather-covered sphere came hurtling through the air,
And Casey stood a-watching it in haughty grandeur there.
Close by the sturdy batsman the ball unheeded sped-
"That ain't my style," said Casey. "Strike one," the umpire said.

From the benches, black with people, there went up a muffled roar,
Like the beating of the storm-waves on a stern and distant shore.
"Kill him! Kill the umpire!" shouted someone on the stand;
And its likely they'd a-killed him had not Casey raised his hand.

With a smile of Christian charity great Casey's visage shone;
He stilled the rising tumult; he bade the game go on;
He signaled to the pitcher, and once more the spheroid flew;
But Casey still ignored it, and the umpire said, "Strike two."

"Fraud!" cried the maddened thousands, and echo answered fraud;
But one scornful look from Casey and the audience was awed.
They saw his face grow stern and cold, they saw his muscles strain,
And they knew that Casey wouldn't let that ball go by again.

The sneer is gone from Casey's lip, his teeth are clenched in hate;
He pounds with cruel violence his bat upon the plate.
And now the pitcher holds the ball, and now he lets it go,
And now the air is shattered by the force of Casey's blow.

Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright;
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light,
And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout;
But there is no joy in Mudville - mighty Casey has struck out.

Go Sox!

Why I Won't be Getting Much Sleep This Week, Either

Photo courtesy Reuters / Adam Hunger