Push it Fair

The mlb network recently revealed the top spot on their melodramatic list of the top 20 Greatest Games played in the last 50 years...

1975 World Series, Game 6 - Fenway Park
Big Red Machine vs. Boston Red Sox
Reds up 3 games to 2

Last year, after the Giants won a thrilling World Series, several of us experienced that immediate, gut-wrenching sensation of off-season withdraw and thus threw in an old videotape of this all-time classic.

Copenhagen, November 2010-

We can hear the ancient green ballpark groan at season’s end, worn and weathered under the dirtywhite nightlights beaming dimly on the weathered grass and infield dirt. The faded, grainy VHS image could be of any old baseball field on any one of those damp and frigid nights in late autumn. But it’s not. It’s Fenway in October. Those dizzy dimensions and that palpable anxiety are dead giveaways. We marvel drearily at the many nuances of mid- 70’s Americana: post-Nam exhaustion mingling with stubborn Irish hope; tweed jackets with elbow patches on flailing professor arms; clumsy on-screen text graphics generated by the world’s first computer; and most impressive of all, the personal style of the ballplayers…

Louis Tiant gesticulating with Satchel-like spasms and an array of flamboyant windups refuses to let the Big Red Machine find a groove in front of his Papi – "the Carl Hubbel of Cuba" beaming with joy under his dark brown fedora, shrouded in cigar smoke and untold tales of triumph. Pete Rose all coiled up in clenched stillness, waiting to strike from the left side; steps toward the ball, but holds up, his hands hang back on a slow curve…a hard twist of the hips and he rips a single to right-center. Fred Lynn: ROY, MVP, WS 3-run homer, and then busts his tailbone slamming into the centerfield wall. Joe Morgan’s back elbow flapping up and down in the batters box, his loose and sure fielding sure has style. And all the big hits by low profile players: Cesar Geronimo, a heroic name at a heroic moment, probably gave birth to a son named Sitting Bull Machiavelli, homers to put the Reds up 6-3. Then Bernie Carbo, looking overmatched at the dish, suddenly smacks a game-tying homer while drunk and stoned.

 

Cormac McCarthy could’ve said this old park hums with age and mystery. Yet from another angle, Fenway seems virgin – classic and pure – patiently waiting for a miracle to break that dreadful Curse. Foul ground and outfield walls not yet polluted by slogans and logos. Every blade of grass and craggy corner acquiescing to the grandeur of the green monster.

-Check it out, man…no fucking ads on the field or the backstop. It’s beautiful.
-There’s Sparky in the dugout, Wes…
-Mmm-hmm
-Toorn dees sheet auf, mahn. Beisbol boring!
-Shut the fuck up, Eduardo. And show some respect for Sparky; he just died.
-What da fuck is Sparky? Who cares?
-Here, take the doobie, CW
-Ooo….nice
-No goddamn ads or flags or flyovers…just baseball. It’s fucking beautiful.

Bottom of the 9th, runners at first and third with no outs, left-fielder George Frasier makes a concentrated catch right at the stands in shallow left and heaves it hard past the noses of nervous on-lookers leaning in to see if Doyle can tag and score. Shouldn't he have tried to slide instead of dive? Probably. The double play kills the inning and quiets the crowd. Everyone here is asleep, scattered on the floor, in the hammock, on the couch and I’m too tired to go into extras. Fisk will have to wait till tomorrow to hit it…

Late morning.

A couple dudes still sleeping on the floor, one in the hammock. The VCR clicks into motion and Joe Morgan strokes a fastball for an opposite field hit. Fast forward. Morgan again, snapping a throw on the run right into the first baseman’s glove with perfect nonchalance. Nothing too flashy, no big stats for this game, but making his presence strongly felt. A complete player with both bat and glove, he won the most prestigious individual awards and team championships before entering the Hall and working the mic on Sunday night baseball telecasts with Jon Miller. 


Fast forward to the top of the 11th. Ken Griffey Sr. on first. Morgan pulls one to deep right field, Evans sprinting toward the tiny wall, Griffey sprinting around the bases -- confident it'll go over the short fence or drop for extra bases -- and Evans makes a spectacular if awkward catch with fans hands all around him. He turns and immediately chucks the ball toward first base, off-line but in plenty of time with that strong arm to double-off Griffey.

“The best game I ever played in” – said by a guy who loved winning more than anybody. Pete Rose, a notorious competitor (who even gambled 10,000 bucks per game on his team finishing 162-0), yelled out after Carbo's homer, "This is fun!" Dude should be in the Hall.

And, of course, 12th inning…Fisk waves it fair.  The media thus found a way, serendipitously, to sensationalize the game, pre-fabricating narratives and placing cameras everywhere to plan for shots like Fisk hopping up the baseline. This time, though, it was accidental and for that very reason, magical. And the mytho-poetics of this great sport continue to express themselves in popular culture; in mediocre film (Good Will Hunting), high-brow literature (DeLillo’s Underworld), and on the internet (Dock Ellis & the LSD No-No). That majestic homer off the foul pole means the Red Sox live to see another day.

And finally she yawns – a silent roar – creaking under the weight of rowdy fans flooding onto Yawky Way with that stubborn hope still in the air, ‘cuz maybe some damn miracle might release us from this Curse -- tomorrow night in Beantown in the seventh and final game versus the Big Red Machine, with The Spaceman on the mound.

But the Game had become and continues to be “more Machine now than Man….twisted and evil,” reflected not so much in Vader-like villains of yesteryear, (the recently deceased Steinbrenner comes to mind), but the robotic, joyless, business-like metamorphosis of ballplayer into corporate cog. The blind consumer that is the Fan. More subtle then, strikingly obvious now. And as the Machine prevailed in the past, it does so today with an even greater autonomy free from human intervention. And the Spaceman loses.

The Machine is also dominating the way we humans perceive, interpret and appreciate baseball today. Rather than raging in anger at the removal of our favorite players from our favorite teams, we placidly accept the supremacy of a mechanical kind of logic positing greed as the strongest motivator in a multi-billion dollar industry crawling with blood-sucking agents and empty-headed athletes. Ticket prices continue to rise as our teams turn into souless corporations and continue to be disfigured beyond recognition. Fans are arrested at ballgames for not sitting through the Bush-era war chant of “God bless America”. The 7th inning stretch not only stretches our patience with all of the hokey patriotism and jingoist arrogance, but is in itself a stretch in its pathological attempt to link the game of baseball with military might and flag-waving herds of passive consumers. It stretches the thruth like so many other lies of the Bush era, refusing to acknowledge that beisbol is an international game with international citizens who happen to play in the US and Toronto and some of whom are deeply offended and saddened by such contrived nationalism (high-five, Carlos Delgado).

On yet another militant level, the violent mechanism of the Police and their intimidating presence – shooting taser guns at foolhardy fans for nothing more than running on the field – adds to the paranoia and dehumanization of our culture at large, and baseball in particular. In the past, it was we Fans who determined when we would run on the field together (see one of "Baseball's Best Moments": KC vs. NYY 1977, Chambers HR), in a triumph of joy over security.

And, again, the Machine now consumes a new discourse, dictating the way in which we value life, players, and how we value the Game – this time all according to strictly quantifiable sets of subjective criteria.

We can ask ourselves, without a trace of nostalgia, where are the Charlie Hustles of today? A guy who could coach and play (balls-out) simultaneously, all while using that passion and cockiness and wealth to gamble on his team to win every fucking game they played in.

Not even bothering to interview Rose along with teammates Morgan and Bench, the demeaning mlb network removes the wild card from the deck, playing it safe, tossing the same pre-written softballs to the dumb jocks and watching their woozy and bloated heads blather on about the same story they’ve told a thousand times in the same way. But these dumb jocks were great players and played hard and smart baseball to beat the Beantowners in that conveniently forgotten seventh and final game. The Big Red Machine were World Series champs.

Now, in 2010, Brian "The Machine" Wilson and that magical mess of misfits shut down the over-pumped Texas sluggers to win the World Series. Reluctantly embraced by the Machine proper, even the misfits had to be commodified. Fake coal-black beards, Kung-Fu Panda outfits, and even Torture Ball as a brand are all assimilated into the Machine as part of the corporate takeover of baseball culture. And we, the fans, are a bunch of suckers.

Welcome to the Machine.

Week One, Baseball is Alive With Pleasure!!

Still Top of the first, no one out and with the leadoff batter on third base the manager starts to feel the urge to run to the telephone if only to hear a friendly voice. The second batter approaches the plate, taps his cleats once, takes two easy swings and sets his feet. He then does a slow follow through with the bat stopping when the bat is pointed firmly at the pitcher. The pitcher stares blankly into the catcher, acknowledging the sign with a faint twitch of his cheek and then places his foot on the rubber......

And now for my foray into the baseball bloggers quagmire.

The End of Week one.

Sheesh... the excitement of MLB week one can only be truly matched by the ultimate frustration of watching Mr. Ortiz go 2-14.


Though I would like to vouch for the gastrointestinal health of N. Swisher Esq. I will have to digress and move to some ramblings on this great game of ours in the full swing of or new and expanded league system.

Some of the many meanings and beauties of this game are these:
that it matches mind over matter, it shows you that youth does not always triumph over age and wisdom, and that the spectacle of the moment can be made insignificant by the collective moments of a grand time continuum.

Take what I think is one of sports most intense competitions, the pitcher/batter duel. Most people see a mindless combination of chance that sometimes leads to bat on ball action but the reality of the Cat and Mouse strategy is magnified by the fact that Cat can become mouse in the space of 1/3 of an inning. Pitch selection and placement meets the whimsy and discipline of the batter and the outcome always seems uncertain until it happens.

The journeyman batter or pitcher is often at the advantage of his more youthful comrades and can still make them look like the children they are. Skills honed over time have great value in baseball.

Though Comm. Selig would have you believe that opening night is like some sort of adolescent Super Bowl the players knew better and made you see that the greatest show on earth Neil Diamond does not make ( My apologies to sweet ass Caroline where ever you are baby). The painful performances of opening week will ultimately fade in comparison to the marathon that is yet to come.

To me all this does not even begin to cover the grace of the very game itself that appears when the teams hit the field. Just watching Ichiro swing a bat can be a Zen like experience in itself

Why is baseball not as popular now compared to some other American sports? Who Knows!??! No! It is because all these things are not evident under quick passing examination. Baseball is not to be understood by simply being watched, it only becomes truly great when it is actively "followed"

The pitcher rears back, kicks his leg and lets loose the pitch, his arm snapping forward. The batters arms start to move back, his left leg shifts, his eyes follow the ball. Suddenly his legs collapse as he twists his shoulders over while the high fastball hits the brim of his helmet, knocking the helmet free but thankfully not his cheekbone. Ball One.........

Kroh and Phased Groupings Play Voltage on Opening Night

Top of the 1st. Nobody on, nobody out. The opening pitch has been thrown. It's a slow bender from a southpaw, looping in around the knees on a right-handed hitter. He stands crouched over at the waist like Pete Rose, keeping his weight back, waiting, recoiling, concentrating...

Of all the various examples of baseball as a cultural practice on our planet, most of us have experience and knowledge with little more than the major leagues. Little league games, for example, are a blast -- both as a kid and as a coach -- with all of the excitement and 10 times the humor of professional ball. And nothing beats playing in a summer baseball/softball league; whether it's drinking beers, havin' a smoke and a laugh with some friends or extending yourself athletically. And the best new tournament in transnational sports -- The World Baseball Classic -- is a window into wonderfully different ways of playing and appreciating the game.

It's opening day (night, actually) in the mlb, prefabricated to be a Yankees/Red-Sox matchup. The Bronx Dynasty came out aggressive, with Jeter grounding out on the first pitch of the season. Ellsbury led off with an equally anxious lineout to center on Sabathia's first offering. Beckett buckled in the 2nd -- back-to-back solo homers by an increasingly oldschool-looking Posada, smothered in pinetar (George Brettian graffitti, coloring both his helmet and the ash Lousville Slugger weilded in his characteristic loosefingred, barehanded grip) and by Curtis "Mayfielder" Granderson -- looking out of place in that Bronx business suit, his smoothnfluid swing sends a low fastball deeeeep into the centerfield bleachers.

Learning to appreciate all of the multifarious ways in which a baseball game can be enjoyed, is a lot like learning how to play a good game of chess.

The bizarre right hand of Youkilis is in perfect sync with all orthodox elements of the Hebrew Hammerstrike. He clobbers a double. Moments later, trots home on a sac fly ... Beckett slings one high-and-tight on Jeter, sending the captain pirouetting twenty feet back out of the box like a ballerina. After a primadonna pause allows the shortstop to smirk just long enough at the game so as to question its grit, he smacks a worm-burner by Scutaro, for an acerbic RBI single ... Pedroia beats out Teixiera's nifty infield play by diving headfirst into the bag, but the callous ump calls him out.

Umpires and Empires are obsessed with administering control, maintaining order, and executing discipline. Profit-minded, closed-minded and efficient creatures, their accomplices go by names like Sports Psychologist, General Manager, and Agent. It is in their interest to control and constrain baseball discourse and practices, ultimately for power and profit.

Sabathia looks strong and smooth ... Double-steal with the speedy Gardner at third catches the Beantowners with their pants down ... The old numbercards under the green monster flip to 5-1 for the visitors and Beckett hits the showers ... But the Boston bats come to life in the 6th: Pedroia walks, longtime Yankee-killer Victor Martinez doubles, Youk shoots one to opposite field for a 2-run triple. CC Rider now riding the pine in time to see the Sox tie it at 5.

Striving for power and profit defines the capitalist project; objectifying, essentializing, commodifying all cultures and forms of life into the predictable, predetermined discourse of the marketplace.

Some dude slithers out on the diamond during the stretch. A lovely looking woman at his side, he grabs a mic instead and performs a putrid patriot act. Suddenly, Carlos Delgado's missing presence is felt more than ever ...

... Pedroia the wee strongman wallops one over the monster. 7-7 in the 7th. Youk clobbers a double, again; sprints home, again. All part of the script? ...

... Sleazy Neil Diamond saunters up the firstbase line with an unworn hometeam cap and a worndown voice to sing his song on schedule. How much - if any - of this shit are fans expected to endure?

The pre-written narratives -- unchanging and mind-numbingly predictable -- spew forth from the shitbox as they have for generations. In baseball, it's the melodramatic backstories. The pompous tone and vapid, humorless rhetoric. The bombardment of images to combat uncomfortable cadences. The inability to reflect and a refusal to involve. Ted Williams refused to tip his hat to the pre-scripted "natural" ending, ending his career with a homer on his final at-bat and ducking quietly into the dugout to disappear from the public eye. Outta sight, outta mind. He left the fans with room for new memories of new endings.



Little Bigman once again blasts a basehit, this time toward the flatulent Nick Swisher who has no hope of throwing out lightning fast veteran Mike Cameron. The Sox can breathe a bit easier, up two runs ... Posada plays the part and plops a basehit, his third of the game, to give his team a chance. Yet, it's all for naught, as the Bo-Sox quickly close out the ninth with a 9-7 win, sending many a drunk New Englander home happy on a balmy Boston night.

New endings and new beginnings in the unwritten narratives-to-come. We gotta think outside the box, in new vocabularies, creating new concepts and meanings -- and experiment with living them out, putting these linguistic/cultural practices to use, embodying those very changes we hope to see. Still centered on the actualities, while striving for the potentialities.

The batter sits on the loopy curve, squares it up and bludgeons the soft offering past the hot corner - fair ball! He's got wheels, so he's digging for three right out of the box. Scampering after the ricochet, our leftfielder heaves the ball from the deepest corner of the park toward third base. Headfirst slide...the tag...he's SAFE!