Friday, September 25, 2009
As the Season Draws to a Close
I spent the night tonight at Yankee Stadium seeing the Yankees send their rivals to the northeast, the dreaded Boston Red Sox, to a 9-5 defeat. Baseball is a near religious experience to me. My first home was walking distance to Wrigley Field, and I attended my first Major League Baseball game in my mother's arms in diapers.
Tonight was the last game of the season that I had tickets to. I was looking forward to this game. I saw great defensive plays, timely hitting, and lots of stolen bases. Jayne and I were under-dressed. The temperature plunged by around fifteen degrees since yesterday in a trumpeting of autumn's arrival. Our tickets were, what is often referred to as "nosebleed seats." They were almost directly behind the plate, the back of the horseshoe, facing directly into a 20 mile per hour wind. They were more like nose-freeze seats.
By the fourth inning we were miserable, and elected to get out of the wind. We walked around the upper reaches of the park, seeking a spot to watch the game out of the wind. We settled into a location out of the wind with a decent view, and shortly thereafter our religious experience was shattered by a man screaming into his cell phone.
This guy was screaming first at his wife, then his daughter. He stood directly behind us, about ten or fifteen feet away, in what I can only describe as a three inning rant. He was louder than the public address system at points. Several people around me found themselves staring at this guy as his voice raised louder than the Irish tenor that sings "God Bless America" during the seventh inning stretch. I exchanged looks with a half-dozen fans who were unable to watch the game as this man verbally abused his family in the most public of places. I wanted to say something to him, but I was sure that whatever I said would have invited physical abuse. He nearly ruined the game. He screamed into his cell phone the same tirade over and over agin. "You're grounded. you're grounded for calling your mother a liar." He must have screamed this fifteen times.
But he did not ruin the game. He could not. A baseball game cannot be ruined by one creep, unless, of course, the person was a fan for an opposition team seated directly behind you and is constantly screaming directly into your ear. Even then, you can have the offender arrested, or take the more direct response of punching his lights out.
This has been a season of disappointment for me. My Cubs underperformed and are currently making their fishing plans. The Yankees, however, will likely clinch the the championship of the American League Eastern Division, if not this weekend, then by Tuesday. The Yankees are a team that I married into. I root for them, but I root for the Cubs louder and more enthusiastically. No matter the annual futility, the Cubs own the baseball area of my heart. It is an unexplainable faith, just like religion.
Monday I will spend much of the day in shul, observing the true religion of my birth. I will be atoning for the sins of the year. My biggest sin is probably wishing harm on members the St. Louis Cardinals, along with Cubs' general manager Jim Hendry for not resigning Mark DeRosa and instead signing Milton Bradley.
Tonight was the last game of the season that I had tickets to. I was looking forward to this game. I saw great defensive plays, timely hitting, and lots of stolen bases. Jayne and I were under-dressed. The temperature plunged by around fifteen degrees since yesterday in a trumpeting of autumn's arrival. Our tickets were, what is often referred to as "nosebleed seats." They were almost directly behind the plate, the back of the horseshoe, facing directly into a 20 mile per hour wind. They were more like nose-freeze seats.
By the fourth inning we were miserable, and elected to get out of the wind. We walked around the upper reaches of the park, seeking a spot to watch the game out of the wind. We settled into a location out of the wind with a decent view, and shortly thereafter our religious experience was shattered by a man screaming into his cell phone.
This guy was screaming first at his wife, then his daughter. He stood directly behind us, about ten or fifteen feet away, in what I can only describe as a three inning rant. He was louder than the public address system at points. Several people around me found themselves staring at this guy as his voice raised louder than the Irish tenor that sings "God Bless America" during the seventh inning stretch. I exchanged looks with a half-dozen fans who were unable to watch the game as this man verbally abused his family in the most public of places. I wanted to say something to him, but I was sure that whatever I said would have invited physical abuse. He nearly ruined the game. He screamed into his cell phone the same tirade over and over agin. "You're grounded. you're grounded for calling your mother a liar." He must have screamed this fifteen times.
But he did not ruin the game. He could not. A baseball game cannot be ruined by one creep, unless, of course, the person was a fan for an opposition team seated directly behind you and is constantly screaming directly into your ear. Even then, you can have the offender arrested, or take the more direct response of punching his lights out.
This has been a season of disappointment for me. My Cubs underperformed and are currently making their fishing plans. The Yankees, however, will likely clinch the the championship of the American League Eastern Division, if not this weekend, then by Tuesday. The Yankees are a team that I married into. I root for them, but I root for the Cubs louder and more enthusiastically. No matter the annual futility, the Cubs own the baseball area of my heart. It is an unexplainable faith, just like religion.
Monday I will spend much of the day in shul, observing the true religion of my birth. I will be atoning for the sins of the year. My biggest sin is probably wishing harm on members the St. Louis Cardinals, along with Cubs' general manager Jim Hendry for not resigning Mark DeRosa and instead signing Milton Bradley.
