Me: What do you think of
this article?
My wife, Allie: I like
it, but I wonder if other people will get it.
Me: Good point. I hope
they do. Here's a sentimental, if somewhat indulgent, look back
at the 2003 baseball season through the observations, emails, and conversations
of the Faloon clan, a poor man’s This America Life, if you will.
Enjoy!
Part 1
While on vacation in July, I got wind of the annual Cape Cod
League All Star game. The Cape League is comprised of college players from around
the country. I made a compromise with my wife, trading an afternoon of shopping
for attending the Cape’s All-Star game. My brother Pat joined us, and I was
indulged in a full nine innings.
I try to soak up as much of the atmosphere as possible. My
first impression is that this tiny amateur league has developed the “hey, we’re
you’re buddies” aura that MLB wants to project. And then some.
The game is held at a local high school field. As we pull
into the parking lot, we’re greeted by a sea of hand painted parking signs.
Admission is a mere three dollars, and even that is but a “suggested donation.”
Making our way to the third base bleachers, I notice smoke from the nearby
snack shack. Apparently, the food is cooked on site. What a quaint notion.
The home run contest gets underway while I scan the program,
reading over the list of former Cape League players now in the big leagues
(there are dozens, including Nomar, Jeff Bagwell, and Barry Zito). Glancing up at the dinger derby, I’m struck by the
sight of a patch of Astroturf covering home plate, giving off the putt-putt
golf atmosphere that home run derbies so richly deserve.
When the game gets underway, the setting seems too old
fashioned to be true. It’s the sort of place that would have Kevin Costner reaching for one of his
cell phones and begging someone, anyone,
to get “Blitzkrieg Bop” blasting out of the stadium’s p.a. system ASAP. A hush
falls over the stadium with each pitch as everyone tunes into the game. There
are nearly 6,000 people in attendance, yet it’s so quiet that not only can you
hear the ball smack into the catcher’s mitt, but you can also hear the sizzle
of the grass as a foul ball burns down the third base line. And each ball
fouled out of play sends a pack of kids off in pursuit, even though they know
all balls have to be returned. A row in front of us, two grandparents try to
coax their grandson into becoming a catcher. (Grandmother: physically it’s the
toughest position.” Grandfather: “Mentally too.”) Scanning the crowd I conduct
an unofficial poll with the following results: 50% of the fans have white hair
and 67% of the fans have Thoreau on their bookshelves.
By the third inning, however, reality has returned.
Aerosmith plays between batters, people are talking more during the action, and
the grandfather is more
Grumpy Old Men
than
Fields of Dreams (“If I was the
dictator of baseball, there’d be no long points. They look like pajamas!”) At
this point, I consider reconducting my poll.
Still, most of the evening is a time dash. The stat sheet is
littered with Ruthian ERA’s, the highest being
Garrett Mock’s 2.42. The West goes up 1-0 in the bottom of the first. The
East waits until the top of the ninth before responding, taking a 3-1 lead. No
one scores for seven inning and aside from Joey
Metropoulos’ RBI double in the first, there are no extra base hits.
While warming up, Mock waves over a pair of 10-year-old
boys. Their faces light up with “who, me?” then Mock hands each of them a ball.
A grand gesture by any measure, all the cooler when you realize Mock probably
has to pay for the balls.
But none of that compares to my favorite part of the game,
perhaps of the entire season, which happens shortly after the last out is
recorded. The stadium announcer comes over the p.a. with the following: “Plays
and coaches, there’s burgers, chip and soda at the concession stand for you.”
Part 2
In early August a
large part of my family finally gathered for a long-discussed trip to Fenway.
The Red Sox beat the Orioles 6-4 that night and the trek renewed our collective
desire to see the Sox stick it to the Yankees.
Through the rest of
the summer and into the fall, we kept in close contact as Boston alternately
surged and wheezed their way into and through the playoffs, but there were no
phone calls following Aaron Boone’s
devastating game 7 home run in the ALCS; nothing needed to be said on the
subject. That is until my uncle Steve broke
the silence with the following email, sent out to the family in the midst of
the World Series. (Note: Steve and his family reside in Lowell, Maine. The
other character with whom you should be familiar is my 14-year-old cousin Dustin.)
“For as long as I can remember, a fellow named Ned Martin announced Red Sox games on
radio. He retired a few years back, and actually passed away suddenly this
summer, but he was a great announcer. With an obvious love of language,
history, and literature, he would weave these obscure (at least to me) and
often funny quotes into his on-air patter which always seemed just perfect for
the moment, never pretentious or phony, just a sincere and perfect description
of the moment. In signing off the last broadcast of his 30 plus year Sox
career, following another season-long 7 month roller coaster ride of triumph
and post-season tragedy, he chose this slightly less obscure quote from former
baseball commissioner Bart Giammati
to say good-bye and describe his feelings for the game. In its entirety it’s
really quite wonderful, in part it goes:
‘It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart.
The game begins in the Spring, when everything else begins again, and it
blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon
as the chilly rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the cold of fall
alone.’
“Current announcer Joe
Castiglione followed Martin as ‘voice of the Sox,’ and last night continued
the tradition (with credit and tribute to Martin) of signing off the last
broadcast of the year with Giammati’s quote. Castiglione is a sincere, corny in
a good way, non-show biz type whose home run calls, as much as anything, are
the soundtrack of summer around here. He’s called a Sox game pretty much every
day since spring training started in February, and he lives and dies with this
team in a most endearing way. To sit beside the radio in the wee hours of the
night, following last night’s game, and finally hear him say goodbye with
Giammati’s words, well, it really was the sound of a broken heart. It really
was quite a memorable moment.
“Shortly after our trip to Boston, Dustin decided that he’d
rather watch or listen to anything instead of those awful, boring, awful, Red
Sox games. Because they always suck and lose in the end anyway. The other night
he wanted to use the TV to watch a movie rental (which we had for several more
days) instead of a playoff game, and got all hot and profane (I’ve actually
come to enjoy short sharp bursts of teenage profanity in the home) when I told
him I really didn’t have a choice, I had to watch the game. In case you’ve
forgotten (which I had) the 14 year-old mind operates in a fairly concrete way.
In his mind it was totally ridiculous, I’m sorry, TOTALLY RIDICULOUS!!!
That I really had no choice in the matter. I told him that some time between
1967 and 1986 something had happened. Whether it was countless late-night hours
sitting with Dad on the porch at camp listening to Ned Martin, or countless
crushing defeats at the hands of handsome, talented, but nonetheless evil New
Yorkers I couldn’t say, but something had happened. This had become my team. A
bond had been created that no man nor judge could break, and that I was
certainly powerless to change. I told him that is he showed me a kid at school
who claimed to be a Yankees, Lakers or Cowboys fan I’d show him a total phony who didn’t know the first thing about what it’s like to
actually care about something other than their pitiful selves
(I’ve found this to be an effective method of communicating with today’s young
people). I told him this was about DNA, about the stuff that runs in your
veins. That this wasn’t choosing the flavor of the week, instead this was about
being chosen. And no matter how crushing the end of a season is, you can’t wait
to do it all over again next year.
Before last night’s game, Dustin came to me and asked if we
could watch the game together. I wept openly and embraced him. O.K., I didn’t
weep and embrace, but I do consider that my work here as a parent is largely
done. Literally as I was writing this part of the email (truth) Dustin came
through the door, home from school saying “I want to knock this kid flat on his
ass for talking Yankees all day. I told him his mother and I would support his
decision to kick a child’s ass at school even if it took place over a portion
of the day, much less the entire day. And why? Because that person is a phony. And deep down even phonies want to be good people, and we
can’t help them in their goal to become better people unless we kick their ass
and then tell them why we kicked their ass (I think I’m finally getting the
hang of this parent stuff). In short, I think there may be hope for our potty
mouthed young man.
“From Dustin, to our extended family, to the Red Sox, and
ultimately to a theory. 2003 represented the first time this team had won 6 or
more post-season games since 1986. 2003 also represented the first year this
family sent an entourage of support to Fenway Park to cheer or at least observe
their efforts. Coincidence? I don’t think so. I think the data clearly
demonstrates a direct connection between the success of the Red Sox franchise
and this family’s willingness to share their “essence” (if you will). In fact I
will go one step further and extrapolate from the data that had all members of
the family attended that August game, a World Series title would have been
attained. I’m calling all members, and you know who you are, to join us in
Boston next summer. Not just for a game, but a Yankees game. By showing Steinbrenner, and in fact the world,
what we think of his little band of evildoers, I believe we can effectively
change the legacy of this rivalry. We can no longer dip our toes in the waters
of indifference (yes I actually made that one up.) It’s time to gather in
Boston as one, and do what we must. If we’re to see the Yankees we’ll need to
be on the phone the first hours that tickets go on sale. A simple yea or nay
will signal your intent. We have only begun to fight, and I believe we the
Yankees exactly where we want them.
Part 3
Over the past two
years my brother, Casey, has finally caught the baseball bug. I have been
trying to indoctrinate him since the late 70s, but only recently have such
efforts taken hold. As two guys who hate the Yankees and love underdogs, we
were ecstatic over the prospect of a Cubs/Red Sox World Series. When both of
those teams collapsed we considered surrender. We finally caught up by phone
while watching game 6 of the World Series, Casey in Syracuse, me in Brewster.
Mike: Were you
watching the game while you were out earlier?
Casey: Oh yeah, I
was getting shit for it too. I was the only person in the place clapping [for the
Marlins]. I got a lot of bad looks because I said out loud, “Bobble head Jeter? No, bobble hands Jeter.
Meanwhile, the FOX TV
broadcast of the game shows Josh Beckett
striding to the mound to start the ninth.
Mike: Holy cow.
Casey: What?
Mike: Josh Beckett
is going to go for the complete game.
Casey: You got
that before me.
We realize that our
televisions are slightly out of synch, mine being about two seconds ahead of
Casey’s.
Mike: It must be
that delay again. Oh man, someone’s just shot Jeter!
Casey: What? Jerk.
Bernie Williams comes to
the plate.
Casey: This guy’s
dangerous. Every time he’s been retired I’m like, go sing me a song, Bernie.
Williams flies to
left.
Casey: Did you
see Pettite yelling into his glove
earlier? He put his glove over his face and you could see him swearing. He’s just screaming. And obviously he
might have been saying, “Cheese and rice, golly willagers, hootenanny,” or
something like that.
Matsui flies to left.
Mike: Two outs.
Casey: One away,
oh my God. How’s that burn in your Cheerios, Steinbrenner?
Mike: Who’s going
to make the last out?
FOX cuts to Jorge Posada in the on deck circle.
Casey and Mike: Ooohhh!
Mike: Posada’s
going to make the last out. The chinless wonder. He looks like the weasel from
the Emmet Otter special.
Casey: [sings “Brothers”
from the Emmet Otter Christmas special] Brothers…
Mike: [laughing]
Stop, I’m hyperventilating here.
Casey: Brothers….
Mike: Twenty-six
outs. The only, the only good thing
about the Yankees in the World Series is the possibility of watching them lose.
Posada grounds out to
Beckett.
Mike: There it
is, how sweet is that?
Casey: Holy crap. Look at them [the Marlins]!
FOX cuts to the Yankee
bench.
Mike: Zimmer, maybe you should have run out
and tackled Beckett.
Casey: Holy shit.
For a club whose farm team had a better attendance last year…I can’t believe
Beckett did it. Three days rest and he pitched a complete game.
Mike: A shutout.
In Yankee Stadium.
Casey: I would love to be in a fenced-in cage outside of
Yankee Stadium right now, telling all the Yankee fans to stick it.
Mike: Like a
shark cage?
Casey: Yeah,
exactly. But those Yankee fans, they know a guy. Next thing I know I’d be on
the back of a tow truck slung around the boroughs of New York City.
FOX shows a replay of Juan Pierre charging in from
centerfield.
Casey: Look at
that, that is the best look on anyone’s face ever. I could watch that forever.
Mike: Right, and
none of the Yankees would react with that amount of joy. For the Marlins, it’s
a group of guys winning it for the first time, not a bunch of smug bastards
racking it up for the seventeenth time. Sure, the Yankees would be happy, but
it’d be more of a sense of entitlement they have.
FOX cuts to a weeping
Jorge Posada.
Casey: Poor
Jorge.
Mike: And right
now the Yankees know they’re going to be in the playoffs next year. There’s no
drama.
Casey: I wish I
had a DVD-R so I could record this. I’d print it out and put it all over the
office.
Cut to the Marlins
locker room. Bud Selig readies
himself to present the World Series trophy to Marlins owner Jeffery Loria.
Mike: It’s about
now that it sinks in: we’re rooting for a Florida team. It’s good, but it could
be better.
Casey: Did you
see Loria’s shirt the other night? He looked like an Easter basket.
A reporter serves the
inevitable “you have to hand it to the Yankees” set up to Jack McKeon.
Mike: What he
really wants to say is, “The Yankees and everybody else can kiss my 72-year-old
ass.”
Then, after lapsing
into a barrage of crass (but obvious) anti-Yankee exchanges, things end on a
pensive note.
Casey: You know
what kind of depressed me Mike—and I’m sure you’ll be really happy to hear this—I
pull into the driveway, and I’m listening to the radio, and I go, “There’s only
six more outs of baseball left in the year. Period.”
Mike: Wow, you’re
going to miss the season. We can commiserate during the off-season drought.
