Or,
“I had a hat attack in my ca on the way ta tha pak”
This baseball post season has been an interesting journey for me. As a devout believer in the Church of Baseball, I have watched many converts to my religion follow two teams into the playoffs for the most absurd of reasons. For a while, every person I talked to was pulling for the Cubs and the Red Sox. They all wanted to see them play each other in the World Series. They all wanted these teams to do something neither of them has been able to do in generations. Mind you, very few of these people are day to day baseball fans. Very few of these people start thinking in January, “man only a few more weeks ’till pitchers and catchers.” Most of them wouldn’t even know what that phrase means. They understand the pageantry of my religion in the post season, but they have not suffered and rejoiced at the scores on a daily basis all summer. They haven’t watched their two teams for 162 games, one floundering lost in the wilderness as if all the front office decisions are being made by a crazed orangutan with a ouiji board and a magic Eightball, the other doggedly trying to keep pace in one of the closest pennant races in years with a badly rearranged rotation due to injury, only to fold like a lawn chair in the last week of the season. It was heartbreaking, as religion often is. It was inspiring at times as well, as religion should be. And then, all of a sudden, I was surrounded by these new acolytes to my church, singing the praises of teams that they have never followed, and hoping that one or the other or both would pull off the seemingly impossible. Very few of them could understand the argument that I spend 162 games a year rooting AGAINST the Cubs, and that pity for them for being perennial also-rans doesn’t suddenly reverse my loyalty or faith.
Everyone wanted the Cubs and Red Sox to win because they haven’t been able to win before. Now, lets explore a very important dogmatic tenet of my religion. The teams that go to the World Series are the two teams who WIN. Losing for, like, eighty years does not buy you a spot in the games biggest event. Sympathy doesn’t earn you a trip to the Fall Classic. These teams aren’t getting screwed by their own fans, and they are neither jinxed nor, Babe forbid, “Cursed”. They just aren’t as good as the other guys. Their managers made bad decisions, their arms and bats and brains were just that much less than their opponents. It is the basis of the entire religion, you wanna go to the World Series? Win ball games.
Sadly, the other deep problem with my religion overcame those young acolytes new found euphoria. Money, personified most accurately by George Steinbrenner, has led some within the religion astray in the most evil of ways, like the scourge of fundamentalism perverting the rather beautiful Islamic world. The Yankees, proudly flaunting their perversion, have once again bought their way into the World Series, guaranteeing that they can win ball games not on heart and brains and talent alone, but on the strength of their checkbook as well. In a World Series that the new acolytes will ignore as they shake their heads with futile discussions of “The Curse” and “The Fan”, Evil again will raise its ugly head and try to dominate the sport. I fear for my religions very existence, and have but one thing to say.
Go Fish.