MaineCourse

Go Marlins

Christine Radulski

Well, you and I haven't talked since...well you know. Now, I went to bed when NY tied it up and other than the family telling me who won the game, I have chosen not to partake in any media regarding that game--no radio, tv or newspaper-since the playoffs ended. Why spoil what was an amazing run. To that end, I am sharing with you a glorious day we had at Fenway Park back on August 25. We played Seattle. It was between us and them for the Wild Card. Pedro pitched and we won 7-1. We were in the first row of the Monster seats, me, Mark and our kids, on a beautiful summer day. The kids (okay the kids and Mark) had their picture taken with the mascot, what's his name, oh yes, Wally. They also were beside themselves with anticipation of a homerun coming our way...little boys ready with their little gloves. Alas, that was not to be, but Gabe Kapler did throw a ball up the monster at the end of the game, which went over us, much to the angst of my seven year old (who stated, for anyone within earshot, "this is the worst thing that's ever happened"). My daughter, who turned 15 later that week, was quite happy to spend the day with her little brothers and her parents, something that doesn't happen too often these days! We even got a parking space within walking distance. We go to about 5 games a year, but this was special, even more so than the Yankee games we've been to. The kids went back to school two days after that game, and it was a great day to spend as a family before another back to school time when life spirals into the school routine. So that is what you do when heartbreak happens, remember the really special things and block out everything else. I wish our local sportswriters could do the same.

Here is my Monster view. Interestingly, I've never brought a camera to the
ballpark before. I'm so glad I took one on this day. April is right around
the corner...

Chris

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My team, the Cincinnati Redlegs, won just enough to allow me to ignore the plight of my adopted team, the Red Sox.

However, this year, my thirty-third in New England, I dropped my guard (I can't name but two players on the Reds), jumped on the barreling bandwagon, and sacrificed my soul to the team that plays in "a lyric little bandbox of a ballpark."

In the sixth grade, with a crush that swirled Archie Andrew-like hearts around my head, I said to Mary Clay, "I love you." I was sure she felt the same way, after all, she never failed to return my smiles.

She laughed in my face.

That is how I felt Friday morning. Bitter, disillusioned and broken. Just like, I assume, a true Red Sox fan.

But, we mid-westerners are not slow learners. That wagon ain't stoppin' at my house again.

Posted by Michael.

I, too, was a playoff-only convert -- though I don't have another team otherwise, just not usually very interested in baseball. I watched the whole amazing series, and for that last game I stayed up. And I watched the Yankees swarm the field when they won, and I was impressed that their joy seemed so genuine. No legendary smugness. So I watched awhile just to feel that joy, as that which I'd anticipated wasn't to be and why got to bed joyless? Then I went to bed.

As a transient, I wasn't crushed afterwards, and other than the ugly echoes in the imminent court appearances, I didn't mind the aftermath too much. But it is nice to go back to the middle, when nothing's do or die, and the game's the thing. Thanks for a refreshing whiff of the innocence and joy that can be found in such a game, and in family.

Posted by adam.

For me, other than the defeat of my poor Cubbies at the bats of a band of fish wearing softball uniforms, the travesty here is that loyal-beyond-words fans of the Red Sox (like Chris) feel forced to root for a team that has no real fans to appreciate them (the Marlins), and never-say-die fans of the Cubs (myself included) are reduced to rooting for a team (the Yankees) bought and paid for by an egomaniacal petrillionaire. Were we in our right minds this would not be happening!

Posted by Susan.

Susan, what you say is, sadly, true. (For the record, the Sox beat the Marlins 25-8 this year at Fenway.) However, we can take some solace that the absence of the Cubs and Sox is in itself a presence. Now, as a Sox fan, I am not part of a family, as I believe Cubs fans are, I'm part of the (okay it's a bit overstated) "nation". Red Sox Nation. When we went to the above mentioned game it was "Vermont Day" for "the Nation", complete with Miss Vermont singing the national anthem and the governor of VT throwing out the first ball (with Bill Lee, our beloved "spaceman"). You cub fans have John Cusack and Bill Murray rooting for your team and various celebrities singing "Take me out to the Ballgame". We in Boston have Stephen King. Stephen King! The king of horror books rooting for the team that's cursed. Seems like an oxymoron. Someone should tell him to stay in Maine (also part of 'the Nation'). But we Boston fans (and perhaps Cubs fans) tend to never forget the agonizing let downs...but somehow people can forget the joys the regular season brought. Now Michael, because we never forget, I must go on record for all Sox fans and say I HATE the Cinti Reds dating back to game 7 of the 1975 series (it's always game 7 dammit!) when that horrible umpire Larry Barnett got into it with Carlton Fisk. It brings me joy to this day that Pete Rose will never be in the hall of fame. (But I still hate the comment the mean writer man wrote on your paper.)

Posted by Chris.

Well, payback's a bitch...shut out in New York by a 23 year old. I love it.

Posted by Chris.

Sorry, Susan, the Yankees don't need any more trophies . I'm going to sleep quite well tonight.

Posted by Michael.

So, the Marlin organization (with that gnarly little man who used to own the Expos, but threw them away like so much garbage) can stage a stupid parade and all three fans can throw rice or bird poop or whatever they throw in lieu of ticker tape! Do you realize that that team played in a stadium that holds 65,000 people, yet averaged under 14,000 fans per game? The Red Sox and Cubs in their much smaller stadiums had more people at games in a month than the fish had all year. (At least until the play-offs started.) Makes me want to puke.

Baseball fandom is a funny phenom. When I was a little girl, there were three teams playing in NYC--the Giants at the Polo Grounds, the Dodgers in Brooklyn, and the hated Bronx Yankees, Everyone was an avid fan of one of those teams. In many cases, people's devotion to their teams proved that blood is not thicker than water. Although my family members never came to blows, I do remember the heated arguments--always after Thanksgiving dinner, but before pie and bridge--among the Uncles and my Dad and the Grandfathers. We had only one Dodger guy (the maternal grandfather), who took it on the chin from all quarters. The rest of the crowd was pretty much divided between the Giants and the hated Yankees. Such voice raising and epithet tossing you have never heard. Irish American trash talk (before anyone knew what to call it) with every so often the tiniest German accent. Wherever they are today, they are all truly appalled!

Posted by Susan.

From afar, I thing Cub's fans have the proper perspective about their\ team's achievements. Or lack thereof. At least until they decided to vilify Mr Bartman.

From up close, I would say Sox fans, those who would give rabid dogs a good name, do not. Should Grady be canned for mistakes made in one inning?

And, Chris, about that '75 series. Yes, I was rooting for the Reds, and yes I had fantasies about helping the team bus find Tuft's field during the rain delays and then warning Sparky about Bill Lee, but I know I wouldn't have been so polarized had Jim McMahon taken me, and not his wife, Bonnie, to game two.

Posted by Michael.

Susan I love your reminicenses. The Marlins were nothing more than the lesser of two evils, but were impressive none-the-less. Florida is a Football nation, not a baseball nation, and I hope they can appreciate what they've got.

We never had discussions like you all did about baseball, as everyone at our house rooted for the same team, though I've no doubt that people even outside of New York rooted for one team over another. Then again, you didn't cross my father when it came to his Red Sox, so if anyone felt any different, you wouldn't voice it. My Dad was manager of a Brighams in Wellesley, Ma where Ted Williams, Dom DiMaggio (brother of the great one) and Sox announcer Curt Gowdy would often stop in and they were on a first name basis. For my father, this was the closest thing to heaven on earth. Ted Williams hit his last home run at his last at bat on 9/28/60, which was the day before I was born and of course that was the headline in the Boston papers on the day I was born. I've no doubt my father rejoiced this event as much as the blessed event. Okay maybe a little more than the blessed event. I could share many baseball stories about him, he was quite a character with his baseball. It's ingrained in me, I couldn't root for anyone else if I tried. But I also can't hate them when they don't do well, because too much goes into liking them to hate them.

As for you Michael...I never knew you went to a World Series game in Boston and rooted for the other side. I need to let this sink in a little as the hurt is just too much. Now I feel like you felt with that Mary Clay girl!

Posted by chris.

Back from Boca where I woke out of a doze to see the Yankee homer in the 11th (12th?) that preserved the curse, I went looking for Chris' much-heralded first blog entry -- only to find it and be overwhelmed with a baseball (spectator sports?) frenzy that does not compute, given a missing gene in my Aztec-American chromosomes.

I guess I most closely align with Adam's playoff-only convert profile; hard not to be when down the hall my business partner and traveling companion for playoff week, Jim, is a die-hard Yankee, stemming from similar gene pools as Chris' and Susan's.

I am amazed at the dates, personal statistics, and passion that true-believer fans (of any sport) display--and at the same time dumfounded -- genetically deficient as I am -- that anyone could care like that about something they watch rather than do.

There is undoubtedly a long lineage of explanation for our differences. I suspect my general disdain for American sports -- and my resulting chromosonal emptiness -- date back to my people being deceived and maligned by the hordes of Spanish conquistadors, assisted in the present by a media and culture that acknowledge only one winner.

Posted by Dan.

Dear Dan: Baseball is my Flamenco dancing:)

Posted by chris.

Posted by Michael at October 25, 2003 12:04 PM