A Welcome Arrival to Sports Fan Normalcy

The joy, exhilaration, fulfillment and satisfaction that come from this latest Red Sox World Series Championship cannot be matched by the complete and overwhelming sense of 'normalcy' I now feel.

This is what it should be like to be a fan of a professional sports team. You cheer your team all season long enjoying the wins while agonizing over the losses. The team is successful and reaches the playoffs where the intensity of each game rises to a higher level. The wins become more rewarding, the losses more painful. But there is no sense of sickening dread. No feeling of physical anguish, no heart-stopping, stroke-causing, mind-crippling, comatose-inducing accompaniment to every...win (the losses go beyond any literary description I am capable of)

I thought (hoped, wished, prayed) those feelings would have left me after the glorious 2004 Season. That October, The 25 triumphed over 86 years of not hopelessness, hope is what had made it all so cruel...
Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane©Red What that Team did was triumph over all the forces; cosmic, karmic... demonic, that had made being a Red Sox fan a fantastically miserable one that could only be understood by those who had staggered on as survivors of the team's tortured history.

Sadly though, those same feelings persisted. Once the elation of 2004 subsided and a new season began, they returned once again. Only now they were accompanied by a new feeling nearly as devastating as 'what if I never see them win it?'. The feeling that 'what if I never see them win another one?'. Those fans of the 1918 Red Sox had no idea what their life and the lives of their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren would become. But fans of the 2004 Red Sox knew all to well the burden that had been hoisted upon us... "what if there are no more championships? what have we done to future generations who will be born in to this unholy cadre with only the mythical memories of the names of Ortiz, Schilling, Varitek, Ramirez and Foulke... no more real to them then the names Ruth, Hooper, Mays, Leonard and Strunk are to our generation?"

But now, after the Boston Red Sox second World Series championship in the last four seaons I feel a sense of... normalcy - which as a fan, is all I've ever wanted. I don't need to cheer for a team that wins Back-to-Back-to-Back' championships or becomes a 'Dynasty'. As a fan, all I have ever really wanted is simply the chance to enjoy the game. To know that if my team possesses the necessary talent and performs to their potential over the course of the season, that as a fan, I will be rewarded quite logically (remember the word 'logically' once held no meaning for Red Sox fans) with a Championship.

No longer does each season carry with it a sense of dread. No more intolerable anguish. All those feelings can now be replaced with normalcy. Happiness follows a win, disappointment a loss... and that's it. Am I somehow less of a fan now? I don't think so. Is being a Red Sox fan somehow less special, the experience less singular than it once was - probably. Is being a member of 'The Nation' now just like being a fan of any other successful sports team? I hope so...

The 25 made a chance at normalcy a possibility on October 27, 2004 but it wasn't until tonight, October 28, 2007, that Sports Fan Normalcy became a reality.
So Thank You and Congratulation to the 2007 Boston Red Sox - World Series Champions and bringers of normalcy to Red Sox Nation.

¡Alegría!

¡Alegría! the 'Joy of Beisbol' is back! Pedro Martinez returned to the mound today for the first time this season, completing his recovery from shoulder surgery. His final line, 5 IP 2 ER 4 K (including punchado #3000) was not a vintage performance as Pedro worked mostly in the mid-80s with his fastball relying heavily on his cutter + changeup but it was enough against the Reds for career win number 207. More importantly he provided the Mets with an emotional boost that may carry them deep into October.

"Having him back in the clubhouse is a shot of life," -- David Wright.

'Life' is something Pedro will always bring to the game. The Pedro Martinez that dominated baseball from 1997 - 2002 will never be seen again. The 96 mph fastball he used to intimidate hitters before baffling them with his Bugs Bunny changeup is gone and he's no longer able to summon the vicious curveball that left batters motionless. His tattered, torn and now surgically repaired shoulder won't allow him to call upon his once unparalleled physical talent for pitching a baseball. But the alegria, the joy, that is inside of him cannot be suppressed by age or injury. All of us who are fortunate enough to witness him on a mound even at this stage of his career should welcome his return to the Game with his same passion and joy.

Best.Cover.Song.Ever

came across a promo CD for Chris Cornell's new solo album Carry On today... even though Audioslave disappointed, I'll still throw down on some Soundgarden and Cornell's voice will always be one of the all-time illest for me (check back for a post on this topic sometime soon - top 10 voices from rock to hip-hop or something equally Vh1-ish) so I gave a listen...

after several tracks it's okay, not Badmotorfinger or Superunknown level but Cornell's voice is still on point and it's a good listen until about halfway through the album... more slow, plaintive guitars and Cornell whispering, almost to himself, sounding like a man all alone who just received the worst news he's ever heard and is down to his last cigarette and beer, with little hope of receiving any comfort from either...

"She was more like a beauty queen / from a movie scene / I said don't mind but what do you mean I am the one...?"

almost instinctively I found myself singing the familiar words along with him in this strange, mournful cadence

"Who will dance on the floor in the round / She says I am the one / Who will dance on the floor in the round/"

wait... wtf?! how do I even know a song from an advanced copy of a promotional CD I had no idea existed until earlier today? and then just a few more bars in...

"People always told me be careful what you do / Don't go around breaking young girls' hearts /"

wow?! BILLY !@#$%* JEAN! Chris Cornell, the greatest voice from the '90s alternative/grunge era, the sound that defined that decade covering the song/artist that (for me at least) defined the 1980's. Well, let me just finish by saying I thoroughly enjoyed Mr. Cornell's version of this timeless classic and feel duty and honor bound to share it with the world before it becomes lost forever.
So please, enjoy... Chris Cornell -- Billy Jean

hitting is fifty percent above the shoulders*

the greatest player I have ever witnessed in my lifetime was talking with 'the commissioner' about the game and what it's been like pursuing The Record. Not much of interest really until he was asked 'what's been the toughest thing now that you're so close to the record?' The greatest player I have ever witnessed in my lifetime began to give another practiced answer but then paused, thought and said something of much greater interest...

'the only thing that gets me is when they change the balls - I gotta try and not see that change. In my mind, when I see the ball change, that's when you know something different is going on'

Wait? What did he mean 'when they change the balls'? and then it hit me - MLB places a special stamp on balls they want to verify for historic reasons, a way to make sure those moral stalwarts in the memorabilia business don't cheat the public (or at least don't cheat MLB and other moral stalwarts in the memorabilia business)

So in the less than the 0.42 seconds it takes a ball moving in excess of 90mph to travel the distance from a pitcher's hand to home plate, the greatest player I have ever witnessed in my lifetime eye/mind (1.) recognizes the stamp (2.) thinks 'hmmm...that's different - ooooh yeah, I'm only a few homeruns away from The Record, they'll want to be able to get that ball back' (3.) determines if the pitch is one he will choose to send hurtling back through the atmosphere at a great distance and even greater speed.
*For those of you unfamiliar with the game of baseball - this is not easily accomplished or really, even fathomed. It's not quite TGHWL© reading the label off a spinning 45 from across the room - but it's close

I'm not naive, I've read Game of Shadows, I've followed his career since his call up in '86 and I've seen all the physical changes... I also know without any doubt, that Barry Lamar Bonds is the greatest player I have ever witnessed in my lifetime.

*attributed to 'The Greatest Hitter Who Ever Lived'

heroes get remembered but legends never die...

two recent articles, this one by Eric Neel and Joe Posnaski's 'The Legend of Bo', got me thinking about the players I will always remember. The men who's stories I hope to share with my children and theirs when I'm old, senile and can't remember much other than Pedro's line from 1999 (23 -4 2.07 ERA 313 Ks) the geometric perfection in the arc of Griffey's swing or the speed and grace of a man called Kirby who measured 5'8" and 240+ lbs...
so over the coming weeks and months I hope to fill this space with the memories I have of the 'legends' of the game... maybe not a list of all-time greats (although there will be those) and maybe not even everyone an all-star... but a list of the players, the games, the moments that deserve re-telling, to be shared for years to come so they can always be remembered

the breaks of the game....

Rest in Peace, David Halberstam (1934 - 2007)
Harvard graduate, NY Times reporter, Pulitzer by the age of 30, essential works on Robert and John F. Kennedy, The Vietnam War and the American Media... Summer of '49 and The Teammates, two amazing reads about Baseball in the Golden Age and the meaning of friendship... but it is The Breaks of The Game that stands out. It is still possibly the best book ever written about baseketball or any American sport. More than that, it uses the uniqueness of a team (the 1978 Portland Trailblazers) and of an individual (Bill Walton, when he was still an enigmatic, supremely talented athlete and not the hyperbolic voice of ESPN's nba coverage - "THROW IT DOOOOWWWN BIG FELLAH") to examine American culture and society. If you own it, pull it down and give it another read (as I'm about to do) and if you don't have a copy - order one and enjoy...
Mr. Halberstam - you will be missed

**edit** more Halberstam - from the Boston Globe, 'Day Spent with One of the Greats' (spending a day talking with Ted Williams is near the top of my list of 'things to do when I get to heaven/hell' - whichever place people like myself and Mr. Williams come to reside)

in the beginning...

it was the best of times, it was the worst of times...
call me Ismael...
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...
for as long as I can remember, all I ever wanted was to be a gangster
back in the days when I was a teenager/before I had status and before I had a pager...