pomegranate

What is it about Baseball?

He asked me the other day over lunch, "What is it about baseball?"

I said, "I think it's the rhythm."

I said, "I think it's the slowness of it all."

I said, "It's probably why it's not the most popular sport in our culture any more, but it's the reason why I like it."

I said, "I don't really watch it."

I said, "I have it on, while I do other things."

I said, "But I can still keep track of it. I can look up from what I'm doing, and have a general sense of what's going on, and something about that is very comforting."

I said, "It's a great soundtrack."

I said, "It keeps me informed enough so that I can talk about it and know a little bit, but if I miss a game, it's okay. "

I said, "I think the pace corresponds with my brain waves."

I said, "I can't concentrate on it any more.  If I do, I think of steroids and arrogance and records grown meaningless."

I said, "But I like having it in the background."

I said, "There's something about the rhythm."

Sunday Satisfaction

Yesterday, I relaxed with football.

It's not something I would watch by myself or turn on the radio if I had a long drive.   I don't read about it. But I like watching it with my friend.  I like it to wash over me.  I know nothing much about it at all, but I like watching it.  It just seems beautiful to me and sometimes funny and something that Tivo seems designed for, because how many times do you want to see a play?  Who wants to attend to half time and all the commercials?   And I like the music, those majestic orchestral passages that seem made for this game. 

i decided yesterday that I wanted coach's headphones.  I wanted the guys in the booth to be giving me tips while I walk through life.  "Now, tread carefully here.  You might want to punt.  Now, go, go, go!"

The In Between Time

It's that time of year again, one that doesn't hit right away, particularly since Fox took over the World Series, and it's almost a relief to turn it off, to have blessed silence for a while, but then a few days pass, and the thought returns.  There won't be baseball on TV until March.

And this year is colored with a new hue of sadness, because even when the game returns, Mr. King won't be there, at least in physical form.  I imagine his spirit will be hovering over the booth for a while, but I also imagine his spirit to be in much demand. 

But I miss the games, despite my complaints about it, despite my increased crankiness,despite my insistence that it's little more than background noise to me now.  I miss the rhythm of the season.  I miss the parade of men on my TV set.  I miss their voices and the crack of the bat.  I miss following the story of the games.  I miss having random facts lurking in the back of my brain, seemingly at all times.  It won't be the same without the great Bill King.  But it will be something, an adaptation that may look even more like wallpaper, but will paper a wall, and when the season ends, after a few days, i will feel as if I've misplaced my keys, but it will really be that I miss the season.

The Thrill Is Gone

Last night, at 8 o'clock, I switched over from the World Series to watch Rosie O'Donnell on Inside the Actor's Studio.  There was a voice in the back of my head that cried, "This is sacrilege!"  I didn't even think that I liked Rosie O'Donnell, but I discovered while watching this show, that I did.  That's one of the great things about Inside the Actor's Studio is that you can be surprised by the performers.  When they're just supposed to be themselves, you can really get a different sense of them.  Rosie O'Donnell seemed smart and funny and articulate and honest and brave and practical and levelheaded.  Who knew?  Certainly not me.

My mother called me up midway through Rosie.  She lives on the East Coast.  I wondered why she was up so late.  Apparently she had watched the World Series to its conclusion.  When I picked up the phone, she referred to a walk-off homerun that she assumed I'd seen.  I had to confess I'd chosen Rosie over baseball, and that I was happy with my choice.  So happy, in fact, that I had even forgotten about the game. 

I didn't tell my mom why I had turned it off.  It seemed to me that if someone is going to stay up that late to watch the game, far be it for me to say that I think that it's just awful that they were playing in those weather conditions.   That the season has become too long, and they've just grown too greedy, and it was way too important a game to play under such compromised conditions. That I think there has been way too many mistakes made by the umpiring crew.  That I hate the Fox razmatazz.  That at this point I can only see it as background music to other activities, and even now I sometimes get too bored to watch to the end.  That I know this should be a good story, but somehow for me it's gotten lost in translation.  I've gotten the Reader's Digest version, the one where the interpretor puts in a lot of exclamation points and uses generic words.  I would miss these games right now with few second thoughts, and that is something new.

To Bill King

Tuesday night, I cried.

It had been one of those unbelievably busy days, full of work, and then Billy Bragg in the car instead of the radio, and friends, and then more Billy Bragg, and then I went home and checked my email, and there was one from a friend that mentioned that it was so sad about Bill King, and I read the rest of the note, and then went to the Chronicle Web site, and began reading the tributes to this man, the anchor, the heart and soul of the A's broadcast booth, who died this past Tuesday at the age of 78 from complications from a hip surgery.

When I became an A's fan in 1994, I first fell in love with the team, which in retrospect, was a bit difficult to do, because these were lean years of the franchise, and it was on the eve of a players' strike, but I fell in love with the players.  I was studying music at the time and had just begun playing in public, and so I was very interested in how athletes do what they do day after day. Baseball seemed a lot like music to me in the physical and mental discipline you need and the whole idea of practice and muscle memory, and I just loved to watch them play.

So, I became a season ticketholder and I realized something almost immediately.  When I went to the game, it felt essential to have my Walkman with me.  I wanted to hear the commentary from the booth.   First, it was Lon and Bill and Ray, when he wasn't on TV. Then Lon left and Ken took his place.  There would be substitutes sprinkled in here and there, but the main constellation was Ray, Ken, and Bill, the maverick the spiritual leader, the quirky rock who described cloud patterns and ate things like day old burritos and peanutbutter and onion and salsa on a tortilla, who would warble a snippet of  Hank Williams into the microphone, who had a contest, with the other two, on who could say the sponsor's tagline, "The car that goes VROOM!" the most flamboyantly.  This was Bill.

As years went on, I made a shift.  I grew to not like going to games much.  I felt further and further apart from the players. But I continued to want to listen to the broadcasters, particularly Ken and Ray and Bill.  There was an affection between them that was palpable.  There was a respect and admiration and much laughter.  These were men who obviously enjoyed each other and their work.  They created a syncopation with each other as if they were jazz players.  My mind already misses Bill.  He had the greatest vocabulary.  He was blunt in his assessments of things,and you could also hear wonder in his voice, when he saw something that stirred him.

I had the pleasure of meeting Bill King a few times.  The first was at a jazz club.  I was with friends, waiting inside in line to see Diana Krall years ago, and we turned around and there was Bill.  And we exclaimed, "Bill!" as if he was a long lost family member, and bless his heart, he responded as if that was an appropriate greeting.  It was in the fall, after postseason, and he told us that he had just heard that the A's had acquired Kenny Rogers, and that Brosius was gone.  And we talked about that for a few minutes, while his wife stood patient and bemused behind him, while we did a few puns on the gamble and the Gambler, and then the line began to move, and we found seats in a daze.  Diana Krall was great, but she could not hold one candle to those moments of conversation with Bill King telling us news before the paper even reported it.

I saw him again on the field on a day where season ticketholders were given the opportunity to have their pictures taken with the players.  Bill strolled out of the clubhouse entryway, resplendent in jeans and a black buttondown shirt.  Again, I asked him a question that you normally wouldn't say to someone you don't know.  I asked him what he had eaten that day.  And he didn't blink an eye.  He said, "Steak," and then he positioned himself between me and my friend, put his arms around us, and the picture was taken.

I last saw Bill at a Cuban restaurant in Arizona.  I had heard him talk about this place on the radio, the Havana Cafe, and so we had gone there several times.  It had become our favorite place, too.  One night, a group of us ate there, and as we left, we spied Bill eating at a side table with the owner.  Again, we had to speak to him.  And he looked up at us as if he had expected us, as if this was a resumption of a conversation as opposed to an interruption of a dinner.  And we exchanged pleasanteries about our hopes of the season, and a few days later, he mentioned on air that he had met us, and that we had talked, and he called us "fans" and when he did, it sounded like the best thing in the world that you could be.

Since Bill's death, i've read many tributes for him.  I've been struck by how deeply we feel about his passing, about how much he will be missed.  People talk about heaven when they talk about Bill King.  Part of it, I think, is because his work felt like a slice of heaven to us, and now he's gone, it seems the common belief, shared by me, that he's back there wtih his beloved wife, Nancy, and his baseball friends that have departed before him, and that he's having the fine time he deserves, because that's what Bill does.  He has a fine time, and we are all the better for it.

The League Division Playoffs

I am a grumpy camper.

I hate Fox graphics.  I hate their cheesy music.  I hate that they're scheduling two games at the same time, and pretending as if they're better serviing their customer by doing so.

I do like Tim McCarver, despite or maybe because of his didactic nature, and I'm intrigued that Lou Piniella is now part of the broadcast team.  So, when they were all introduced, I was ready to cut them some slack.

But then they had a talking baseball describe the nature of a particular pitch and then the baseball said it was hungry and disappeared, and I just got cranky again.

Ron Washington For Manager

As a rebellious A's fan, while the postseason games continue, I will write about a team that's not part of the action.

But the A's and Ken Macha parted ways today, and at first, I felt sad.  I didn't think that Macha got the praise he deserved for his work.  I would miss his manner.  Is it superficial to say that I loved his Nation's commercial?  Yes, but it's true.  He just seemed like this quintessential white bread guy, pretty much a writer's nightmare as he seemed to only speak cliche, but he did it with such a kind of a cranky uncle style that it became an endearing thing.  I thought he was a tough manager in a good way, tough like he taught the players to be more disciplined.  Under the Macha regime, players actually were expected to be able to bunt and to run the bases in an intelligent manner.  This was a big step up, and as someone who followed the A's, I thought it was the way to go.

But then yesterday in the paper, when I read that the Macha talks weren't going well, Ron Washington's name was floated out there as a potential contender for the job.  And my heart fluttered and I thought, "Oh, yeah." 

I remember when I first was introduced to Ron Washington.  It was at a fan fest when Art Howe and Bob Cluck and Ron Washington sat on a panel and introduced themselves and presented their views.  It was an interesting experience.  Cluck stilll didn't know all his pitchers, and he was the pitching coach.  I introduced myself to Art Howe afterwards and said I thought he was the right person for the job--and I think he was at the time--and this man, lambasted in the press for being a wimpy guy--proceeded to nearly break my hand when he shook it.  And Ron Washington was just out of the mold--in this white bread crowd, he was a black man who was old school in his attitude towards baseball and towards life.  He didn't dress anything up.  He was just who he was, and I thought, "What an interesting choice."  And I thought he would never last.

Well, Ron Washington is still here and Art Howe and Bob Cluck are long gone.  Chavez gave him one of his gold gloves.  Giambi gave him a check for $20,000 after Katrina.  Washington is a New Orleans native.  He's talked about going to that city and helping with the rebuild.  I thought,  "If Ron Washington is involved, they'll do a hell of a job."  The man is one of the hardest workers that I have ever seen.  He has created miracles with that staff--starting with Chavez who came to major league baseball with the reputation of having a suspect glove to becoming the best at his position in his league, but he's only one of so many--converting Spiezio from a third to second baseman, converting Giambi from a third to a first baseman, smoothing out Tejada's edges--if you want to hear someone praised, just ask any A's infielder about Ron Washington.

And he's really fun to watch as a third base coach with his enthusiasm and his focus.  Only one A was thrown out at the plate this past season.  He is a smart baseball man.

So, I want him to be manager.  But it might be one of those Peter Principle situations.  Maybe he's a fantastic infield coach and third base coach, but he wouldn't be good as a manager. And he'd have to deal with Billy Beane, and why would I want anyone who I admire so much to have to deal with Billy Beane?

Today, they're pushing Bob Geren's name as the likely successor.  He was Macha's bench coach, so it's a natural succession.  He's very white bread, very likeable.  I'm sure he's very smart, too.  But I want Wash.

Some Quick Postseason Notes

1) As an A's fan, I'm astounded by the number of former players and coaches on these postseason teams.  I'm going to miss some but this is my count:  St. Louis:  LaRussa, McKay (first base coach, Tom Selleck lookalike in his day, one of my friends probably persists in her crush on him), Dave Duncan who I had my picture taken with him once and he had a kindly visage like what I would imagine God would look like,  Mabry, Isringhausen, Mulder, and I'm sure I'm forgetting some.  Atlanta:  Hudson.  Houston:  I'm going to say none, and will probably think, "How could I forget"--tomorrow, San Diego:  Ramon Hernandez, where did Terrence Long end up?  I'm sure there's more there, too.  Boston:  Chad Bradford, Johnny Damon back when he had short hair and seemed eminently sane.  Terry Francona (bench coach for Macha before this gig).   Is Foulke activated for this?  I don't even know.  Chicago:  Jermaine Dye, New York:  Giambi, did Bellhorn make the roster?  Aaron Small.  Angels:  I'm going to say none.

2) Piazza a welcome surprise in the broadcast booth.  I appreciated what he had to say and thought he worked well with Sutcliffe and "Boomer".  How can there be two fellas nicknamed "Boomer" associated with one series?  That just seems so wrong.

3)  Can't ESPN do all the games?

Some Quick Thoughts on Baseball

It's interesting being a fan who watches games as background music to life.  I hardly ever just sit down and watch a game any more.  Right now, the White Sox/Tigers game is on while I write.  I have a general sense of what's going on, and that's satisfying to me.

I generally follow the A's, and I just realized that they're playing a day game today, but I have no idea where the portable radio is.  It's been missing for days.  My other radio, a relic from many years back, only plays FM.  I had thought that I could go and buy batteries to another radio that a friend had given me when I helped clean his apartment, but it's a meaningless game, and even though it's one of the last games of their season, or perhaps because of that, I'm sticking with the TV and the White Sox and the Tigers.

I used to be the kind of fan that had season tickets, that would literally lose sleep when "my team" went on a losing streak, would feel emotionally and physically bereft if I missed games.  But as time went on, I felt uncomfortable in the climate.  I don't like being around hecklers.  I don't like screamers.  I don't like being around drunk people.  I know there are quiet, considerate, interesting, funny baseball fans, but I can't count on them sitting in the seats around me.  Plus it's expensive, a lot of time and money for something outside of myself.  But I still watch baseball in the background.  I still enjoy it, although I now feel more affiliated with some of the broadcasters than any of the players, these young rich men invested in playing a boy's game.  I'm more with the analytical adults now--and that is a select subgroup of the broadcasters out there.

Some quick thoughts on things I've seen in the last few days:

1.  When Rodriguez pointed his fingers heavenward when the Angels clinched the title Monday night, I thought--as I always do in this situation--why would he think that God cared?  Why would anyone want to have such a small vision of God that he would actually be presiding over the proceedings of a baseball game?  It just seems to be both grandiose and petty thinking that annoys me whenever I see it.

2.  Kuiper and Krukow are often too goofy for me and off the charts when the Giants are succeeeding at any level, but I tuned in to the later innings last night and they showed rats scarmpering around the backstop in Petco Park.  It was a trivial moment, but I thought, "Only these guys would see the humor in this moment and also show it."  If it had been in SBC park, they would have actively ignored it, I think--I wish they could apply that same humor and illusion busting approach to the team they're affiliated with.

3.  Yesterday, the Cubs had their last home game of the year, and the broadcasters decided to work from the bleachers.  I learned that people who habitually attend the games in the bleachers don't want to be called "bleacher bums."  They want to be known as "bleacher regulars."  That the left field and the right field bleacher fans chant to one another about the superiority of their location.  That heckling is often pretty lame, especially when it's being continually miked over a TV broadcast.

4.  Just to put my vote in, now that the White Sox have clinched the division, I want Cleveland to win the wild card.  If I have to choose between New York and Boston, and it seems I do, I would choose New York.  Regardless, I'm looking forward to watching the postseason next week.

Commentary

It was one of those nights where I called a friend to ask if I could borrow some music, and we went off into a conversation.

I have cable, and he doesn't.  I had the TV on.  Friday night's game against the Yankees was just beginning on Fox Sports Network.  I said he could listen to it on the radio.  I said he could come over and watch it while I worked.  But we didn't end up doing that.  Instead he listened while I described what I saw on the screen.

He knows I'm picky about my broadcasters.  I like Tony Gwynn, thoughtful and honest and knowledgeable.  He doesn't say a lot--which often can be a good thing--and there's weight behind his words.  Then there's the broadcasters like Tim McCarver and Joe Morgan who are more didactic in their approach.  They both tend to repeat a point ten times over, but I don't care.  I learn things.  I liked Eric Karros for his emotionality and his passion, but I think that ESPN decided he was too far outside their mold.  I love King, Korach, and Fosse for their warmth and humor and evident love of the game.  Steve Lyons drives me crazy with his banality.  The Braves broadcasters are too Republican.  Krukow and Kuiper are fine when Bonds is off the field and the Giants aren't doing well.  But when Bonds is about to return and the Giants are winning, it's like the BIg Commercial begins again.  Everything becomes a platitude, and I find myself turning the game off early.

So, I found myself telling my friend about what was happening.  Some of it was informational.  Who got a hit when.  Most of it was just silly.  There's Leiter looking like an old man. Now, he looks like he's about to cry.  Now A-Rod's coming up to him and slapping his butt with his glove.  I think I could have beaten Steve Lyons in a "Who can be more trivial?" contest, but it was actually enjoyable, and my friend doesn't care about commentary, so he cut me a lot of slack, while I goofed off and told him what I saw.