Sunday night's Dodger meltdown in the ninth inning versus the New York Yankees was oddly life affirming for me. A reminder once again why I love this sport. Gut wrenching and soothing all at the same time.
It's what makes me a baseball fan.
I've seen enough of these losses in my lifetime. There will be plenty more. They're horrible to view on television. They're one hundred times worse to watch in person. At home, you can turn off the sound and simply let the bile flow up in silence. At the ballpark, you stand among 56,000 fans and are as alone as the relief pitcher, in this case, Jonathan Broxton, is. And you gape helplessly as your team snatches defeat from the jaws of victory.
Sunday night's personal devastation was made more excruciating for me because it was against the Yankees. Decades of baseball self-esteem issues, inflicted from repeated torture at the hands of neighborhood and school chums, came rampaging back to me in the time it took the home plate umpire to signal "ball four." All of a sudden, I am reminded of one lunch table school "friend." The day after the Mets won the World Series in 1969, he greeted me by saying that we had only 20 plus championships to go before the Mets could match the Yankees. Like you were there for all of them, you fuckin' buzz kill of an asswipe!!! I cut that guy off shortly thereafter. I think he found up cleaning fish tanks.
As my past was morphing one more time into my present on Sunday night, I kept reminding to the unassuming Dodger fans around here that no lead was safe. Because if every baseball game is a microcosm of life, the New York Yankees are pancreatic cancer. Once they metastisize, you're gone. You cannot simply beat them by scoring more runs. You have to step on their throats with your heel. You have to hear the air go out of their lungs. You have to draw blood and it has to be plentiful. Because, if you look away for a single nano-second, they will beat you. There's a reason why they are the best baseball team that money has always bought.
In retrospect, Jonathan Broxton blows a game like that usually twice a year. Last season, he performed the same collapse against the San Diego Padres and everybody yawned. When he does this against the New York Yankees, you suddenly feel like JFK in Dealey Plaza at 12:31PM on November 22, 1963.
You pick yourself up. You shake away the pain. And go on. The players need to do this. So, too, the fans. It's what makes the sports special. You need the highs and the lows. The rollercoaster of life is no fun if you don't speed down from that mile-high climb. Laughter is vital, but so, too, are the screams.
Now, I have many good friends who are lifelong Yankee fans and they have been around their team long enough to know their own pain. Let's face it, for about fifteen or so years, they had nothing but Don Mattingly and a dumpster full of half-eaten hot dogs. But, there are others, many of them were out in full force at Dodger Stadium over the weekend. Younger Yankee fans who have never experienced what it means to be a true baseball fan. They lurk in the silent background waiting and expecting the inevitable victory. They have known no other baseball life. They are guttersnipes spoiled to a fault. Cockroaches just waiting to emerge from the first shining of a flashlight. And they are nasty about it. I saw quite a few over the weekend. Another embodiment of my moronic cafeteria chum.
I think about a young work friend of mine. He grew up a Yankee fan in Arizona. How does that happen? Well, his father told him to root for the Yankees because you always want to be a fan of the best team.
What a dissservice this man has done to his son. Because, truth be told, the way you become a fan is to suffer. And suffer. And suffer. And suffer.
I think back to Shea Stadium for Game 7 of the 1986 World Series. The Mets' closer, Jesse Orosco, is wrapping up the ninth inning game and series victory over the Boston Red Sox. Up in the top deck, my friend Danny and I have our arms around each other as we watch every strike. Danny reminds me that we need to savor this moment because it doesn't happen a lot.
And I'm still savoring it 24 years later. I hope to have another one here in Dodger Stadium. That's the carrot in front of us all. The reason why we keep coming back, unnerving game after unnerving game.
Thinking about my young work colleague's dad, I think of my own. A Yankee fan for life. Who followed his son when he chose to adopt the New York Mets as his favorite team. I wonder if my dad would have done the same if I had decided to root for the Cleveland Indians. The answer is most likely, although I am sure he would have commented first, "you know we don't live in Cleveland."
My dad got it. I get it still.
The Dodgers rebounded and won last night. The Dodgers play the Giants again in San Francisco tonight. I'll be tuned in. Living and dying and living for each moment.
Dinner last night: Grilled chicken panini at Maria's Italian Kitchen.
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