Syntax of Things

To the Core

Most of you know that I'm a life-long Atlanta Braves fan.  This means I'm required by laws of nature to take great joy in anything bad that happens to the New York Mets.  So the last two Septembers have been particularly good considering that my Braves haven't been involved directly in the playoff hunt, yet I've able to watch as the hapless Mets collapse down the stretch two years in a row.  Still, I have some sympathy for at least one Mets fan.  This year has been doubly tough for Levi; not only has he watched yet another team fail to make it to the playoffs after fading in the final weeks, but he also had to bid farewell to the venue that he loved.  Here's Levi's take on Shea Stadium:

Shea Stadium is a very literary place.  As I wrote in a recent article, it's built on a spot described by F. Scott Fitzgerald in The Great Gatsby.  Don Delillo wrote a weird movie, Game Six, about one of the most famous World Series victories of all time there -- the same game (1986, Red Sox) immortalized in Seinfeld and many other places. George Plimpton once wrote an April Fools day hoax story in Sports Illustrated about a barefoot Mets pitcher named Sidd Finch.  Paul Auster's City of Glass is about a Mets fan who goes insane (Mookie Wilson has something to do with it), and writers from Jonathan Lethem to Frank Messina have celebrated the team from various literary perches. 

Shea Stadium is a major symbol in my novel Summer of the Mets, which nobody ever reads but which is a psychological study of a kid who suffers from extreme shyness. He has trouble with various social encounters, but then he goes to Mets games with his family and marvels at the human synchronicity -- the cheers, the boos, the Wave -- of the packed crowd surrounding him in Shea's concrete perfect circle. He finds that Mets games are the only place where he can be part of a large crowd and not feel alienated. I wrote about this because, of course, that's the way I used to feel when I was a kid and went to Shea Stadium, and I guess in a way I've never stopped feeling that way about the place. I wonder if this is a common reason why people enjoy going to baseball games. If it is, I don't think there could have ever been a friendlier or more welcoming place (not like that other ballpark uptown) to enjoy a baseball game than rollickin' Shea Stadium, an unpretentious arena where New Yorkers have always been at their nicest.

A Huge Loss for the Braves

I've mentioned before that as a courtesy to my wife's sometimes overly sensitive reactions to celebrity deaths that we began using what we call the "death alert."  If I read about a celebrity death I have to preface any announcement to her with "Death Alert" and then give her a number on a 1 to 5 Likert-type scale with 1 being some obscure actor from the 1930s and 5 being, say, Eddie Vedder (don't ask).  Anyway, sometimes I wish we could all have the courtesy of that filter.  This morning I could have used it. 

If you were to ask me for a narrator for my childhood, it wouldn't take me long to come up with Skip Caray's name.  How many hundreds of hours did his voice come through the tinny speaker of my family's television or over the AM radio on summer Sunday afternoon drives to the grandparents.  Even during those many lean years when the Atlanta Braves would be lucky to make it to the end of May without being eliminated from the playoffs, my father and I never quit listening.  It was baseball and something we shared and Skip (along with Pete and Ernie, and later Don and Joe) were the voices that brought us those games, that put a voice to memories.

Then into the 90s after I'd left home and the Braves miraculously became a winning franchise, it was Skip who brought us the moments:  the Otis Nixon catch, the Sid Bream slide, the last out of the 1995 World Series..."Fly ball, deep center field, Grissom's on the run ... Yes! Yes! Yes! The Atlanta Braves have given you a championship. Listen to this crowd. A mob scene is on the field. Wohlers gets them, 1-2-3." 

A few years ago TBS decided to give Skip and Pete a smaller role with the club, relegating them to radio only.  For those of us who lived thousands of miles from the nearest Braves radio affiliate, it was like a bad hop ground ball to the nethers.  And the outcry from Braves fans was loud enough to be heard, even by corporate stiffs the likes of AOL-Time Warner, and soon enough Skip and Pete were back on TBS and all was right with the world.

Then word came that TBS was dropping the Braves altogether and many of us knew that we were losing not just a regularly televised baseball game, but a direct link to our past.  At least we had the ability to still pay to listen to games over the Internet or XM Radio, and many nights the last few weeks I would tune in just to hear a few innings worth of Skip and Pete.  Even though the Braves were stumbling to their worst record since 1990, it seemed only fitting to let Skip and Pete console me, the now-spoiled Braves fan.  To hear them and to remember what it was like back in the bad old days of not knowing what October baseball was like, but also to remember what being a kid was like sitting on the floor at my dad's feet not worried about the final score, just enjoying the moment of being a baseball fan and being in that moment with my dad, and in many ways, with Skip and the thousands of other fans just like us.

I'll miss the calls, the deep voice, the sarcasm.  Braves baseball, and Summer nights, will not be the same.

The Air We Breathe

Syntax of Things has a new hero:  ex-Major League pitcher Bert Blyleven (pictured right), who should be in baseball's Hall of Fame not only for being a pretty damn good pitcher but also for what he reveals in this interview:

Q: Speaking of pride, what about this T-shirt you've been photographed wearing that says, "I [heart] to fart"?
BB: I LOVE to fart.
Q: What's wrong with you?
BB: I'm honest. Have you ever farted?
Q: One or two times.
BB: And did it feel good?
Q: Always.
BB: Probably so. That's why I wore it. I love to fart. I do. When the time is right, I do it. I'm not going to hide it.
Q: You're so blunt about your love for flatulence.
BB: Yeah. Well, someone gave me the shirt because of my history of farting, so I wear it. I LOVE to fart. I think I still have it.
Q: What gets you really gassy?
BB: Anything. The air we're breathing right now.
Q: Should I be ready for something?
BB: I have no trouble. It's not one thing that I eat, it's just passed down from my father. My father was a very good farter. I have a sister who's very good at it, too. Probably better than I am.

Speaking of, I hope my wife doesn't mind me sharing this little tidbit of wee one lore that she sent out in an email to the family:

The other day,I had her [Marlie] on the bed asking her to make a "happy face, sad face" to cough, to sneeze, to hiccup and then, for kicks, to poot.  She happily obliged on it all except for the pooting--I didn't hear anything...and I thought to myself, "Elaine, maybe I shouldn't ask her this, it could be trouble..." --but then--all of a sudden, the smell wafted its way up to my nose.  A Silent but Deadly she did!  A girl that can poot on command!  Lovely.  Just lovely.

She is her Daddy's daughter, no?

Such talent for a 22-month-old kid.  Does her daddy proud!

TMI

I'll admit that the blog has gotten a little baseball heavy this week, especially considering that I don't have a dog in the hunt this year, but man, I think I just read the most disturbing article ever, especially the details of Barry Bonds's efforts to remain juiced no matter what (and I use the term juice loosely).  Here's a little of what he's reported to have done:

• Desperate to combat the testicular shrinkage that can occur with steroids use, Bonds injected human growth hormone directly into his genitals during the 2002 playoffs — with disastrous results for both him and the Giants.

• In early 2003, owing to the performance-enhancing drugs coursing through his body, Bonds suddenly began lactating, forcing doctors to excise his mammary glands.

• Wary of taking steroids since the BALCO flap broke, Bonds, intent on maintaining his edge, now supplements his diet with "Barry's brew," a homemade high-energy drink made of elk semen that has yielded its own troubling side effects. 

As for the last item, the one that caused me to push aside my Papa John's pizza, there's even more:

According to Leftwich, not long after the BALCO case exploded, Anderson, fearing that his client would need to quit doping, whipped up the first batch of what Bonds would label "Barry's brew." The viscous, foul-smelling protein shake relies on elk semen for its nutritional kick, and with his friend in jail, Bonds has had to assume the task of picking up the special ingredient. So once or twice a month, to ensure he receives the freshest product possible, Bonds drives the 100-plus miles north to the Clearlake elk ranch of Sammy Clemens.

Satan's Minions' Verses

Continuing with the baseball theme now that the season has come to an end for those of us on the outside looking in, here's the Nashville Scene's Bruce Berry on a recent dinner conversation he had with Salman Rushdie:

Then the conversation meandered in a far more provocative direction, when after being asked how he likes living in New York City, Rushdie let it slip that he's become an ardent Yankee fan. I challenged him: surely a newcomer to the politics of Big Apple baseball, one known worldwide for speaking truth to tyrannical power, would easily prefer the underdogs in Queens to the totalitarians (indeed, the "bombers") in the Bronx. "I like the overdog," Rushdie replied with an impish grin.

Having discovered that he was sitting across the table from not one but two lifelong Mets fans (the other a faculty colleague who had spent formative years in New Jersey), Rushdie went into crosstown taunt mode. He pulled out his Treo and fired up its browser, throwing us a mischievous look as he oh-so-diplomatically proposed that we "have a look at how those Mets are doing tonight, shall we?" Trailing Florida 7-4 in the seventh, Rushdie informed us with glee only marginally in check. "And shall we check in to see how those Phillies are doing? Ah, the city of brotherly love." Phils winning handily. The Yankees, he assured us, were above the fray, safely ensconsed in the playoffs, and what pity he took on those who choose to suffer with the Mets year after year rather than jump on board with those pinstriped winners who play in such a nicer ballpark up on the Bronx. Ever the gentleman and scholar, Rushdie thoughtfully left his Treo on the table at the ready so that he could update us on the tragic doings at Shea periodically through the rest of the meal.

"What a poor misguided literary genius," I thought after saying our goodnights and heading home.

Beat the Mets

While for some this was a sad day to be a baseball fan because their team finished off one of the biggest collapses in baseball, if not sports history, for me it was a sad day because this was the last Braves baseball broadcast on TBS.  I've been a Braves fan for my entire life and have watched countless games on the SuperStation, so much so that the sound of Skip Carey's voice can take me back to my childhood living room in Selma, Alabama, remembering such things as Brian Asselstine twisting his ankle in the chainlink fence at Fulton County Stadium or staying up late to watch as the Braves tried to win 13 in a row to open the season in 1982.  The last few years, however, the powers that be decided to scale back TBS's coverage of the Braves until now, thirty years after it all started, we're left with America's Funniest Home Videos instead of Braves baseball every summer night at 7:35pm.  It's a sad day for me, made only a little better by the fact that the Mets choked and that technology and a few (too many) coins will deliver the Braves to me next year.  But what better way to go out than to hear good old Skip Carey pay tribute to the Amazins on this rather amazing day.

{ht Rowland's Office.  See you next Spring, fellas.}

Flushing Meadows Book Club Selection

My apologies to Levi, Ed, and the one or two other decent Mets fans out there.  But as a Braves fan, it's really, really hard to resist.

Barroid

I've been trying to figure out the best way to express the unmitigated disgust I've felt since waking up this morning to find out that the walking, talking arse ***** ***** cheated his way to the home run record that rightfully belongs to Hammerin' Hank, but I think I'll leave it to one of the class guys to ever play the game to say it for me:

"Barry's a great player, there's no question about it, but he put an asterisk by his name on his own," [Dale] Murphy said Monday on AM radio 1280 The Show. "He's deserved all the negative publicity that he's getting. I mean, people are calling up and complaining, I've heard the last few weeks, that that he's being treated unfairly. You know, life just usually isn't like that. You don't usually get treated unfairly. You usually get what you deserve. This is what Barry deserves. He's a hard guy to like. He's a hard teammate to have and, you know, he's set a terrible example for our kids."

"Even in a court of law you can have ... a preponderance of circumstantial evidence to convict somebody," Murphy said. "Now, maybe I'm wrong, but when you get enough stuff on a guy, you can make a decision and it's just really a no-brainer. The guy would have become one of the great ones, anyway. ... But now, he sucked the fun and the life right out of it. I mean, there is enough evidence to me to say without a doubt he used performance-enhancing drugs. He hit 73 home runs when he was 37. I mean, Hank would have hit 855 if he had the same advantage."

{via}

Crack

Yes, I'm aware that the first pitch of the season for my beloved Braves is a mere quarter of an hour away.  I'm also aware that I've yet to offer up my fearless predictions for this year's division winners and the ultimate champion of Major League Baseball.   I'll try to have these up by the end of the week.  I will let you in on the fact that I've banished the Mets to the bottom of the National League East, based solely on the fact that Met homer Levi Asher bashes Cormac McCarthy's The Road and in doing so questions my impeccable taste in quality literature. Never mind that the Washington Nationals have the worst team in baseball; a special level of this division's hell has been created for the Mets, New York's other team.  That meadow they play in ain't called Flushing for nothing.

Baby Photo Friday: 'Tis the Season

Fearless Prediction

Before I get around to telling you what team will win the Super Bowl this year--and I've been right about it every year since I started making these predictions--I thought I would tell you that if you ever see a guy named Anibal pitch in a minor league game  in a town called Zebulon for a team with a mudcat (that's a fish) as a mascot, don't laugh at his name or say something like he could never make it on a major league team with a name like Anibal.  Well, Anibal threw a no-hitter last night, the first since another guy I've laughed at a lot over the years (not because of his name but because, well, he's damn funny looking) threw a perfect game against my beloved Bravos back in aught four.  It was the first no-hitter by a rookie since Bud Smith tossed one against the Padres back in 2001.  Yours truly was in attendance for Smith's no-no, but I wasn't laughing at his name.  Bud.

So, here's my prediction for this year's Super Bowl champion.  It will be a team from a city south of the Canadian line.

And college football will always be better than the NFL.

And, of course, baseball beats them both, even when your team is out of the race.

I Blogged It Back When

Sometimes the most interesting things can cause traffic on one's site to explode.  Today, everyone seems to be searching out info on Aaron Durley, the 13-year-old Little League baseball player from Saudi Arabia who stands a full six feet, eight inches tall and weighs 256 pounds.  He's 13!  Anyway, because I'm addicted to the Little League World Series--have been for years now--I actually mentioned him last year.  I guess it takes the media a little while to catch on, huh?

Yankees Suck!

I'm not enough of an optimist to think that taking a series from Satan's Minions in their domain would have turned around a season for the Braves.  But a series win in Yankee Stadium is nice no matter what the Braves' record.  Now instead of what could have been the best win of the season--a one-run win on a Giles homer in the 12th to take the series two games to one--turns into the lowest point of a rather low season for me.  Now I'm feeling like the guy pictured above.  Almost makes me want to watch a World Cup game.  Almost.

Geekery II

The ability to watch six games live at once:  heaven.  Thank you, MLB.com.

Amazin'

Oh man, as if we needed anything else from the Mets to make us laugh, along comes their brilliant theme song. 

If there's one thing I won't miss about San Diego, it would have to be the godawful theme songs that the Padres came up with every year.  Well, that and Jane Mitchell.

Predictable

Time for a break from books and music and pop culture and all of those things that often take a backseat to a game that tends to dominate too much of my time from April through October and present to you the annual Syntax of Things MLB predictions.  As with last year's post, I've decided to not only list the final standings but add something extra to the predictions.  While last year I linked to a Google Map shot of every stadium, this year, in honor of my move from a Major League to a Minor League town (in terms of baseball), I'm linking to each team's AAA stadium.  Also, instead of using Google Maps, I've decided to use MSN Virtual Earth.  No reason, just something different.  So without further ado, the picks:

N.L. East
Atlanta Braves (Richmond Braves)
NY Mets (Norfolk Tides)
Philadelphia Phillies (Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Red Barons)
Washington Nationals (New Orleans Zephyrs)
Florida Marlins (Albuquerque Isotopes)

N.L. Central
St. Louis Cardinals (Memphis Redbirds)*
Chicago Cubs (Iowa Cubs)
Milwaukee Brewers (Nashville Sounds)
Houston Astros (Round Rock Express)*
Cincinnati Reds (Louisville Bats)
Pittsburgh Pirates (Indianapolis Indians)

N.L. West
Los Angeles Dodgers (Las Vegas 51s)
Arizona Diamondbacks (Tucson Sidewinders)
San Francisco Giants (Fresno Grizzlies)
San Diego Padres (Portland Beavers)
Colorado Rockies (Colorado Springs Sky Sox)

A.L. East
Boston Red Sox (Pawtucket Red Sox)
New York Yankees (Columbus Clippers)
Toronto Blue Jays (Syracuse Sky Chiefs)
Baltimore Orioles (Ottawa Lynx)**
Tampa Bay Devil Rays (Durham Bulls)

A.L. Central
Cleveland Indians (Buffalo Bisons)
Minnesota Twins (Rochester Red Wings)
Chicago White Sox (Charlotte Knights)
Detroit Tigers (Toledo Mud Hens)
Kansas City Royals (Omaha Royals)

A.L. West
Oakland Athletics (Sacramento River Cats)
Los Angeles Angels (Salt Lake Bees)
Texas Rangers (Oklahoma RedHawks)
Seattle Mariners (Tacoma Rainiers)

Playoffs
NLDS: Atlanta over Los Angeles; Cardinals over the Mets (wildcard)
ALDS: Oakland over the Yankees; Red Sox over the Indians
NLCS: Cardinals over the Braves
ALCS: Oakland over the Red Sox

World Series
Oakland over the Cardinals

* Couldn't find the stadium on the map.
**MSN Virtual Earth is not Canada-friendly.

Mike Mills Loves Baseball

R.E.M. bassist Mike Mills talks the Great American Pastime with Baseball Digest:

I was once at a concert when the performer announced the score. Are you aware of the games while you perform? At World Series time?
Certainly, in ’95 we were because it was a long, long tour and my base technician is a Cleveland Indians fan, so we kept trying to upstage each other with hidden logos of the other team. For example, I would come on stage and there behind the P.A. speaker where only stage people could see it, there would be a big Cleveland Indians logo and then he would come up to his little work station and I had a big Braves flag hanging in there or something. So, that was pretty intense. The Braves beat the Indians, you know. Everybody was kind of watching that. I got everybody kind of psyched up.

Happy St. Jack's Day

To celebrate what would have been Jack Kerouac's 84th birthday, I'm posting one of my favorite Kerouac essays, a piece he wrote for the July 1959 issue of Escapade magazine and which is reprinted in the book Good Blonde & Others.  I like this essay because it clearly demonstrates his love and knowledge of my favorite sport, baseball.  Seems to me that if you change some of the names, this article could just as well apply today.  It shows the timelessness of the sport and how even then there were concerns about some of the same things the purists among us baseball fans fear may be ruining baseball today.  What do you think Jack would have said about Bonds?  Anyway, happy birthday Kerouac.  Hope you've got the MLB cable package on your heavenly television set.

**********

Oh Canada

A quick question for my fellow baseball fans:  How the hell does the United States lose to Canada in baseball?  Hockey, I understand.  Curling, definitely.  But when you have a roster made up of all-stars, all of them starters on their major-league teams, you shouldn't get beat by a team with a catcher named Max St. Pierre and an infielder named Stubby Clapp. 

The only explanation I can come up with right now is that the U.S. team has too many New York Yankees on it.  Other than that, I'm at a loss. 

The game against South Africa tomorrow is now a must win.  Who'da thunk it?

R.I.P. Kirby

It took me a while to forgive Kirby Puckett for the 1991 World Series.  I think I finally got over it around 1998; by that time I had a whole list of teams and people (damn you, Jim Leyritz) to blame for the Braves' many failures in the post-season.  So it's sad to see him go, a man so young, so gifted, so huge a part of baseball in the late 20th Century.

Fantasy Time?

The Braves lost their Spring Training opener to the Dodgers today, which means absolutely nothing other than the fact that it has inspired me to gather participants for the third annual Syntax of Things Fantasy Baseball League.  Once again, I'm opening this up to anyone interested in a little spirited competition.  We usually get a few lit bloggers, a music blogger or two, at least one baseball blogger, and a few assorted non-bloggers to duke it out for the title of best fantasy baseball player who registered for my league.  If you do want to join, drop me a line either via email or in the comments and I'll send you the details.  Remember, it's free and easy and all levels of fantasy geek are welcome.

You Can Put It on the Board, Yes!

Congratulation to all the White Sox fans out there.  For the first time this century, I actually watched every game of the World Series and quite enjoyed all four.  Even though the 'Stros were swept, they put up a good fight in every game.  I hate to see Bagwell and Biggio denied a title, but hey, good guys retire all the time without a ring. Look at Dale Murphy and Ryan Sandberg.

My favorite part of the postgame celebration that aired on Chicago's WGN was seeing a guy on some Southside sidewalk screaming himself to tears while holding up a "Cubs Suck" poster.  In a way, didn't the White Sox victory almost seem like it was more of an "in your face" to the Cubs and Cub fans than it was a victory over Houston?  All those years of playing second fiddle and they can now proclaim ultimate scoreboard over Wrigleyville.  It has to be a good day to be a true White Sox fan.  Even if you have to make room on the bandwagon.

By the way, ever wondered why it is spelled S-O-X?  Salon has the answer:

Near the turn of the century, advocacy groups like the Spelling Simplification Board pushed for spelling reform with renewed vigor; they argued that millions of dollars were wasted on printing useless letters. The editor of the Chicago Tribune, Joseph Medill, supported the idea. Medill stripped final "e"s from words like "favorite" in the pages of his newspaper and even suggested more wholesale changes that would have made written English look something like e-mail spam. In 1906, Teddy Roosevelt ordered the government printer to adopt some simplified spellings—such as replacing the suffix "-ed" with "-t" at the end of many words—for official correspondence. Congress responded by passing a bill in support of standard orthography later that year.

By the first decade of the 1900s, "sox" was already a common way to shorten "socks." The "x" version of the word frequently appeared in advertisements for hosiery, for example. And in his 1921 tome The American Language, H.L. Mencken described "sox" as a "vigorous newcomer." "The White Sox are known to all Americans; the White Socks would seem strange," he wrote.

Go Go Sox

This time last year, it seemed that I was the only person outside of St. Louis pulling for the Cardinals in the World Series.  The rest of the nation, even those who could care less about baseball otherwise, were shelling out bucks for Red Sox gear and writing posts in their blogs about how great it would be if Boston could break the curse.  Curse, curse, curse.  Then after the Red Sox broke the curse, we had to endure months of documentaries and memoirs and posts on blogs about the greatness of the Red Sox nation.  Thankfully, they're not back this year.  Nor are the Yankees back.  Sadly, my Braves will be watching from the clubhouse of their favorite golf course.

This year, we have two teams that most of the country could care less about.  Houston?  The Astros have never been to the World Series.  Can't claim a curse.  Once wore uniforms that might blind you if you looked at them directly.  Chicago?  Not the Cubs.  Haven't won the World Series since the second decade of the 20th Century.  But what's that?  A curse?  Well, it could be argued that the White Sox have been cursed by that little scandal of 1919 in which White Sox players were accused of fixing the World Series.  Since then, there's been nothing to celebrate on the south side of the Windy City.  But other than the long suffering of the fans, there's been little discussion of a possible curse of Comiskey similar to what we heard last fall with regard to the Bambino.  Why is that?  White Sox fan Claire Zulkey explains it best in the Wall Street Journal:

The thing is, while the rest of the country might believe in baseball curses, Chicago White Sox fans don't. We don't blame a curse for our team's shortcomings, don't possess a sanguine "Maybe next year" attitude when we fail. When we stink, we stink. The manager says it, the players say it, and the fans say it. (Often with our attendance.) There are no excuses for losing, just as we accept no excuses for winning -- it ain't luck, good calls, one guy with a magic bat, or some smiling ghost. While the Sox are often described as a "working-class team" thanks to their roots on the grittier South Side of Chicago, it's not just the train tracks and expressway that make the 2005 White Sox blue-collar. It's a work ethic, a just put-your-head-down-and-do-your-job attitude. The attitude of showing the world what you can do, even if the world isn't watching.

And it's that blue-collar nature that has me hoping for a White Sox victory this year.  That, and the fact that they are the ultimate underdogs, the second team in the second city.  Most of all, though, I'm pulling for the White Sox because they once wore shorts and hated disco.

{thanks to Robin for the WSJ link}

Light the Halo!

Tha Yankees lose.  THAAAAA YANKEES LOSE!

SoT endorses the Chicago White Sox for the World Championship. 

It Never Gets Old!

14!