Emo vs Baseball

Growing up, I loved baseball. And I loved four teams in particular:

• The Saint Louis Cardinals
• The Detroit Tigers
• The Boston Red Sox
• The San Francisco Giants

Why these teams? I don't really remember. They simply were my favorites to watch, some combination of personalities, performance, shenanigans, and teamwork, I suspect.

Three of them were involved in the 1967 & 1968 world series. During the former, the boys in my small 7th grade class would retreat to our usual part of the playground during afternoon recess where someone would furtively pull out a transistor radio and we would all pretend to play pine cone mumbletypeg or some other game while we desperately listened and watched out for adults. While the radio was on best friends might be enemies as one's team triumphed over the other's, play by play. But then the radio was off as we headed back in, giddy, nervous, crazy to know what was happening, friends again against the cruel world valuing biology over baseball. And my favorite team of all won.

The next year everyone knew the Cards would win. Everyone except die hard Tigers fans, of course. And those Tigers fans turned out to be right. Had anyone else beat them I'd have been devastated. But at least it was the Red Sox, so all was well enough, if not well. This was my first year of junior high. We did not get recess or any form of break in junior high other than five minutes to get to the next class. I think they made sure the classes were as far from each other as possible to give us exercise in lieu of recess. one day I had a radio in my pocket with an earpiece in the ear farthest from the teacher, trying to pretend to concentrate on the lecture. But when another kid got caught and his radio confiscated til after the series, I put mine away at school and tune in on my bike heading home, half the game irretrievably gone. It was a cruel life.

1966 had been huge, too. I don't know that I ever loved the Dodgers as a team, but they had some great players in the 60s-- Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale, for instance. I recall games with these guys playing Roger Maris's team, the Yankees. Those were some cool games. Maris ended his career playing for my beloved Cards; I totally forgave him the years with the Damn Yankees for that. But I watched and listened to Dodgers games rooting for my heroes... even when rooting for the other team to win.

In the 60s, "damn" was not something decent people could say in public unless quoting Scriptures or as part of the proper name, "Damn Yankees". In the South, once could also say, "damn yankees" to refer to anyone from "up yonder" but my family didn't allow that. "Damn Yankees", however, was allowed almost anywhere. I don't recall ever hearing a pastor say it from a pulpit, but as a kid I was usually busy getting in trouble for drawing (holy) ghosts in my Bible or something.

The last game I remember really watching and caring about was September 29, 1973. I had met Lisa Pazol right after starting Georgia Tech; her family invited me to an Atlanta Braves game with them. I was probably the only person in our entire section rooting for the Houston Astros. I'd never really cared that much about them before, but I was desperately homesick for Texas. When Perez scored in the bottom of the fifth I knew it was over. Depressed, I said I needed to use the bathroom, but I really just wanted to go walk. And thus I missed the only hit I cared about the entire game- Hank Aaron's 713th home run, bringing him one short of tying the Babe. As soon as I hear the crowd go nuts, drowning out the PA speakers ten feet from my head, I knew. I nearly cried, I made it up the stairs into the stands just in time to see Baker's follow-up homer. It was years before I would forgive the Braves. Or the Astros, who had far more reason to be distraught that day than I.

Yeah, I was emo before it was a thing.