Who Asked Me?

Armando Galarraga. There’s a name to remember – correctly spelled with two “r’s” in the middle. As any non-comatose baseball fan is aware, the Detroit pitcher threw a perfect game against Cleveland last week. Except it wasn’t. But I’m getting ahead of myself. First, a little perspective and definition for the non-fan. A perfect game is among the rarest of sports accomplishments. It is, quite simply, 27 batters up and 27 down – no hits, walks or errors. Only 18 perfect games have been thrown in baseball’s post-1900, modern era. More people have orbited the moon than have thrown a perfect game.

Oddly, there have already been two perfect games in the first half of the 2010 season and they came only 20 days apart. The first was thrown by the Oakland A’s pitcher Dallas Braden, whose most notable prior accomplishment was nursing his wrath over an incident involving the Yankee’s $275 million third baseman and self-love expert, Alex Rodriguez. Rodriguez cut across Braden’s pitcher’s mound returning to first base after a foul ball, reportedly because he was “tired.” Braden, having been raised in Stockton, California (generally accepted as the birthplace of all forms of etiquette – baseball and otherwise) took great exception. But he soon got over it with a flawless outing against Tampa Bay. The second perfect game belonged to the Phillies Roy Halladay – high on anybody’s list of potential candidates.Then, on June 2nd, it was Galarraga’s turn.

He was perfect against every batter he faced, covering first base himself to retire the Indian’s Jason Donald for the final out. Everybody went wild, except for first base umpire Jim Joyce, who blew the call and declared Donald safe. Joyce’s mistake ignited a firestorm of criticism and demands that baseball institute the instant replay for such situations – an interesting idea which I’ll address momentarily. Perhaps more remarkable than Galarraga’s gem or Joyce’s epic gaffe was the way both men handled the aftermath. The umpire stayed on the field after the final out, facing the animus of both the Detroit fans and players. Then, after checking the replay to assure that he’d indeed blown the call, he visited the Tigers’ clubhouse to personally apologize to Galarraga. Had Bill Clinton handled the Monica Lewinski situation in similar fashion, they would have revoked the Twenty-second Amendment.  Joyce’s classy acknowledgment of his mistake would have gone for naught were it not for Galarraga himself, who accepted the apology with sublime grace and said he would hold his head high, secure in his accomplishment even if it wasn’t going in the record book. I’m not certain if either Galarraga or Joyce is a parent, but it would be a shame if they are not. In a Jersey Shore culture of classless knuckleheads it’s always refreshing to see two grown men set an exceptional example of how one is supposed to handle himself in such situations.

I read some of the Internet discussion boards the day after the game and predictably, they were filled with comments insisting that baseball, like football, institute the instant replay to get calls right. “This is 2010,” one gentleman asserted, “the technology is there and they should stop appeasing the whims of sentimental baseball purists who won’t allow the game to evolve.” It’s an interesting argument and not completely without merit – except I’m no baseball “purist” yet am still opposed to the idea. The problem with allowing for replay calls (as they already do with home runs and fan interference) is the question of where to draw the line. The technology is there to distinguish definitively between balls and strikes as well, and a walk issued on an incorrectly judged ball four spoils a perfect game just as efficiently as a blown call at first base. How can you argue for subtracting the human element in one situation and not the other? It isn’t a “purist” observation, it’s simply the fact that if you change baseball too much you end up with, well .. football. And I prefer to keep my seasons and sports distinct and uniquely flawed. Shit happens and baseball, like life, is imperfect. But I for one will remember the name Armando Galarraga long after “Braden” and “Halladay” have slipped from conscious recollection.

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. – Thoreau
Yeah, well, you know, that’s just like, uh, your opinion, man. – Lebowski

Opinions, as Harry Callahan once noted, are like assh*les : Everybody has one. Along these same lines, the degree to which one shares his opinion is also a personal choice, and varies accordingly. Share it too much and you run the risk of becoming a boor; too little and you’re labeled a neurotic wreck. Alcohol is a potent opinion-liberator and having been on the receiving end of many a sloshed rant, I tend to shut up when I drink. But I do voice some opinions here, in this forum. Perhaps it’s my way of getting back at all the drunks I’ve had to endure – even if none ever reads what I write.

All of which leads me to baseball. One’s take on the game reveals more than that provided discussing any other sport. Talk basketball and you can determine if someone knows what a 2-3 defense is; football and you derive a certain intellect to testosterone ratio. Talk soccer and you quickly eliminate anyone beyond a first-generation American. Talk tennis, golf, or auto racing (outside of Wimbledon, The Masters, or the Indy 500) and you risk getting sucked into a particular conversational vacuum familiar only to a David Duke – Patti LaBelle first date. But talk baseball and you have an idea of where a person stands, even if things only get as far as an initial opinion. If somebody tells me that they’ve never followed the game, this is perfectly acceptable and the remark stands on its own. If somebody tells me it’s boring or “it moves too slowly,” this reveals an entirely new dimension. But if the person is a fan and cares to elaborate, the sky’s the limit.

As a fan of the National League, there’s a certain feeling I get attending the infrequent American League game and stepping in to Yankee Stadium or the Oakland Coliseum. I’m not sure why this is, as it’s largely the same deal outside of a few notable differences. But there’s something in the air that’s different in an American League ballpark. It isn’t entirely unlike the feeling one gets attending a WWF wrestling match, and thinking “I hope all these people realize that this is a put-on ..” Yankee fans will blether on about countless championships and A’s backers point to their club winning three more World Series between 1972 and 1974 than the San Francisco Giants have in their entire history. They will both be right, and I will simply respond with “the designated hitter” and know in my heart that there is something off about these people. For those claiming mere prejudice on my part I’d add only that as a Giants fan, I don’t get the same feeling walking in to Dodger Stadium. Sure it’s where the enemy resides, but at least the entire world hasn’t been turned on its ear down there.

My own interest in the game has ebbed and peaked at various points over the years and as I’ve noted, it was the San Francisco pitcher Tim Lincecum who renewed my current enthusiasm. On the surface this may seem an unremarkable point, but Lincecum also provided my incentive for following the Mets on this coast, purchasing a Major League Baseball application for my iPod to listen to Giants home broadcasts, and ordering cable for the first time in three years to watch ESPN. Along with this, he’s allowed for a newly-elevated level of potential conversation on the rare occasion that I wander out to a bar or social gathering. The Giants avoided an arbitration hearing earlier this year by signing Lincecum to a $23 million, two year contract – $8 million this year, $11 million in 2011, and a $2 million signing bonus. In my opinion, he’s worth every dime.

You can’t stop what’s comin’ – ain’t all waiting on you. That’s vanity. – Ellis, “No Country For Old Men”

Through some set of mildly odd circumstances, I’ve recently found myself watching the first two installments the epic six-part miniseries America: The Story of Us, now playing on the History Channel. Something about the show peaked my innate sense of cynicism even before I saw one slick, computer-generated frame of Revolutionary War reenactment from the vantage of a hurling musket ball. If there’s an underlying message in the delivery of this production, it might be that the “us” referenced in the title is bonded only by a shared inability to concentrate on anything longer than thirty seconds if it isn’t packaged like a Battlefield game for Xbox 360. Still, even given the ADD-friendly slant of the series, there are enough fascinating moments in this country’s short, staggeringly inventive history to pull it through – a fact to which anyone enduring the “celebrity commentary” segments can attest. One barely has the time to gather his thoughts over Donald Trump waxing philosophic on the “character of an American” before being hit over the head with Sheryl Crow’s thoughts on slavery. It will be worth sticking this thing out if only to discover if anybody pulled the plug on Andy Dick’s Pearl Harbor soliloquy.

Time, as a point of reference, never appears relevant until it’s too late. Anything that happens before one is brought in to the world, or before one has the facility for conscious recollection, might as well be ancient history. As a kid I placed Hitler somewhere between dinosaurs and the Beatles. Similarly, I’ve never known a time when America hasn’t been the world power. But watching this show with its flashy visual enhancements of our breakneck expansion and the mixed bag, viral repercussions of say, the cotton gin, got me to thinking. The lifespan of a country isn’t terribly different from that of a person. It’s born, if it’s lucky goes through a period of intense creation and growth, then grows older and dies. In an odd manner, I’m as fiercely patriotic as anyone I’ve ever known. But as much as I might like to, I can’t parlay an intense appreciation or sense of nostalgia for this country into some deluded denial of our likely impermanence. At the very least, I’d be doing the History Channel a disservice.

Young people don’t know anything – especially that they’re young.
-Don Draper

It reached ninety-two degrees in Central Park on Wednesday afternoon, making it the hottest April 7th in recorded history. I remind myself of this two days later as I cut through Manhattan at midnight, hood pulled tight, heading for the train on a chilled, wet Friday. My car remains more or less empty for one stop, where it fills at 14th Street with a group of young gay (not in the Great Gatsby sense) dudes, occupying the seat next to me. A weathered, older Irish gentleman, looking like the type who might admonish George Bailey on ‘characters giving the place atmosphere’ sits across in apparent disapproval. Minutes later at West Fourth some urban clubbers with custom fit pants and high-end sneakers add to the mix, grabbing an overhead bar and the remaining floor space. Like the weather, the vibe shifts and the people readjust. If nothing else, New York City keeps you honest.

Pat Jordan wrote the baseball memoir A False Spring in 1975, and I read it later in college. The Kansas City Star called Jordan’s book “one of the most fabulous failure stories of our time,” and I would agree. But Jordan’s work, documenting his unsuccessful attempt at becoming a major league pitcher, is much more than this. Despite failing to reach The Show, Jordan’s ultimate success in relating his journey is apparent from the first sentence: “I see myself daily as I was then, framed in a photograph on the desk in my attic room.” The writing continues as such to its conclusion, detailing in simple, vivid prose an experience as universal as the passing of the seasons. Even Willie Mays had to learn to face the winter – and not before doing a late-fall stint as a Met.

Perspective, not unlike Dodger fans, tends to arrive late and leave early. I saw the Stones play Candlestick Park back in ’81, supporting the release of their album Tattoo You. There was a video for the single “Waiting On A Friend” – a tune that was recorded in ’72 for Goats Head Soup, but didn’t make the cut. In the video, which played constantly on the just-introduced MTV, Mick Jagger sits on a stoop at 96-98 St. Mark’s Place in Manhattan, the same location used for the cover of Led Zeppelin’s 1975 Physical Graffiti LP. He waits for an approaching Keith Richards while mouthing the words to the tune – “a smile relieves a heart that grieves / remember what I said.” The jazz saxophonist Sonny Rollins provides a memorable solo and Mick Taylor’s guitar work from ’72 can be heard also. I liked the song then and like it now, and had little idea I’d be wandering those same streets near St. Mark’s Place twenty-nine years later, reflecting on how old I thought Mick Jagger was at 38, back in 1981. And I have no idea what any of it means.

Walking home Monday at midnight in the driving late-March Brooklyn rain, I hit a good twenty minute stretch. I rarely use an umbrella in New York City as it presents an awkward space-management dilemma, like navigating the already populous cement with everybody’s head expanded to triple-size. But given the hour and conditions the sidewalks were clear, so I opened an under-utilized bumbershoot from my pack and watched the encasing runoff as though staring from the backside of a waterfall. The bars on Atlantic Avenue were closing early, even for a Monday, with stools stacked on tables and mops hitting floors. I was plugged in to some tunes, sheltered, on-foot and self-contained, a condition only sustainable for short bursts during a lifetime. But like I said .. twenty minutes.

Hillybilly Deluxe – that’s what I was listening to – Dwight Yoakam’s 1987 follow-up to his debut LP. I used to make an argument for Dwight on occasion in mixed company, back when I was young and had the energy. He’s an easy sort to slap a knee-jerk label on, what with the tight jeans and that ever-present Stetson pulled low over his eyes. “You like this guy?” David Letterman joked in trademark punk fashion to Alec Baldwin, about to introduce Yoakam on a ’96 show. “I bet you a hundred bucks he’s wearing a cowboy hat..” I’ve grown tired of Dave but still listen to Dwight. The hat, jeans and swagger are all part of a crafted visual that he’s pulled off well, but without them the guy looks like he might be pumping gas at a 50’s Mobil station in Porterville, California. Not unlike Tom Petty, another exceptional talent looked down upon by some “sophisticated” music fans, part of Yoakam’s appeal is in the genuine transformation he achieves while performing. Several observations could be made about this process, but really, it all comes down to the guy’s voice. When Johnny Cash names you his “favorite singer,” chances are you’ve got something going on. He’s been labeled “country” – a derisive term for the clueless post Hank Williams masses – but he crosses genres. Elvis analogies are not out of line. Listen to his cover of the Kink’s Tired Of Waiting For You and then try defining the guy.

But I digress. Brooklyn, transient ruminative relief, late-night pouring rain. I arrive at my building where an elegant woman with baby strapped to front is exiting a cab, attempting futilely to cover from the deluge. I grab her suitcase and turn my key in the door, helping her in to the lobby. “Thank you,” she says with educated English tone. “Nice night,” I observe with some irony, though I’m still feeling OK. “Just awful,” she says, extending the handle and rolling her belongings away. Inside my apartment it’s warm and I switch in to a dry t-shirt. A quick Internet search reveals that Dwight Yoakam is facing an IRS lean on his property; the result of over four hundred grand in delinquent payment. I switch over to Youtube and catch a clip of him performing in Wheeling, West Virginia – a two part medley starting with Suspicious Minds and segueing seamlessly into a sublime, Kentucky-fied cover of the Bee Gee’s To Love Somebody. Maybe I can nurse an extra ten minutes out of this run.