Of Baseball, Nostalgia, and Stan

I often say that I don’t remember being taught the basic rules of baseball — balls and strikes, relief pitchers vs. starters, why first base is the position where you “hide” your defensive liability — because in my family this was all such common knowledge that it seemed like we learned it by osmosis. My knowledge of Cardinals history is not quite as hazy in origin; I remember my father regaling us around the dinner table with stories about Bob Gibson and Stan Musial, imprinting a love for the Cardinals on his children even as the current team descended into its post-1987 mediocrity. But consider, for a moment, that my father was born in 1957.  The Gibby stories were of a player he had watched through his teens, had embraced and celebrated the way we were learning to cherish Ozzie Smith.  The Stan stories were of a player who retired when my father was only six; most of the best stories were not my father’s memories, but his father’s.  And yet, if you watched a game on the right day, you could actually see Stan, sitting in the stands, waving to the crowd, occasionally venturing into the broadcast booth.

Albert Pujols, a player the St. Louis fans long thought would be the person to take up and carry on Stan’s mantle, refused the nickname “El Hombre” because it infringed on Stan’s “The Man” nickname (and continued to reject it even after going to Anaheim). When he left last offseason, I wrote:

[this] is what makes sports fandom so hard, so frustratingly stupid at times: the rational part of your brain knows the player isn’t trying to hurt you — he doesn’t even know you.

Stan was different.  It wasn’t just that we felt like Stan knew us; there are reams of fan anecdotes to verify that Stan treated everyone who approached him like they were a good friend. If you were not lucky enough to have such a story (I am not), you always entertained the possibility that someday maybe you’d be in the right place at the right time and get to shake his hand. He was ours, and he remained so for so long, it seemed like we might never have to give him up.  Last spring, he came out for Opening Day looking noticeably frail.  His wife of over half a century passed away during the season.  We didn’t want to add up these signs. We weren’t ready to let him go.

Someday, I will tell my own children about Stan, just like I’ll tell them about Ozzie, and about what it was like when Albert came out of nowhere. But it won’t be quite the same as when my dad told us. Stan’s a true legend now, just out of reach in the history books, not on the TV waving and rooting on the Cardinals. The next great Cardinal won’t have a picture like this in his Google image search.

Goodbye, Stan.  The world will miss you, and baseball will miss you, but Cardinals fans will miss you most of all.

 

On Albert

After I got over the sudden sinking feeling in my gut when the link first appeared in my RSS feed, I was doing fine for about an hour.  We had plenty of work crises and meetings this morning to distract me, I was rationally discussing it online with SB and Lady Bee, I was going to be fine.  Then it occurred to me that I was just typing all these words, that I hadn’t actually said out loud to anyone, even myself, “Albert Pujols is going to be an Angel.”

That’s when I needed a moment.

Though I’m pretty much in agreement with Will Leitch’s gut reaction (I’ve never actually met Leitch but we were both commenting on a now defunct Cardinals blog back before Deadspin launched; as non-St Louis native Cardinals fans who now live in New York, it sometimes feels like we’re living oddly parallel lives), it was actually a piece I read this morning before the news broke that best captured my feelings. Posted on a White Sox blog after their home-grown star player, Mark Buerhle, signed with the Marlins, I read it thinking “this is how I will feel if Albert signs somewhere else.”  Thirty minutes later, the news broke that he had.

For those of us Cardinals fans who aren’t quite old enough to remember the team’s run of success in the early 1980s, who clung to McGwire’s home run chase only to see it soiled by the steroids accusations, who fell for Rick Ankiel’s early promise as a pitcher only to watch him implode in horribly public fashion, Albert Pujols was the first real sign that the Cardinals were finally returning to prominence, to playing October baseball that actually mattered instead of being sacrificial lambs to the Braves every year (if we made it at all).  Moreover, we were going to do it with a player found in our farm system, who seemed destined to become not only a Cardinals legend, but an all-time baseball legend.  When he signed that first big contract 10 years ago, I still remember that now defunct Cardinal blog enthusing, “Can you believe he’s ours?  That we have him?”

And now we don’t.  And yes, “we” never did, which is what makes sports fandom so hard, so frustratingly stupid at times: the rational part of your brain knows the player isn’t trying to hurt you — he doesn’t even know you.  The emotional part can’t help feeling like 10 years of adulation ought to be worth something.

I’m glad that the Cardinals won two World Series with Albert on the team — it feels less like he’s abandoning us for greener pastures, then that he’s a 31 year old who has worked for the same company his entire adult life and wants to try something new.  I’m glad that he’s going to the Angels — a team I have such fondness for, I wrote a short story in grad school organized around their first World Series win — and not the Marlins, who not only have ugly uniforms and construct their teams in a way that feels like they are gaming the system, but are covered frequently in the New York media as a divisional rival of the Mets.  Still, Opening Day 2012 — a day that should have been about watching the Cardinals get their championship rings — is now going to be about enduring the spectacle of Albert in his new uniform in Yankee Stadium.  For the first time in a long time, I welcome the long months of the offseason.

About that Very Big Baseball Game That is Happening Tonight

These are the opening lines of the email my friend Sarah sent me at 11:43 PM Thursday:

Hey sorry about the cardinals! The only good thing is it won’t conflict with Stevie Wonder.

At 12:51 AM Friday I wrote her back:

I think you reverse jinxed us.

So, thanks to the weather postponement on Wednesday, and whatever the hell happened last night to save the Cardinals from their final strike not once, but twice, the first Game 7 in almost a decade is being played in St. Louis after the craziest World Series game I have ever seen and I HAVE PLANS.

Not, “oh I can reschedule because I can do this some other time” kind of plans, either.  Once in a lifetime, seeing-Stevie-Wonder-in-semi-private-concert-at-the-Waldorf-Astoria-for-free plans.

Stupid Mother Nature.

So here’s what’s going to happen:  I’m going to SB’s for the first hour of the game, then running to the Waldorf Astoria (it’s a short walk) for the concert, while SB DVRs the innings I’m missing, then coming back and trying to catch up.  You are probably better off not texting or emailing me until the wee hours of Saturday morning, but I’m going to turn my phone off just in case.

Also I may be wearing a Halloween costume.  I bought it for a party a few years ago, a party that was also scheduled on the day a Game 7 might have been played, had one been necessary.  In 2006.

How People Come to Attach Undue Importance to Batting Average

Sus came for a visit this past weekend, so Friday night she, SB and I went to CitiField for the Mets-Angels game. It turned out to be a beautiful night for baseball, despite the fact that in the process of getting from work to the game I got completely drenched by rain once, avoided a second soaking only because of a well-placed scaffolding, and nearly got my eye poked out by an oblivious idiot with a golf umbrella (who did not even pause in his stride after sideswiping both Sus and me hard enough that the bouncer at a nearby bar asked if we were all right). Anyway, I ended up alone in my seat for some time while SB and Sus went to fetch food from the Shake Shack stand beyond the outfield (though they ended up with Blue Smoke, because the Shake Shack line was ages long.  Citi Field isn’t even opening all of their regular concession stands at the moment, but the outfield area is thriving).

Not having anyone to talk to, I could not help overhearing the conversation in front of me, carried on by a father and his young daughter (maybe 7 or 8), who was clearly attending her first baseball game as a conscious spectator.  Even though she seemed most excited at the revelation that Kesha was in attendance, the little girl did try to follow what her dad was trying to teach her about the basic rules of the game, with amusing results. Some highlights:

Dear Jim Nantz,

The fact that Jeremy Lamb’s dad as part of VCU, once beat a Calhoun coached team in the NCAA tournament is not in any way a “paradox.” I believe the word you are looking for is “coincidence.”

Also a coincidence: the fact that UConn and Butler played the first two rounds of this tournament at the same regional site and stayed in the same hotel.  You used “oddity” which is closer, but still makes me wonder if you have some sort of mental block against the word that literally means “the occurrence of events that happen at the same time by accident but seem to have some connection.”

That said, I am amused by how you and your announcing partners gave up pretending both these offenses didn’t suck tonight before the first half was even over.

Love (kinda),

Whitney

P.S. Would you please consider letting Gus Johnson have your Final Four slot next year?  Just think — you could go down to Augusta early, and not be hoarse and half-deaf during the practice rounds.

P.P.S. Dog puns? Really?  You were going to use the same lines for the Butler Bulldogs, weren’t you?

A March Madness Post (Mostly) Devoid of Actual Game Commentary

Because my family has gotten so spread out geographically of late, I set up a private group on ESPN to run our annual bracket.  My parents are currently on vacation and not near a computer regularly, so this morning I had to pester them to send me their picks so I could set up brackets for them.  I can clearly remember being about 8 years old and Dad calling me while I was sleeping over at my grandmother’s house to get my picks. (Yes, my family has had its own NCAA bracket pool since I was 8. What?) I can’t decide whether I’m more amused by the role reversal or the fact that my dad sent his picks by text message, while my mom used the Gmail app on her phone.  I don’t think it’s even been a year yet since they got the Droids.

Continuing in the technology vein, how is it that CBS is lagging behind when it comes to making their regular shows available on the internet, but has such well-functioning and elaborate interfaces for live sports?  I don’t have that much bandwidth in my apartment, but with the new computer I’ve had very little problems watching any game I want.  I did notice that whoever designed CBS’s system this year made all the controls lock up every time they cut to commercial so you can’t just flip to another game every break — but since I’ve been watching two games at once all evening (one on the laptop and one on CBS on the TV) it’s not that bad of a trade off.

The only tiny complaint I have is that the live scoreboard that displays over the video if you watch the game on the web is actually live — which means if your video starts running behind (which mine occasionally did), the scoreboard can give away what’s about to happen. At the end of the Vanderbilt-Richmond game, I resorted to making the video full screen so I could hide the scoreboard, but I could only do that if I didn’t want to talk to Radio Brother or SB over GChat.  Still, it’s a very tiny complaint that is vastly outweighed by my delight in watching the cable channel games online with no restrictions — something I can’t do with ESPN3 or during the MLB playoffs.

Now, if you’ll excuse me Michigan State has pulled within 4 and I actually have an interesting game to watch.

Just In Time For …

A) Baseball Season

B) My Birthday

I followed a trail of links (I believe it started at Rob Neyer’s new SBNation blog) and discovered these lovely baseball scorebooks being designed and produced by a graphic designer named Bethany Heck.  I have long intended to purchase a scorebook at Modell’s or some place since the Mets and Yankees, unlike my beloved Cardinals, do not sell separate $3 scorecards and expect me to shell out upwards of $12 for a program just to get at the one sheet of paper I’m actually interested in.  Plus, how cool would it be to have all the baseball games you went to catalogued in a certain period of time in one place, like a little game diary?  I even like that they’re a bit smaller than average, since I’m usually taking mass transit to games these days. (Apparently a larger version is in the works.)

I want one of these so bad I’m not sure I can wait a week to see if I get one for my birthday. Of course, if I wound up with two, I guess I’d just have to go to more baseball games.

Orders are being taken through the project’s Kickstarter page, which is here.

They’re So Cute At That Age

I went over to the old blog to post the official moving notice, and flipped through some of my very first posts. This one really brought home how long ago I started blogging (please bear in mind that I was 20 and suffering from new-toy-overeagerness and about a week from graduating from OU before you laugh at my enthusiasm and clumsy writing)

This is Albert Pujols, my new favorite Cardinal (although I love them all, of course). He is only 20 years old, but you woudn’t know it from the way he’s played so far this season. It’s been great to have his offense since Mac’s knee is still so shaky. Pujols and Rick Ankiel are the first Cardinals that seem more like my peers than my father’s