Friday, October 20, 2006
Advantages of Magic
My literary guru (who is absolutely not responsible for anything crappy I write) loved baseball more than I ever have or will. He was a Mets fan from opening day in 1962, having been a New Yorker without a team from the time the Dodgers & Giants left town. He despised the Yankees as much as he did corporate management & the Ku Klux Klan, & never ceased wishing them ill. He did, however, forgive any Yankee who came over to manage or play for the Mets. He was reportedly cremated wearing a Brooklyn cap. His name was joel oppenheimer & he was a great American poet & a global citizen & he wrote a short prose book about 1972 titled The Wrong Season. The book was written entirely in lower case. It is a tome filled with wisdom. If we were still adding sections to the Hebrew Bible, I'd nominate The Wrong Season for inclusion following Ecclesiastes. Joel was a superstitious man who refused to annoint his superstitions with sectarian significance. He just dealt with them. He was agoraphobic; a short walk anywhere with him in the Village was an adventure. If you're a Mets fan of the type who changes seats at home during games, intuitively times trips to the bathroom & fridge, switches off between radio & TV, & maybe keeps a little jar of Shea Stadium dirt handy, joel would have understood you.
There may be only two teams remaining in baseball continually affected or afflicted by other-worldly forces & by the application of magic on the part of fans: the Red Sox & the Mets. I am not referring to some recent faith system like the Southern Baptist Convention or Roman Catholicism, the former too benighted & the latter too sophisticated - The Son of Man could care less about Division I football - but rather to cosmic energies that preceded the rise of homo sapiens on this planet & which we comprehend even less now than we did 3000 years ago. The peculiar magic we use to interact with these energies accounts for why the Red Sox finally destroyed the Yankees on their way to the 2004 championship (Boston was merely the unshaven face of judgment), & of course why that same city couldn't beat the Mets in '86.
Both the Mets & Yankees received the same simple message this year: the size of your payroll only gets you so far. The Yanks heard it early in the season, & in the usual manner it was quickly papered over with more payroll; the Mets got it as they slipped toward the end. The Yankees were summarily dispatched because, really, their 2006 season, like their 2005 season, was utterly insignificant in the general scheme of the universe. But the Mets are just as important to the balance of universal cosmic forces for good or evil as Doctor Strange Master of the Mystic Arts. But since we find evidence of universal within our locality, the Mets may have lost because they did not remember Pedro Martinez holding back tears, his shoulders shaking, one month ago when he came out of a game against Pittsburgh trailing 4-0 after three innings. Willie Randolph's calm demeanor - he's rarely exhibited stronger emotions than mild exasperation - is fine for the long season, & OK for brushing aside the mediocre Dodgers, but not emotionally or spiritually suited for what was required to win Game 7 of the NLCS. Yesterday's game, though beautiful in form, lacked passion.
Oh, I saw the supplications, prayers & various hoodooisms of the fans at Shea, & they worked to the advantage of O Perez & Endy Chavez. I did my part here as best I could. But in the end, the Mets needed Pedro in uniform somewhere on the premises - in the dugout or in the bullpen if not on the mound; they needed that reminder of every heart baseball's broken through the generations. The situation called for a shaman. Because you have to know that your Aaron Heilman will wrap one in ribbon with a greeting card attached & serve it in the 9th to a .216 hitter with only 6 home runs all year. It just happens. But if you've used the advantages the magic has provided you, it won't make a bit of difference.
Wait until next year? Sure we can!
There may be only two teams remaining in baseball continually affected or afflicted by other-worldly forces & by the application of magic on the part of fans: the Red Sox & the Mets. I am not referring to some recent faith system like the Southern Baptist Convention or Roman Catholicism, the former too benighted & the latter too sophisticated - The Son of Man could care less about Division I football - but rather to cosmic energies that preceded the rise of homo sapiens on this planet & which we comprehend even less now than we did 3000 years ago. The peculiar magic we use to interact with these energies accounts for why the Red Sox finally destroyed the Yankees on their way to the 2004 championship (Boston was merely the unshaven face of judgment), & of course why that same city couldn't beat the Mets in '86.
Both the Mets & Yankees received the same simple message this year: the size of your payroll only gets you so far. The Yanks heard it early in the season, & in the usual manner it was quickly papered over with more payroll; the Mets got it as they slipped toward the end. The Yankees were summarily dispatched because, really, their 2006 season, like their 2005 season, was utterly insignificant in the general scheme of the universe. But the Mets are just as important to the balance of universal cosmic forces for good or evil as Doctor Strange Master of the Mystic Arts. But since we find evidence of universal within our locality, the Mets may have lost because they did not remember Pedro Martinez holding back tears, his shoulders shaking, one month ago when he came out of a game against Pittsburgh trailing 4-0 after three innings. Willie Randolph's calm demeanor - he's rarely exhibited stronger emotions than mild exasperation - is fine for the long season, & OK for brushing aside the mediocre Dodgers, but not emotionally or spiritually suited for what was required to win Game 7 of the NLCS. Yesterday's game, though beautiful in form, lacked passion.
Oh, I saw the supplications, prayers & various hoodooisms of the fans at Shea, & they worked to the advantage of O Perez & Endy Chavez. I did my part here as best I could. But in the end, the Mets needed Pedro in uniform somewhere on the premises - in the dugout or in the bullpen if not on the mound; they needed that reminder of every heart baseball's broken through the generations. The situation called for a shaman. Because you have to know that your Aaron Heilman will wrap one in ribbon with a greeting card attached & serve it in the 9th to a .216 hitter with only 6 home runs all year. It just happens. But if you've used the advantages the magic has provided you, it won't make a bit of difference.
Wait until next year? Sure we can!
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"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson
That's typical Yankee hubris to think they had a choice between "long ball" & "small ball" & merely made the wrong one, as if it had been an advance decision by Post-Season Tactical Committee. They're a team loaded with future Hall of Famers & Detroit kicked their asses. A Yankee fan can only say, "Shit, that wasn't supposed to happen," like a Republican pondering the timing of the Foley scandal.
Great piece, Bob. But I would make one correction. When your seat has hits in it, or a no-hitter, you don't change chairs, I don't care HOW much you have to pee.
I know a guy who insists he won the 6th game of the '86 series because he went for the desperation magic & actually unsealed his vial of sacred '69 Shea Stadium mound dirt just before Mookie came to the plate.
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