The Pleasures Of An 18 Inning Baseball Game

My father was the least athletic person you'd ever meet.

But I loved baseball. And sports in general. Sure, I enjoyed sitting in front of the tube on Saturday afternoon at 5, watching "Wide World Of Sports," but even more I liked to participate. From baseball in the spring to football in the fall to sledding and tobogganing in the winter, my life was lived outside. My mother insisted on it. Don't ask me about daytime TV, I never saw it, it was illegal in my house.

And my mother was a big sportswoman. She lived to play golf. That's one of her great regrets, that she cannot hit the links today. A doctor promised her she could and she's never forgiven him, never inflate someone's hopes unnecessarily.

But my dad fed my addiction. He bought me equipment. He took me to the game. He never came to my games, but in retrospect I dig that, for sport could be my own, even when my Little League team won the town championship.

But I only made it through one year of Babe Ruth ball, and then it was hard to come up with enough people to play and my days on the diamond were through.

I was always one for a pickup game of softball. But then everybody got married and everybody who still played took it way too seriously. That's one thing I hate about the adult golfer, never mind team softball player, they're all about winning. When after all, at this age, we're never going to be professionals.

But we can watch.

But I never do.

Never mind that the Dodgers are only on Time Warner, I've got Time Warner, I'm paying, and I still don't turn them on.

Maybe because the Dodgers are losers. All the cred is back in Brooklyn. It's a fair weather team for a fair weather market.

And it's hard to love my Yanks, ever since the Steinbrenner era, when he paid to win. I liked them better when they lost, it was easier to separate the true fans from the wannabes.

And football is a turn-off. A game wherein the team is more important than the individual and the coach has too much power and brain damage is rampant and anything that rah-rah makes my blood boil. Nothing is more offensive than mindless support. Whether it be of a team or a country. If you're leaving your intellect at the door, I want no part of you or your shenanigans.

But baseball is a thinking man's game. With all the sabermetrics and Theo Epstein and Billy Beane. And it's slow. And what was once the national pastime is no longer. But every once in a while the sport comes up and surprises you.

Like tonight.

I keep saying I'll catch up on sports in the old age home, when I've got the time. I'm always stunned when people say they watched the game, who has that much time to invest? And the regular season is nearly irrelevant. And the post season is not the sudden death it once was, best of seven and that's it. The first week of October. Played during the daytime. Yearning to get home from school to catch the last couple of innings.

Yes, baseball shot itself in the foot. Beholden to the TV networks it's neither fish nor fowl.

But one good thing about baseball, they don't keep changing the rules.

There's beauty in that, the game remains the same. If you knew it once, you know it still. The players may change, but the basic precepts are immutable.

And it brings us together.

And there's very little that does.

We played once, however poorly. And at this late date our lives are drained of meaning, our hopes and dreams went unfulfilled and we're wandering in the wilderness trying to make sense of it all.

And then you're sitting on the porch and you hear that they're in the 18th inning of the playoff game and you jump up and say I'VE GOT TO SEE THIS!

So you park yourself on the couch and the drama unfolds. The tension is palpable. You wonder how the batter stays in the box, how he lets the ball go by, how he just doesn't flake.

And that's why these guys are our heroes. Kind of like the last minute of the NBA playoffs, but with people who are closer to our size. Who wear beards. Sure, some date models, but most are relatively faceless. But this is their profession and they take it very seriously. And when it comes to October, they play to win.

It started with the Royals. What a piss-poor baseball team Kansas City has been. That's what's wrong with baseball, the inequality. So when someone comes from nowhere, without the revenue-sharing that's leveled the field in the NFL, you root for them. And they go into extra innings and enter the next round.

And the Nationals are the favorites.

And San Francisco went ahead...

What did George Carlin say about baseball, that we don't know when it will end, that it could go on forever?

Tonight's bottom of the 18th was like the last minute of a basketball game, but without the time outs.

And the baby boomers in attendance were riveted to the screen, throwing out their appraisals, discussing Howard Stern interviews in between batters. Yes, there's very little that brings us together, anything that does is revered. It might not be on the front page, it might not make Buzzfeed, but these rallying points are sacred to us as we navigate the uncharted waters of our lives.

And I'm thinking how this is it. Being in a group of men who I'd have nothing to say to away from the game watching what once was and will always be.

Yes, they'll play baseball forever.

While the upper class that remains sends their kids to computer camp and the players are imported from Central America. It's getting harder and harder to relate to the personalities, but we understand the identities. They're athletes. They succeeded where we did not. They made play their lives.

And they do not choke.

And they're beholden to us.

And we have this power over almost no one else.

The government doesn't listen to us. Our spouses don't listen to us. But the players do, because they know without us they don't get paid, that we feed the monster. And that just like in America, there's a benefit to being on the team, but personal glory shines bright.

As Bob Costas says, sports are a metaphor for life.

Only in baseball can you come back at any time.

Only in baseball can you be made to play all night and have to hit the field the next day.

And only in baseball is it you against the world. One on one baby. No excuses.

So it's funny to find that all these years later I'm still the same person. You change, but not really. I would always marvel at the extra inning games I read about in the paper, that I heard about on telecasts. That seemed to go on forever. That could end in a moment, but never did.

We all walk that fine line. We want closure, but only if we're on the right side. But the truth is if you're on the wrong one, it's not terminal. It feels really bad, but you get to play another day.

I always wanted to play another day.

I wanted to put on my sneakers. Grab my glove. Go up to the diamond and see if anybody else felt the same way, if anybody else wanted to start a game.

And as hard as starting is, finishing is even more difficult. Everybody drops out. Everybody makes excuses.

So when you see the boys of summer keeping it going, half a day later, past midnight...

You smile. You think to yourself, ISN'T LIFE GRAND!


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