Take Me Out To The Ballgame

It's that time of year again. The World Series is underway, with the Rebel Alliance facing off with the Imperial Empire for all the bragging rights.

Actually, it's the St. Louis Cardinals facing the Texas Rangers for the championship. The New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox, and Atlanta Braves are all back home wondering what happened to their seasons. The Chicago Cubs fans, as usual, are vowing that next year will be their year. Incidentally, the next year is our year delusion is also suffered in the hockey world by fans of the Toronto Maple Leafs. Yes, they're a sad lot too.

Late in the season in St. Louis, as the team advanced through the playoffs, a squirrel or two were showing up on the field during games. It didn't take long before someone started coming up with a name for them: rally squirrel. Obviously they're adorable, so obviously they'll end up moving a lot of tie-in merchandise.

I should say here that I enjoy the game, but don't follow it religiously. I can watch a game, get the flow of the game, the rules and the intricate ways a game can unfold, but I'm not devoted to any one team (especially not the Toronto Blue Jays, who, of course, are from that accursed city on the shores of Lake Ontario).

Next time, rework your banner so that it's not a short form of a sexual act. Just saying.

A few days ago, I saw a documentary on a specific incident in the game, one that I'd pretty much forgotten (if one were from Chicago, it would still be well remembered, of course, even if one wasn't a baseball fan). Catching Hell documented the Steve Bartman affair. In 2003, during the sixth game of the National League Championship, the Cubs were playing the Florida Marlins, and they were ahead. Outfielder Moises Alou rushed to the wall to catch a ball, and several spectators reached for it. One of them, Steve Bartman, caught it. Had Alou caught the ball, it would have been the second out. Instead, the Cubs collapsed, the Marlins rallied, and the Cubs lost badly. The seventh game saw the job finished, and the Marlins went on to the Series.

The doc captured the mood in the stadium that night, the venom and hostility towards this one man who, they felt, had put the curse back on the team. The billy goat curse that makes the Cubs choke routinely over and over and over again (they have a habit of that). Watching the footage, you could feel the bitter, ugly loathing, the mob mentality. It was as if they were ready to kill him. Steve Bartman, who had inadvertantly caught a stray ball, became the most hated man in Chicago.

To this day, the man's a recluse. He profoundly apologized for the catch, and has declined interviews ever since. He was lucky that the clothing he wore that night made him anonymous. Get the cap off him and a different pair of glasses, maybe a suit on him, and you'd never be able to recognize him.  He's a pariah in the minds of many a fan, who blame him for the collapse... rather then just accept the fact that the Cubs aren't meant to win again. And the ball itself? It was auctioned off and destroyed.

Cigar Guy goes back in time and replaces Steve Bartman

And yet the game goes on. The Yankees remain the most hated team in baseball (another longstanding tradition). And each year in October, when the air starts to cool down, two teams meet, trying to extend summer just one more game. Well, four more games. Seven if they have to. They'd like to do it in four games, but things don't always go according to plan, do they?

I'm rambling, aren't I?

Godzilla's a Sox fan, didn't you know?

Baseball has its heroes and legends, like Ruth, Aaron, Robinson, and Gehrig.

It's also got its villains. Barry, I'm talking about you. Every stat you ever got deserves a great big asterix, and I hope you're still living someday when someone breaks your record. I'd like to see the look on your face, Mr. Bonds.

Barry's not alone of course. Among the other steroid freaks of the game, I give you Mr. McGwire....

And A-Rod, who by all accounts is a monumental ego and jackass of the first order. And since he dated Madonna, this reflects really badly on his sense of judgment.

And so the game goes on. Two games have been played in the Series, and the Cardinals and the Rangers are tied as of this writing. Who will win? Only time will tell.

I can guarantee you that if someone lets the ball roll between their legs as has been done before in these games... they'll never hear the end of it.

Play ball, boys. And if you can, hit a ball that knocks out Rupert Murdoch.

Every Once In Awhile We Have To Sacrifice A Caddy To Keep The Gators Happy



What really happened to Jack Nicklaus



"It took me seventeen years to get three thousand hits in baseball. I did it in one afternoon on the golf course." ~ Hank Aaron

"Baseball reveals character; golf exposes it." ~ Ernie Banks

"The ardent golfer would play Mount Everest if somebody put a flagstick on top." ~ Pete Dye

"Golf is a game in which you yell fore.... shoot six, and write down five." ~ Paul Harvey

"I have a tip that can take five strokes off anyone's golf game. It is called an eraser." ~ Arnold Palmer

Ah, the accursed game of golf. You'll note that I don't call it a sport. Not with guys dressed like that. And not considering that your typical golfer tends to be older guys sporting a beer gut, whose sole athletic part in the activity is swinging a club at the ball, before getting into that golf cart and going to the next hole (their heart just won't let them walk that far, their knees ache, and they've got a cigar to smoke, you know...). So no, golf does not qualify as a real sport. And yet, for some inexpicable reason, millions of people play it.

Even the Grim Reaper likes to play from time to time. Doesn't he have enough to do?

This is the time of year, of course, when like the birds flying south to migrate, some of the golfers in our northern reaches are busy. They're playing a few final rounds on the links, getting in as much as they can. Because soon it'll be time for them to drive south, to warmer climates, and spend the whole winter playing golf. It's not enough that they're out on the golf courses sixteen hours a day up here; they feel compelled to spend months in the heat of Florida, the Gulf Coast, and Arizona (at least the North American variety of homo golfus fanaticus) playing their favourite pastime all winter long.

They'd just better mind the local wildlife. Gators find stray golfers a tasty meal. Lots of fat and meat on them, you see, usually basted in alcohol, which leaves a unique taste to the meal.

Up here in summer, the golfers still have to mind the wildlife....

When they're not taking advice from their caddies, of course...

I'm not a fan of the game. I find it tedious, to say the least, and I strenuously object to how much land is wasted on these sprawling courses. No other sport (er, activity, since I've already conclusively established that golf is not a sport) takes up this amount of room. I don't understand its appeal. I really don't get why it pulls in the television ratings it does. Let's face it. As boring as golf is, watching it on television is even more so.

My uncle has a brother (or brother-in-law; I've never clarified which one it is), who's obsessed with the game. That little migration scenario I mentioned above? That's him, by the way. He and his wife live in a retirement community linked to a golf course in Ontario's cottage country. All summer long, he's out early in the morning, on the golf course, playing the game for hours on end. He'll come home at the end of the day, thinking only about the next day's playing. His wife, like so many other golfer spouses, is in effect, a golf widow. At least golf widows know where their spouse is, out on the course. As opposed to being in a strip club stuffing fifty dollar bills in the g-string of a stripper named Amber.

This time of year, with the leaves changing colour, he's no doubt playing his last few days of golf, and getting ready for the drive south to spend the next few months. They've been doing it for years now, wintering in the southern states, so he can keep playing golf.

I've already established it's not a sport. And it's not an activity either, really. It's a full blown obsession.

For a good number of years, the golf world has been centered on one player. The not so mighty (anymore) Tiger Woods. He played the game, seemed to have the world at his fingertips (at least the world that takes this idiocy seriously). And he made a lot of money. Then things started going wrong.

Tiger was indulging his fondness for women who weren't his wife, chasing every skirt in sight. In the words of his chief sponsor, he was "just doing it." And of course, as so often happens in these cases, the wife found out. Elin wasn't happy.

These days Tiger's game is gone. His marriage fell apart under all of the strain. He's routinely fallen behind in competition. It seems the life has been drained right out of him.

These days, Tiger has to play where he can, even during a military engagement.

Tiger takes out his hostility on the photographer, while Cigar Guy lurks nearby

What is it about golf that draws the golfers in? Are they unhappy at home? Are they deluded? Do they like screaming at little white balls and clubhouse caddies? Do they enjoy lying as they write down their scores?

Ouch!

Mind the gators, lads.

Mark Twain said it best: golf is a good walk wasted.

If you're marrying a fanatic golfer, don't say you weren't warned. Get used to doing a lot of stuff on your own. Yes, you thought you could put up with it, but the game often means more to your spouse then you do. I warned you, but would you listen? No!

And if you're a golfer (why? I ask you again, why?), one piece of advice: really... mind the bear. He doesn't like golfers either. It just shows that he has very good taste.

The Green Bay Packers Versus...Who's The Other Team Again?

It's that day again. Super Bowl Sunday. The pregame festivities are already underway down there in Dallas, the game's still a few hours as of this writing, the half game show's undergoing final run throughs, Janet Jackson's nowhere to be seen, and around countless televisions, a Super Bowl party is underway. Lots to eat for hours on end, lots of loud yelling at the television, lots of is that friggin' ref blind??? still to come, lots of commercials, lots of hype and glitz.

And I could care less.

Full disclosure: I'm not much of a sports fan. I like hockey and baseball, I understand how the game is played, I can enjoy a game, but I don't follow them religiously, as many do. I don't like football. I don't see the point of it, never have and never will. It's boring. It's slow and tedious. It seems to go on forever and ever. And yet in towns in America, thousands of people will come out to see a high school football game. Why? It's a mystery.

And of course for some reason millions of people want to watch a bloated, overrated, dull final game of the season. Maybe it's the game itself. Or the half time show (note to musical acts: jamming with other musicians tends to come off looking really awkward; you're not supposed to have that many overinflated egos on stage at one time). Maybe it's just the commercials. Super Bowl ads tend to be creative. At least they are in the US. Canadian broadcasters insist on using Canadian ads. So we have to rely on web links for something like The Force. That's a fairly creative commercial,  and a funny one, and thanks to Norma for letting me know about it.

Still, what's the point to the whole thing? Hours and hours and hours of pregame chatter, meaningless yakking from former players who took one too many hits to the head, or drunkards who are having tailgate parties, or commentators who are already plastered. I don't know. The pregame must be an ordeal for anyone foolish enough to sit through it. Maybe the booze helps.

This came from today's Non Sequitur, and it gave me a laugh. And the thing is, you could do all of this in the time it takes from start up to finally kick off....

Well, to those of you who are settling into watching the mindless game in the hours ahead, I shake my head in dismay. You're welcome to it. To those of you who will keep the TV on to watch that cheesy abomination called Glee afterwards, I ask... why do you like the equivalent of fingernails on a blackboard?

And by the way, if you're about to point out the pointlessness of the sport so beloved by so many Canadians, that being curling, you can save it. I hate that one too. And no, I can't explain the rules. It's a mystery.