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The rivalry between the Red Sox and the Yankees is a much needed spice for an otherwise sober game that, more than once, challenged my ability to stay awake during late night hours.
He that falls in love with himself will have no rivals.
- Benjamin Franklin
A few years back my wife and I spent a couple of days in Newport, Rhode Island. We stayed at a very nice hotel close to downtown. This was close to the end of the regular baseball season, the time when each game seems to count. My experience is that games prior to the All-Star Game are not taken quite as seriously. After all, “we” are playing 160+ games in a regular season, and any mishap during the first half can be compensated later – or not.
Naturally, with my wife being a wicked Red Sox fan, every night activity, such as going out to one of the many fabulous restaurants, had to be scheduled around game time. As a result, we would have a few drinks at the hotel bar around 7 pm to watch the game, and a few innings later we would resign to watch the rest of the game in our room. Well, sometimes the game starts at 8 pm when ESPN – with their painfully incompetent commentators – takes over.
Quite coincidently it turned out that during these few nights in Rhode Island the Red Sox played the hated New York Yankees at Fenway Park. Also quite coincidental, some hotel guests were from New York. One of the guys felt offended by the crowd’s cheers, for instance, when Derek Jeter swung and missed a ball, or when a Sox player walked to first base after the fourth ball. “They would never do that at Yankee Stadium,” he mumbled repeatedly, shaking his head. I felt inclined to tell him that he had never seen a game at Yankee Stadium, but a buddy of his felt the increasing tension in the room. “Hey,” he told his friend. “Remember, you are in Red Sox territory. Of course, they cheer only for the Red Sox.”
I do understand the passion New Yorkers feel for their team, but I never understood how one can live in New England and, at the same time, be a Yankees fan, unless you live in Connecticut, which I personally do not consider part of New England. Mentally they’re New Yorkers, while New England life has nothing in common with New York City. Nevertheless, my motto is, live and let live. After all, baseball is only a game. I may call them the “hated” Yankees, but I am only adopting Red Sox Nation linguistics. The rivalry between the Red Sox and the Yankees is a much needed spice for an otherwise sober game that, more than once, challenged my ability to stay awake during late night hours.
Unfortunately, the same rivalry can go too far, because some fans, regardless of whether they cheer for the Red Sox or the Yankees, just don’t get it.
On April 14, 2010 the Associated Press reported:
“NASHUA, N.H. – A New Hampshire woman convicted of running down and killing a man with her car after he was said to have taunted her for being a New York Yankees fan has been sentenced to 20 to 40 years in prison.
Forty-five-year-old Ivonne Hernandez was convicted in December of second-degree murder in the death of 29-year-old Matthew Beaudoin in a Nashua parking lot.
Police say the dispute outside a bar started as an exchange about the Yankees and Red Sox.
Hernandez testified she was terrified because Beaudoin and others pounded on her windows when she made a comment about how many baseball World Series the Yankees had won compared to the Red Sox.”
Yes, I do stand to my statement that Baseball is not a sport. To put it in a nut-shell, Baseball is a game interrupted by momentary eruptions of athletic interferences, or, as Yogi Berra put it so much more exquisitely, “Baseball is 90% mental; the other half is physical.”
Baseball is a game interrupted by sporadic eruptions of athletic interferences.
– Wilfried F. Voss
Yes, I do stand to my statement that Baseball is not a sport. To put it in a nut-shell, Baseball is a game interrupted by sporadic eruptions of athletic interferences, or, as Yogi Berra put it so much more exquisitely, “Baseball is 90% mental; the other half is physical.”
Okay, let me give you the quick run-down. I was born and raised in Germany, a country where soccer is the most popular sports of all. Soccer, in turn, is a sport where twenty-two players are in constant motion for two periods of mostly uninterrupted forty-five minutes (At least that’s how I remember it.). I have heard complaints about it like, “I don’t like soccer, because you never know when the game ends.” Well, think of baseball, football, basketball, or hockey, and tell me at what time exactly the game will end. I believe, soccer is not as popular here in the United States as it is in the rest of the world, because it does require ninety minutes of uninterrupted attention. That leaves no time for a trip to the bathroom or the refrigerator.
Don’t get me wrong, I do enjoy watching baseball while writing posts for my blog (Tonight it’s Tampa Bay at the Boston Red Sox), browsing on the Internet, or reading a magazine. But with 160+ excruciatingly slow games per season it takes a lot to get me excited, especially when it comes to watching the tremendous lack of urgency the players demonstrate during nine long innings. In baseball terms this behavioral pattern is called “patience.” I call it a lack of passion.
Talking about passion… When I came into this country a mere twenty-one years ago I was excited about American football. I still remember watching my first Superbowl in 1989, San Francisco 49ers vs. the Cincinnati Bengals. And I still remember Tim Krumrie of the Bengals, who suffered a broken leg while trying to tackle Roger Craig, and I saw the slow-motion re-play way too many times. The story is, Krumrie stayed in the locker room until the game was finished, refusing to leave his teammates.
You may ask, what has that to do with baseball?
Well, for the last eight years I have been married to an Irish-American red-head, and she is a wicked Red Sox fan. During the brief period of dating, and an insignificantly longer time of being engaged, my wife did follow the Red Sox games, however, without my participation, due to obvious lack of enthusiasm. That changed in the following 2003 season. Trying to please my wife I started watching the games with her, and, naturally, I had a lot of questions. These questions had the potential of creating great stress on our relationship (“Why isn’t there a coach at second base?”). Add to this my wife’s deficiency explaining the game in layman’s terms, especially when she is angry at me.
Such a situation arose during a game when the then-manager of the Boston Red Sox, whose name is not to be uttered in this household, pulled the starting pitcher Derek Lowe, because he had a blister on his thumb. Hey, Tim Krumrie, I wanted to yell into the TV, they just pulled somebody out of a game because he had a blister on his thumb! Okay, I also remember Curt Schilling’s bleeding ankle during the 2004 World Series, and that temporarily shook my view on baseball.
Just for the record, I did follow the entire 2003 season, including that fateful seventh play-off game versus the hated New York Yankees. Like so many others I yelled at the TV in disbelief when the then-manager of the Red Sox (you know, the un-person whose name is not to be uttered in this household) did not pull the pitcher, Pedro Martinez, even though he was very obviously exhausted at that point. Think about it. I had “learned” baseball during the previous six months, and even I knew the manager had just made a fatal mistake.
What it all comes down to is that I experienced the drama that so many Red Sox fans had endured during many previous seasons. As they say, the rest is history. The Red Sox won the World Series the next year. Many fans have waited a lifetime to see the Red Sox win the World Series; too many Red Sox fans lived a life without seeing it. I can say, I saw the drama in my first season, and the Red Sox won the World Series the next year. That’s what I call German efficiency.
Still, I don’t consider myself a baseball specialist. I still have too many questions about the game, and most of them are not polite. How come that Dustin Pedroia never swings at the first pitch? How come that Manny Ramirez can take a piss during the game? How come that players endure injuries while running 90 feet from one base to another? How come they stop games when it rains?
Well, I guess, I will continue watching the Red Sox games, and maybe some day somebody will have answered all my questions. Until then I will enjoy America’s game.
Baseball has the great advantage over cricket of being sooner ended.
– George Bernard Shaw
Today’s headline in the sports section of our local newspaper said, Angels close out Papelbon, Sox. I knew that already. I saw the game. Amazingly enough, I understood the word game. Jonathan Papelbon’s job was to close out the Angels (not [...]
Baseball has the great advantage over cricket of being sooner ended.
– George Bernard Shaw
Today’s headline in the sports section of our local newspaper said, Angels close out Papelbon, Sox. I knew that already. I saw the game. Amazingly enough, I understood the word game. Jonathan Papelbon’s job was to close out the Angels (not vice versa), and he failed miserably. Baseball season is now officially over. No, don’t tell me, there are other games, and two other teams will eventually compete in the World Series. Every citizen of Red Sox nation will agree, baseball season is only over when either the Sox win the World Series, or, as they did yesterday, loose in the play-offs.
Many moons ago, when I arrived here in the Unites States, coming from Germany, I had heard about baseball, but I never considered it a real sport. As Yogi Berra said in his own typical way, “Baseball is 90% mental, the other half is physical.” I never understood the concept of holding a bat and looking at the ball swishing by, waiting either to be walked or struck out. I never understood how you can injure yourself by running a mere 90 feet from the batter’s box to first base. I’ve seen it several times now.
Being a football fan, I vividly remember seeing my first Superbowl – San Francisco 49ers vs. Cincinatti Bengals. One of the players broke his leg during the game, and they showed it in detail and slow motion multiple times on TV. The player refused to be driven to a hospital. He insisted on staying in the locker room and watching the game on TV until it was over. Then he agreed to the trip to the hospital. Compare that to a pitcher who is being replaced because he broke a fingernail. It did happen! So, for many years football was my kinda sport! And by the way, why do they call it World Series…?
No, wait, don’t start yelling at me! This season I watched almost all Red Sox games, and only a few minutes of the New England Patriots. I have to admit I had problems following the games when the Red Sox were on the West Coast. We have a two-year-old, and we’re happy when we go to bed after an East Coast game, which is usually around 10:00 pm.
My Red Sox addiction started after I met my wife, who is a vivid fan. She was the reason that the 2003 season was the first I watched from beginning to end. I experienced the typical Red Sox drama by watching them losing in the seventh game against the New York Yankees. Even I yelled at the TV when the Red Sox manager (whose name is not to be uttered in this household) did not pull Pedro Martinez when it was obvious he didn’t have it anymore. Well, the rest is history, and the Red Sox won the World Series the next year. Many people here in New England and beyond have waited a lifetime to see this happen, while I was privileged to wait only two seasons. Maybe it’s the German efficiency.
So, coming back to yesterday’s game. I saw Papelbon allowing two runs in the eighth inning with two outs, and, in view of Papelbon’s track record so far this season, I expected the worst.
At the beginning of the ninth inning, with Papelbon still up, I looked at my wife and asked, “Can we load the bases, please?”
My wife looked at me and said, “You know Max’s famous word when he left the wild things?”
She was referring to Where The Wild Things Are, one of my son’s favorite books, and now a movie.
“His famous word,” continued my wife, “was NO!”
“But,” I muttered, “can’t we just load the bases to make things a bit more interesting?”
“NO!”
“We could also allow another three runs.”
“NO!”
Yet again, the rest is history. Papelbon did load the bases eventually, and he did allow three more runs. And I still don’t understand the concept of loading the bases with an intentional walk. For me Torii Hunter was as much of a threat as Vladimir Guererro. In the end, the Angels were the better team.
Last, but not least, while I, as an author, have the liberty of distorting the facts, the conversation with my wife happened as I described it. Now it’s time to focus my attention on the Patriots, even though I have the nasty feeling that Tom Brady’s priorities are currently more with maintaining his status as a star, rather than his performance as a quarterback.
