(Once More) Unto the Breach

Ok, so I'll grant that Yankee Stadium at least deserves another blog post before its demolished, especially considering that two dyed-in-the-wool Sox fans have spoken eloquently in its defense.

Here's an excerpt of what my friend Maggie wrote:

"am i the only person who is angry and dumbfounded with the closing of yankee stadium? WHY ARE THEY CLOSING THEIR DOORS???? last night i felt a lump in my throat watching the festivities, listening to yogi and whitey ford, watching the clips -- even seeing bernie williams made me teary. that is sacred ground, and the yankees should play there forever. no one should have wanted to close its doors, but since some people are truly evil and actually wanted to for eventual financial gain, they shouldn't have had the chance -- it should be a historical site, protected by the national government.

when i am forced to have a conversation with a yankee fan, the way i get beyond my knee jerk distaste for them is by talking about not what makes us different (NYY vs BOS) but what makes us the same. what on earth could that be, you ask? our LOVE OF BASEBALL. and one of the most beautiful parts of baseball is its long and rich history...a history packed full of memories and moments that have been passed down for more than a century.

i hate the yankees more than anyone, and yet i am so so so sad they are leaving such a precious place. there aren't that many physical locations in the world where so much history has taken place...

and why didn't yankee fans protest this like they would in boston if they tried to tear down fenway park? didn't they all freak out when they renovated it in the '70s? you'd think this would bring even more criticism. us new yorkers are paying $70M of our tax dollars for this project. i feel so dirty to be involved.

i just think this is a crime. last night felt like a televised execution to me.

on the plus side, how cool would it be if the yankees never won another world series again after the move? long live The Curse Of The New Stadium!"

And my friend Marc wrote (in comments to yesterday's post)

"I have to say...it's a real shame for the place to go. Damn the infinite Sinatra loop, but that's a Yankee fan thing, not a Yankee Stadium thing. Same for the beer tosses; same for the asshole fans. You'll see: all that crap will follow the team across the street, but the stadium and its history will not. The history, the ghosts, the center of baseball's true capitol...that stuff is that stadium; it is in itself the closest connection to its past. Without all of that mystique, there would be no significance to that place; and if you can appreciate what has transpired there, the great well of baseball drama and lore that has sprung from that field, then you should mourn its demise at least somewhat. It's a symbol of baseball's great past, the site of the great blossoming in baseball's history, and it's an American landmark. That stadium served to represent so much about The Game, and that city, and none of it will be quite the same without it."

And that's two Sox fans.

Which makes Maggie's question- "why didn't yankee fans protest this like they would in boston if they tried to tear down fenway park?"- all the more salient.

Exactly. These are yankees fans we're talking about. i just googled 'save yankee stadium', and there's very little evidence of any public support. remember all those 'save fenway park' bumper stickers in the early'00s, and the public outcry? i've never noticed anything at all like that here. i don't remember anyone here saying the yankees shouldn't move. i've never seen one t shirt or bumper sticker or anything that indicates there's any public sentiment against moving.

this is entirely fitting with the yankees character; they know that they'll make more money in a new stadium, so the fans are in favor of it- that's what they care about. For the Yankees, 'meaning' is just 'money' spelled wrong.

Now, whether the park itself should be protected as a landmark, as Maggie suggests, upon the team moving out is a distinct question from whether the team should move out at all. Apparently, the building itself doesn't get protected landmark status due to the consensus that the renovations in the 70's so dramatically altered the recognizable features that it's virtually not the same park anymore. City agencies aren't even giving the issue a public hearing; if the public was clamoring that this was outrageous, I'm sure they would.

But this prompts the question as to what extent the stadium is 'owned' by the public, specifically Yankees fans, such that the fate of the park should be determined by such dubious entities as public sentiment or rancor, or whether the right thing to do would have to be independently discerned and executed independently of their desires. Perhaps Yankees fans, in their insatiable quest for escalating payrolls and third place finishes, are happy to molt their old stadium as befitting the snakes they are. (zing.) Or perhaps they should be saved from themselves; Marc is certainly right that they'll take their jerkiness with them to the new stadium, and aren't likely to change of their own accord. Perhaps History belongs not just to Yankee fans but to everyone, in which case the Yankees are being particularly selfish in hording it for themselves. Perhaps its not 'their' park at all. Why should they be exclusively proprietary over history? Why shouldn't Sox fans get to complain; it's our history, too, even it's lousy history.

The points about a common baseball history are well taken; even Joe Dimaggio counts as 'our' history, as Baseball, aka The Game, is a higher unity that transcends even sox/yankees division. And so the provincial history of the Bronx borough is lower in the hierarchy of Forms than is History, which in turn must defer to Baseball, aka The Game, as the ultimate in meaningful ideals which subsumes them all. And it would be just like the Yankees to think they're bigger than The Game, and to abandon History for the sake of a $250 million payroll and a 4th place finish (as naturally payroll and standings are inversely related, I induce.) So I can admit to feeling the twinge in the demolishing of even the hated Yankee Stadium, insofar as it is subsumed by its place in the Game, and I can even happily continue to hate the Yankees for thinking its theirs to destroy, and for Yankees fans for failing to stick up for the larger issues at stake, and place party, or team, over country, or sport.

On the other hand, its just so in character; the evil empire needs a new Death Star. How can we take that away from them? They wouldn't 'be' the Yankees if they couldn't do whatever they possibly could to be as corporate and tramply as possible.

Imagine: It would be funny if they were penalized for their success; suppose that because so much history took place there, they became prohibited from ever moving out, and in another 100 years when every other stadium figures out how to compress seats like microchips and have 1 million capacity stadiums, and the yankees have a fraction of that and become the lowest payroll team as they'd still be restricted to a 20th century analog stadium, and then they'd become the scrappy low payroll underdogs who'd we be forced to cheer for because of their pluck and gritty hard nosed play...

What a strange future that'd be. Maybe this is for the best.

Hitting From the Bottom of the Deck

When the skills decline, what's a player to do? Cheat, of course. Varitek continues to get beat on fastballs fair and square, so what other recourse does he have?

Tek, in the 2nd inning of Monday night's 6-3 Sox victory over Baltimore, pulled a 94 mph fastball for a homer to right field, just his third in 64 games. And then in the 7th, he pulled a grounder down the first base line on a 92 mph fastball.

How does such a slow bat get around so early on fastballs? What's the ace up his sleeve? Simple. A 2-0 count in both cases. A hitter's count. A fastball count. A count where Varitek can cheat.

I've noticed this for a few weeks now; Varitek is cheating in fastball counts, looking fastball, and starting his swing early, so he can get around on the predictable pitch. This is a last ditch effort to survive, using brains over that other quality, the one that fades earlier than brains.

Of course, cheating risks getting pinched; it's the price for living dangerously. And if Tek gets an offspeed or breaking pitch in a fastball count, he's apt to get caught redhanded. In the 8th, against stupidly named Rocky Cherry, Tek was ahead in the count 2-1. A count where one is to be selective, waiting for that perfect pitch, and only then making a move. But Tek tipped his hand; gearing up for a fastball, Tek starting his swing early, and had no choice but to chase a slider down and out of the zone. And then guessing fastball again on 2-2, he chased another slider down and out of the zone, for the whiff. In the 9th, Tek had another 2-1 count, and this time was well ahead of a changeup, fouling it off, only to then take a belt high fastball for a called third strike.

Tek was caught cheating on the basepaths last week, too. On Thursday, he tried to get an early start on a stolen base, and left before the pitcher delivered. The pitcher stepped off the rubber, and caught Tek in a rundown, the result of which was not in doubt.

Of course, I can't help concluding that all this cheating business relates to mortality; wishing to stave off infirmity, Tek is looking to cheat death any way he can, to get whatever edge he can muster before old age catches him in a run down. But of course death catches everyone in a pickle of inevitability; it's just a question of staying in it long enough for the other runners to advance.

Anywho, in cheerier news, Bay slammed two dongs, and Lester continued to be the my-subjective-ace, defined as the guy who prompts me to say to myself 'phew, he's pitching tonight.'

Yeah, I say 'phew'. Even to myself. And in private moments, no less.

Manny Existing Manny

Time doesn't flow the same way for all parties concerned. Fans are fans for life. Businessmen have careers that span generations. But ballplayers can only be ballplayers for a very short period of time.

After the age of 32, every second of every day sees a ballplayer dwindle and decay, and become less and less himself. Not so for the other parties. Businessmen perhaps become more savvy in middle age. Fans become more experienced, have longer memories. They grow into their skins, develop their identities over the years.

Not ballplayers. They just get shittier and shittier until they can't be ballplayers anymore, at an age where other professions are just getting started. And then there's a whole lot of life left.

They can't all go into broadcasting; too many already do.

Some ballplayers are lucky and develop other careers, and form new identities for themselves. Others live off their name, selling white wall tires or family friendly restaurants.

But every player knows their window is short, their skills are ephemeral, and what and who they are will die long before they do.

Manny may or may not know, believe, or agree with any of this. But it's in the back of my mind anytime I feel the urge to blame a player for wanting to be paid whatever he can get for the superhero talents he knows aren't long for this world, before he turns into Clark Kent forever. And it's in the back of my mind when I try to figure out who to side with in a dispute- the rare baseball talent who we pay to see, and whose life expectancy is just about up, or the front office business men, who I don't pay to see, and who can go on being front office business men for 50 more years (in Theo's case, at least), or me, who will keep on watching the games and going about my business.

That's not to say that Manny is absolved; by all accounts, Manny was a Grade A asshole. I'm not denying that. But I don't doubt that there's at least a half-truth in one of Manny's statements, because the Front Office probably did make Nomar and Pedro and Manny all feel one particular way, and whether it was intentional or not is immaterial. I suspect they were all made to feel that they no longer were who they had always thought they were.

Nobody wants to feel replaceable. Interchangeable. Everybody wants to feel unique. I bet guys like Pedro, Nomar and Manny have spent a good part of their lives feeling unique, and deservedly so, because they have been blessed with talent that millions of people would do unspeakable things for. Who they were, why they were loved, why they were the gods of Yawkey Way, was to be found in the arm, the legs, the hands, and the subtle harmonies only they could play.

Of course, superstars age, their skills wither. But to them, from their own point of view, they're still the same unique divinity they've always been, ever since that first scout raved about their tools or wheels or gun at their 13th birthday. But that age of 32 or so rolls around, and that OPS or ERA starts to regress to the mean, and suddenly, these guys are one thing they've never been. Replaceable. They can be substituted; after their prime, the front office can find someone else to put up those same numbers they will. The person goes, the numbers stay the same. Oh right. And the salary shrinks. Profits go up.

That's fine, that's business. But I don't blame the players for wanting "respect", or "mental peace", as Manny put it, which they always say they want instead of money, though of course they want the money. But they don't even need to be shrewd in their investments with the money they already have in order to stay rich for life. No, the money is a symbol. A symbol of being desired. A symbol of being that guy that everyone wants, and pays, to see. That's respect to them- respecting them as The Man they are. The money says that they're wanted, to a quantifiable degree that much more than everyone else. What they want is to still be treated like the stars they were, not thrown out and replaced for an cheaper model. Manny will have mental peace when he's desired the way Manny Ramirez should be desired. And Manny's now getting that. The Dodgers are raving about the Hall of Fame slugger they acquired. Manny can strut into Joe Torre's locker room and Be what he's always Been: Manny.

You can call it 'ego', and it probably is. But the sense of 'self' applies as much as 'conceit'. This is all they've been, this is all they know. All that lies ahead is decay and death. Yes, for all of us too, unfortunately- you heard it here first- but the rest of us still have a narrative, and not just the epilogue that a former ballplayer has. Sure, people will always want their autograph, and they'll always eat for free in the local joints, but any player will tell you, it's not the same. They're never really themselves ever again.

Do you know what the moral of Field of Dreams is? Heaven is where you get to be yourself. (spoiler alert.) Shoeless Joe gets to be a ballplayer again. Doc Graham gets his the one major league plate appearance, the one he should have had. And then, because he really was a doctor, not a ballplayer ('Son, if I'd never gotten to be a doctor, that would have been a tragedy'), he gets to be that again too. Terrence Mann, after years of public silence, gets to be a writer again- he promises to give a full account of what it's like out in the corn field. Ray Kinsella and his estranged father get to be an American Boy and his Dad, by having a game of catch.

But that's Hollywood. Ballplayers can never again be themselves. When Manny learned that he wasn't going to get the 4 year $100 million dollar contract extension that the great Manny Ramirez deserved, he shut down. Undoubtedly, Manny's response was immature and hurtful to those that knew him, and he let his teammates down, and he disappointed fans who cheered for him and paid to see him be himself.

But nonetheless, I find it hard to be mad at Manny. I love baseball, and I know The Game and The Team are bigger than Manny, and Manny didn't do right by The Game, or The Team. I don't condone his actions, but The Game and The Team are idealizations, not real people. They don't have to stare death in the face before they reach middle age. They go on. Ideals are forever, Plato taught us.

Yes, Manny needs to 'grow up.' He should learn to leave an identity behind, and learn to face one reality that he agreed to- his contract to finish out this year- and one he didn't- that who we are must change. He's blameworthy for the first, but not the second, of course. And I can't help suspect that behind the inflammatory statements and the knees and the jogging to first and the wanting his option to be picked up when the team has no reason to do so because he's a Hall of Famer worth $20 million which everyone should recognize NOW, dammit, is the idea that the only self Manny has ever known is dissolving, and that Manny won't be being Manny for very much longer.

Curses; Lackey's No-No Foiled by Magic Single

It's not criminal assault to stick an effigy with a pin if voodoo magic doesn't really exist.

But it's still not nice.

Despite betraying an odd view of the cosmos, Sox broadcasters Remy and Orsillo did their best to put a hex on John Lackey's potential no-hitter, which was indeed broken up with 1 out in the 9th inning of an eventual 6-2 Angels victory, their 7th in a row over the ragdoll Red Sox.

Repetitive to the point of ritualistic intonation, Remy and Orsillo uttered the magic word 'no-hitter' before Lackey had yielded a hit, violating the sacred taboo of no-hit superstition: never utter that which is happening in front of you (typically not a problem for Joe Morgan.) NESN even showed a graphic listing the pitchers that had "no-hit" the Sox since 1763. Never daring to speak these words during Sox gems, this was no accident; they were attempting to raise the dead, to cast dark spells, to curse the fortunes of the Angels hurler.

Of course, words don't do that. It's a primitive view of language that conflates meaning and causality; a rock may vibrate slightly in response to the soundwaves emitted by vocal chords, but it will not step aside because those soundwaves encode 'open sesame.' Or, as it's sometimes put, if an opera singer sings "shatter" and the glass breaks, it's the intensity of the sound, not the meaning of the words, that does the trick.

Though this makes Remy and Orsillo's hexing all the more ridiculous, it renders it morally ambiguous. They had malicious intent, but they stuck a doll with a pin. On the one hand, this renders the assault benign. On the other hand, not only are they mean, but they're dumb. I'm not sure which is worse.

Given that I just drank unattended rum and a bat hit the back of my head, I think I've changed my mind. Maybe Jobu made that curveball not quite reach the corner. Maybe the magic words pushed Pedroia's groundball just out of Izturis' range. Maybe the Sox can actually someday beat the Angels.

[sigh]

Yankees Suck; Metaphysics, not Physics or Subjectivity

Everyone knows the Yankees Suck. Some people think saying it is rude, or stupid, or old hat. But it's true.

Today, another boring article claiming that people shouldn't state what they know to be true oozed from the Globe, and great reaction here and here.

What I enjoy most about the fact that the Yankees Suck is that it is a metaphysical fact, and not a physical fact. You see, as a philosopher, I worry that there are few distinctly philosophical facts that go over and above scientific or physical facts. And this- the Yankees Sucking- is one of them.

That is, obviously the Yankees don't suck in the physical sense; they're good at baseball. (Usually.) No, they suck in the metaphysical sense.

They really do, but we have to be careful about the reduction-to-taste interpretation. For example, in a blog linked to above, Red Sox Chick wrote "'Yankees Suck' is shortened version of 'Good God I hate the Yankees and their obnoxious fans and big-mouthed owner' or some other similar phrase."

But I don't like this interpretation because it changes a statement about the Yankees to a statement about a Sox fan. And that changes everything.

To say beauty is in the eye of the beholder is to remove the beauty from the object, and put it in the subject. When philosophers want to deny that there are moral facts or moral truths in the universe, they attempt to reduce statements like 'torture is wrong'- putatively about a state of affairs in the world- to 'I disapprove of torture' or 'boo torture!', which now only express sentiments of the person making the statement, and leave the rest of the universe alone.

The real problem with this is that it makes feelings arbitrary; if the painting isn't actually beautiful, then the perception of it as beautiful can't be entirely due to the properties of the painting. If torture isn't actually wrong, that you feel it to be wrong comes from you, and not from it, and perhaps it's only because of your faulty wiring or arbitrary upbringing that you feel the way you do.

And as a result, those feelings can't be true. If the wrongness isn't in the torture, then it's not true that torture is wrong, though it may be true that you don't like torture. Instead, the only way to guarantee the truth of the perception of beauty or wrongness is to have that property reside in the object of that perception or feeling.

So I don't prefer to think that the Yankees have only a bunch of physical properties pertaining to their baseball-playing abilities, and I generate, on my own, feelings of antipathy that another observer, observing the same physical properties, wouldn't have if he were from New York or were himself sucky. No, I prefer to think of the Yankees actually sucking, as a metaphysical truth about them, not merely as an expression of my own arbitrary tastes and dispositions

The Yankees actually have the property of suckiness, and if you do hate the Yankees, you have that feeling in addition to the suckiness the Yankees actually have.

The Yankees Suck, in a metaphysical sense, and there are philosophical facts distinct from physical scientific facts.

Hooray!

Look But Don't Touch

In the bottom of the 5th inning of today's series finale against the Twins, Manny missed a home run by inches, and a fan's too too grabby hands by even less.

Keeping your hands to yourself is something we learn early in life. And generally speaking, people are pretty good at it. But not for not wanting to touch; there are, after all, many smooth and soft and bumpy things out there, just begging to be touched.

But, typically, there are penalties for touching what's not yours to touch. Upon seeing an attractive woman on the street, you can't grab her just because you feel like it, and you can't walk into a museum and run your hands over the art just because you feel like it.

If you did, the penalty would be severe, and rightfully so. As adults, we have to control what we want (or better yet, we should learn not to want certain things; you may want to poop in your pants when you're two, but hopefully not anymore.) And who do you think you are, anyway, diminishing that woman's dignity, or ruining that painting so that countless others cannot enjoy it?

And yes, grabbing a ball in play is definitely the same kind of thing. You shouldn't want to do it at all, and it drives me nuts when it does happen, to the point of advocating draconian (if not Franconian) punishment.

Consider the following. When a fan reaches into the playing field, he's implicitly saying a number of things, each entirely indefensible.

First, he's saying 'I hereby claim ownership of this ball, this ball which I didn't make, buy, or even ever see before two seconds ago, and which nobody offered to give me.'

(A rejection of the Lockean principle that ownership derives from "mixing one's labor" with an object.)

Second, he's saying 'even though the fate of this ball is the intense emotional concern of millions of people, I am going to take it so that only I can enjoy it.'

(A rejection of the utilitarian principle of the greatest good for the greatest number.)

Third, he is saying 'I am claiming this ball as mine at the only moment of its existence that's ever mattered, at that very moment at which all its previous existing moments were aimed.'

(A rejection of natural law ethics, which holds the interruption of teleology to be immoral.)

I think saying these things makes you an asshole.

And there's no stealing a loaf of bread to feed the starving family mitigating factor here. Unless it's a milestone homer, when removed from its context as a ball in play, all it is is a dirty ball. And clean balls aren't expensive. By taking it from the field, just like smudging a painting in a museum, you're making it worth even less.

And for what? So you can look like a jerk on TV, publicly declaring your selfishness? So you can regale your grandkids about the day you interrupted what millions of people were doing for no good reason other than that you felt grabby?

In short, you reach into the field of play to grab a ball, you're saying that having that particular small round leathery thing is more important than the happiness of millions of people.

I think it's pretty obvious what we should do with people like that.

Lord of the Orange Groves

Wade Boggs would be rolling over in his grave.

If he were dead.

How else to express the betrayal by his beloved Tampa Bay Famous Original Rays?

In first place. Widening their lead, even. They're spitting on Bogg's legacy. And Fred McGriff's. And Brent Abernathy's. How could they?

People love an underdog. Speak truth to power. The meek shall inherit something or other.

I used to tease a friend of mine who would always root for the underdog by saying he had to switch allegiances with every lead change.

Nietzsche saw 'master morality' as the identification of strength and goodness; virility and virtue are one. Slave morality is the inverse; power is oppression and subjugation. To automatically root for the underdog is to identify weakness with goodness. It's a sort of slave morality.

Tampa's a good team. They are strong. James Shields has great 12-1 movement on his fastball (tailing back into a righthanded hitter.) Javier Lopez should not have thrown a fastball strike to the righthanded Gomes on an 0-2 count with the sacks full of Rays, but they earned it. The Sox are no longer the underdog. That aspect of the narrative has played out.

What we have here is a rivalry. When Gerald Williams charged Pedro, I was indignant. How dare a commoner? I took umbrage. That was a peasant revolt. He should have known his role. But now, well, the 3rd estate is moving up in the world. The Rays are contenders.

Sox fans who were in it for the underdog story, the plucky rag tag fighters against the Evil Empire, might have a hard time making the transition to playing the bully, the establishment, the $140 million juggernaut, squashing the upstart Rays and their impossible dream.

Not me. Last I checked, the point was winning. That master/slave thing is for losers anyway.

2007 World Series: A matter of course

From the Archive: 10/27/07

[2007 World Series Game 2: Sox vs. Rockies]

Ok, some baseball trivia.

Question: Who aren't Okajima and Papelbon?

Answer: Bob Stanley and Calvin Schiraldi.

Oki came on with a one run lead, two men on, one out. It didn't even occur to me that he'd let those runners in. Aside from that hiccup in September, when he was as tired as a Conan monologue (what has he done for me lately?), Oki has just been astoundingly good. He stranded both inherited runners, and went 2 1/3 hitless scoreless, with 4 K's.

What’s happened to the Red Sox? Or me, for that matter? I’ve watched the playoffs with a sort of calm assurance that the superiority of the Red Sox would manifest itself. No panic. No fear. What an odd phenomenon. I mean, very little in this world of ours suggests that justice is an organizing principle. Yet I seem to assume that a Sox victory is inevitable, and that this is Good and Right. I feel this in a visceral sort of way, as a natural state, like how I feel comfortable in pajamas.

The following isn't off topic- you know why I don't like Kenneth Branaugh's version of Shakespeare’s Henry V? Because he's yelling the whole time. I guess this is supposed to show us that he means it, but really it makes it seem like Branaugh's Henry V is trying to convince himself of the truth of his own words, as if its not simply self-evident that he should be there, in France, staking his claim to the various dukedoms owed him though his royal lineage. Yelling and making a scene suggests he doesn't really deserve it. He is definitely not acting like he's been there before. In a word, what he's not is he's not regal. Henry V is supposed to be regal. Being regal is knowing that one deserves one's crown; a true king doesn't need to prove it all the time with yelling and beheadings. (I liked the BBC version of Henry v. and if you haven't seen the HBO/BBC 'Rome' series, the actor who plays Julius Caesar (the pagan J.C.)- That’s regal.)

The Red Sox act like they've been there before. There’s a calm, equanimity, a knowledge that they deserve to be there, and that they will triumph, without bluster and strain. Yes, there's sweat. But its Kevin Youkilis sweat of determination, not Calvin Schiraldi sweat of fear. There’s a Papelbon O-face, not a Derek Lowe face.

In this series, the patient sox hitters are positively regal, and do not deign to condescend. Pitches out of the strike zone are beneath them. (Yes, I went there.) Such meager offerings are an insult to our person; they offer, we refuse. We wait for what is pleasing to our royal person, and then deliver (posthaste) a crushing blow.

That sort of thing rubs off on the fan, or at least on me. I just don’t' feel nervous. Yes, I felt indignant a number of times during the Cleveland series, when physics and luck went against us; that's the thing about luck- its always out of character (as in the difference between essence and accident). and I’ll admit to losing my cool and screaming real real loud (and completely freaking out Rebecca) when, after the Lugo error on the pop up in game 7, with Lofton at third as the tying run, and Blake hit the grounder to Lowell, and I jumped off the couch, yelling, with ascending volume, 'turn it, turn it, turn it', and then thundered FUCK YEAH! Upon their so doing.

But other than that, we've been here before. We’re in our element. I can calmly watch the game, knowing that victory, not collapse, and not randomness, is inevitable. There’s no panic. There’s no 1918 bullshit that calls our character into question. We ascended to the throne through trying circumstances in '04, yes with the help of the wild card, but by now, our legitimacy is unquestioned (I’m tempted to pun on our closer and say its granted by papal bull, but I won't.) so with 9 wins down, we can look forward to games three and four, and say (with apologies) 'twice more unto the breach, dear friends, twice more'... then the day is ours.

Also, on the Boston dirt dogs sight, re: the Ellsbury stolen base which won everybody a free taco, it said 'tacoby bellsbury.' that's funny.

Also also, Josh Fogg sucks.

2007 ALCS: Physics and Luck vs. Character

From the Archive: October 17, 2007
[ALCS vs. Cleveland, Sox down 3-1]

I HATE LOSING!!!!!!!!! I HATE IT SO MUCH!!!!!!!!!

Tonight was unpleasant. I teach a class at 730, and I raced home afterwards. It was still 0-0. First pitch I saw, Blake homers. And then the floodgates. Ugh.

When watching the playoffs, I vacillate between the perception of the game as moral, as a manifestation of will and courage and tenacity- in a word, as a battle of character, on the one hand, and the perception of the game as physics and chance, void of meaning- an inch here, a bad call there.

It’s easier to see pitching as moral. In two postseason games, Beckett's gone 15 innings, with 15 K's and no walks. That’s aggression. Dominance. The imposition of will. Beckett is the champion, the ace, the man who will triumph.

Sabathia, in his two postseason starts, doesn't have it. In the regular season, he walked 37 in 240 innings. In the postseason, he's walked 10 or 11 in as many innings (give or take.) he's lost his nerve. He’s afraid of contact. He stops throwing the fastball. He has no killer instinct (watch him get ahead 0-2 and then walk the hitter.) he's weak.

So game 1 was a battle of morality and character, of meaning.

Since then, I’m not so sure. In game 3, a couple of terrible strike calls- for instance a 3-0 ball a foot off the plate inside on crisp turned a walk into an out, and killed an inning. Papi rips a ball to the right side for a dp, and lines out to right on a ball that took 1/3 second to get there. Nixon bloops the game winning hit off Lopez.

and game 4, Buck and McCarver were actually right to emphasize that had that ball either been caught by Wakefield for an out, or he missed entirely, Pedroia easily would have turned 2, inning over, only 1 run in. instead it trickled for an infield hit. and 6 more runs.

the Sox keep hitting sharply into double plays, the Indians hit grounders too softly to turn two. crisp and Pedroia both lined out in key spots late in game 4.

this is all physics and chance. No character. no morality. Hitting is about luck- Papi is imposing his will, but liners get caught. Bloopers fall in. but pitching is about morality. Beckett dominates. Sabathia's a pussy. but Wakefield and his knuckleball- with no pitch selection- is about physics and chance, and so we get beat by a trickler.

look. We got Beckett in Game 5. Quite possible to win that game. Then we're down 3-2. Someone's gotta be 3-2 after 5 games. no big deal. And then its two games at Fenway. Schilling acts like Schilling, and then its game 7, and anything can happen.

Physics and luck.

role model

From the Archive: June 2, 2007

[a yankee fan asked:]

Is there anyway to defend Manny's public questioning of the third base coach's decision not to send Youklis (maybe Ortiz) last night? it seems relatively classless and certainly not the actions of a person anyone wants as there kids' role model.

[my response:]

Are we living in Victorian England? Who cares about class?

I don't care if Manny farts every time he hits a homerun or uses the wrong fork for the salad. 'Class' and other notions that are derivative from a scheme of noble virtue ethics are irrelevant.

like any public figure, a third base coach's decisions are open to public scrutiny, but hurting the third base coach's feelings is a private matter, and is not my concern, and only matters to me to the extent that play on the field is affected.

Kids don't need role models, they need to learn how to think about things. It's imitation and conformity for its own sake that is problematic; imitating a good person is barely better than imitating a bad person. reliance on public figures for models of ideal behavior is a just step away from a cult of personality. children should be taught to respect the notion of a democracy in which citizens are free to decide things for themselves through rational deliberation, and not instructed which people to ape.

I won't remember that unwritten rule; I should write that down.

From the Archive: May 31, 2007
[Re: A-Rod's yell disrupts catching a popup]

I don't know how many of you, if any, watch the games on mlb dot com. but in lieu of commercials, they play a single promo for 'dick's sporting goods' at every inning break. the commercial consists of various fans in different team merchandise saying what its all about. a group of Sox fans, in their defective accents, say 'its about nevah giving up', to which a single Sox fan, a hip looking twenty something, adds 'nevah evah.'

while that is obnoxious, and is making me want to pull out my remaining hairs, the yankee fan in the promo is equally annoying. he's your friendly neighborhood wiseguy, who stares menacingly at the camera, and says, slowly, letting each word, and the latent threat they contain, sink in- 'its about doing.. what it takes.. to win."

this suggests, of course, that nothing, and certainly no code of ethics, will stand in the way of achieving the ultimate goal- the victory.

I do not mean to suggest that this is characteristic of the yankee fan, or of anyone, for that matter, except the marketers at dick's. frankly, I don't care if even that's true.

but I think my brother makes a good point, (even though my dad would call him a 'monist' for it- don't' worry about what that means), and I think it amounts to agreeing with the dicks wiseguy.

an important question to answer is whether there should be such a thing as unwritten rules at all. In response, I would ask: what's the harm in writing them? To say they should (and by 'should' I mean 'should') remain unwritten is, as far as I can tell, to desire some transcendent notion of ethics and honor in place of the rule of law.

why would one wish this? In a scenario where ethics, virtue, duty, and honor are norms rather than rules, there is no external check on one acting honorably or virtuously; there is just one's internal sense of it, and one owns subjective wish to act this way. but precisely for this reason, it can be skirted by those who do not have that wish, and what is worse, as a consequence, it is not enforced equitably, but instead is something that happens only whenever someone feels like it.

some may yell 'hah', or 'mine', if the desire arises, and some may not. steroids may be dishonorable, but not illegal (or treated as illegal by the relevant powers), and so some people do it, and some don't, in which case there arises inequality of opportunity for achievement- that is to say, unfairness.

it is cultures that define honor and other such values and virtues. but even in a 'clubhouse culture' that may act as a unifying force, human ballplayers come from different cultures, some were taught right from wrong, others weren't. but this shouldn't matter, precisely because when they are all playing baseball they play by the same rules.

one might say that an unwritten code is self-legislating, and does carry consequence's, and that a clubhouse culture provides all the enforcement one needs; a-rod, for example, will be beaned, and a player who slides dirty into second will see his teammate receive the same treatment. But this is just eye-for-an-eye vengeance, and not a legal penalty. why leave the enforcement of unwritten rules- and vengeance- to chance, or to culture, or to a teammate who may or may not like you and care about sticking up for you? (sometimes mike mussina forgets to throw inside, for example.) why leave up to culture and chance what can be codified, and then enforced equitably? if an act is considered something worthy of punishment, as my brother micah suggests, then what does it hurt to make it a rule which guarantees a penalty ? I dont know what soccer flopping is, but if its anything like soccer, i'm sure its bad (sorry. I had to go there.)

look. in iraq right now, what one has, among other things, are a bunch of cultures each trying to impose their values and their dubious and dangerously destructive notions of honor on each other, in lieu in living in a society ruled by law. I think a little law, and respect for fair and equal treatment, would go a long way.

is the goal of the sport to act honorably, or to win? i'm concerned that in much of the ahem, developing, ahem, pre-civilized world, the point of living is for one's culture to enjoy some cockamamie notion of honor and pride, (and so everything that any other country or culture does in its own interest becomes some sort of humiliation)

but the point of playing baseball games is not to bring honor to your team or your family or your ancestors, but to win. if honor happen as a result of winning, that's fine. but that's a consequence of the ends, not the end itself. if a ballplayer shouldn't do something, then make a law against it, and have it count against winning.

also, because its getting late in the day, I won't write my Nietzschean/ Spenglerian counterpoint to this dilly. suffice it to say that those teuton philosophers wouldn't agree. they like supermen who are above the law, who are thereby able to craft a new ethics and culture as they go, and who consider an abundance of legislation as stultifying and antithetical to the vital spirit that distinguishes the worthy and strong from the weak herd.

for them, law is the death of culture. I guess I just put a positive spin on that.

Red Sox Acquire OF Adam Hyzdu; Embree Designated for Assignment

7-20-05

it's always sad when an embreeyo is aborted

i don't do fantasy

3/14/05

I don't do fantasy leagues. They're unethical, on two counts. first, it makes one root for players not on one's home team, and against those that are on one's hometeam (if your opponent has those players), and so presents a conflict of interest. secondly, and more philosophically, by simply considering only isolated statistical aggregates, one destroys the complexity and integration of the dynamic functioning elements which are constitutive of the organic unity that is a real team, and that is a real game- and it is these that are the foundation of the aesthetic of the sport in the first place. Fantasy leagues reduce baseball to horse racing

Spiderbase, Spiderbase

From the Archive:

May 2004

Major League Baseball has announced that it will have “Spider Man 2” logos ON the bases during some games in June. Of course, this is beyond disgusting. But am I surprised? Of course not. Is this any different than anything else in this country, soon to be called Pepsi Presents The United Airlines United State Street Bank States of Comerica American Airlines America? MLB already resembles the first 15 pages of any major magazine.

I’m sure you’re all expecting from me some harangue or diatribe on the purity of baseball, on why this outrage is particularly nauseating, given what baseball is, and that I’ll just blame the money hungry fat-cat owners who don’t care about why people are fans and for exploiting their need and love for sports. Well, you’re wrong. You know who I blame? You- (well, not you, my well regarded friendsters)- the stupid American consumer. Not because of the environment, or exploited overseas labor, or fat kids eating fat chips in their fat schools, or any of that stuff. Simply because people are idiots, and they don’t care about quality.
It’s your fault that advertising works at all. Why do we need campaign finance reform? I’ll tell you why. Because those stupid fucking ads approved of by George Bush’s pet monkey Bubbles actually work. If people weren’t swayed by those ads, it wouldn’t fucking matter who had the most money to spend on them. If people made their choices about who is going to rule the world based on some semblance of rational criteria, commercials and staying on message and kissing crack babies would be moot. They actually had to stop playing all Schwarzenneger movies during the campaign, because he was getting too much, and therefore unfair, publicity. Stupid fucking people would actually watch Jingle all the Way or Twins and say, gee, that guy sure should decide whether resident aliens should receive welfare, or what to do with a sagging trillion dollar economy, or whatnot.

But that is not just a brief aside. All of it is your fault, for being so damn stupid. I don’t blame basball, or Arnie. Its not their fault that advertising works. It’s yours. Now, I’m no anti-capitalist. I like I-Pods, taco bell, and medicine as much as anyone. But you don’t need to give that up, for there is a simple way to defeat just the evil part of the machine. Wanna know how? Buy CVS brand shampoo and conditioner instead of Pert. Ever read the label? It has the same fucking chemicals. Not doing so is indicative of how superficial and label and status oriented all the stupid fuckers are. And then you can also have full, lustrous hair just like mine, enriched with pro-vitamins or lithium serum or whatever the fuck they put in there to make your hair addicted to it so you have to shampoo all the time.

So it’s not insulting to the game to have Spiderman on the bases. It’s insulting to you. Because they will spend billions of dollars just to have their stupid logo for their stupid movie on a base, because they know it’ll make you want to watch the movie, because they know you’re an idiot, and then Tobey Macguire can have his secret homosexual affair in a further away more guarded clandestine setting instead of my truly enjoying the one thing that I cherish above all else on this stupid planet. And it’s not Pedro’s fault, its not Bud Selig’s or Scott Boras’ fault. Its not even George Bush’s fault, or Andrew Carnegie’s, or Adam Smith’s, or Bill Gates’, or Condaleeza Rice’s, or Howard Stern’s, or Jerry Falwell’s, or Marilyn Manson’s, or South Park’s, or Michael Moore’s, or the NRA’s, FCC’s, CIA’s, OPEC’s, NATO’s or Bin Laden’s, or George Steinbrenner’s or Janet Jackson’s boobie’s. It’s yours, you stupid lazy shitheaded American consumers. Fuck you for ruining my game. Seriously, fuck you.

2004 ALDS Game 3: Team Loyalty as Religious Commitment

From the Archive:

October 10, 2004:

[The following was written as an apology for watching Game 3 of the ALDS (Sox win series 3-0) instead of attending my friend Ian's birthday party.]

Firstly, I thought I had explained that I wouldn't be joining the birthday party until the game was over. If this was unclear, then I certainly apologize. If the very fact that I’d make such a decision is the issue, then let me elaborate.

Looking at such an issue 'objectively', one sees clearly a different sort of obligation (not in the 'dammit I have something to do' sense, but more in the category of 'moral duty', the morality of which makes the performance of the act both good and, for lack of a better word, enjoyable) between the acts of being a spectator and honoring a friend.

The main two differences, as I see it on the 'cost/benefit analysis', pertain to consequences of failing to live up to the obligation. With the former, no party is injured by the failure to be a spectator- the red sox will do fine without me- and secondly, that no possible punitive measures could be taken for failing to live up to the obligation- I won't get fired or in trouble for not watching the game. Whereas for the latter, the friend, clearly there may be an insulted party. And one is certainly inclined to think that the feelings of a real person would take precedence over the symbolic icons I have an allegiance to on TV.

I think the only way I can explain this to someone who does not have the feelings of allegiance and passion for a sports team is by relating it to religion. If you were having a party that I should be at, but it happens on, say, Yom kippor, and I can't leave my home until sundown, when Yom kippor is over, and I say I can't go, it would be very easy for the atheist (you) to say 'god will get on fine without you- you don't need to be there to honor him,' and second, 'since there is no god, there is no punitive action foreseeable against you for failing to honor this obligation.' this is contrasted with the hurt feelings of the person who's party isn't being attended. To the atheist, the obstinate insistence on remaining at home might seem both insulting and irrational. And I am inclined to agree. All I can say in this regard is that I simply have to honor my religious commitment.

To make this analogy stick, certainly I must cite precedent, if not already known, of my skipping everything else in order to watch important sox games. Just this week I skipped my Tuesday afternoon class, as the game was on. This, of course, is to the potential detriment of my grade. On Wednesday night, the game didn't end until after 2 am, and I had to teach class at 8am. So I taught on less than two hours sleep, to the immediate detriment of the students, who had an unintelligible professor that day, and to myself, who was too tired to do any serious work for the rest of the day.

Just thinking about this further, one must confront the idea of more drastic conflicts- would I skip somebody's wedding to watch a red sox game in April? Of course not. I skipped many of the games this year for various reasons (although I never like doing it). Sometimes you just have to drive on Saturday. But not on Yom kippor. The red sox in the playoffs is my high holidays, an event far more rare than annual, and one to me that is always fragile and in doubt and bound to end in horrific tragedy at any moment, and moreover, the end goal of which is something that generations of people have died having been denied the allegedly sublime satisfaction of experiencing.

Where I grew up half the kids couldn't show up for soccer practice on Saturdays. Some teams didn't even have games on Saturdays because of Shabbat. Logistically, one has to take such obligations into account. A further difficulty of yesterday was that the game went especially long, and then into extra innings- it’s as if sunset suddenly came over an hour late, thereby further interfering.

So basically, my obligation to the red sox in this regard is basically religious in nature, and the resultant obligations are upheld to the exclusion of all else. I have demonstratively risked both health and general welfare time and time again, particularly in New York, for my beliefs. I would hope, in general, that this is understood about me, such that people are not offended by my actions, just as I hope you would not be offended if someone couldn't go to dinner because it was Yom kippor. As you know, I went to Brooklyn to watch the game just so that I could be a part of your birthday dinner- otherwise I would have stayed uptown.

… I want to make sure that you hold no grudge against me vis a vis my actions towards you, but rather simply judge me to be an insane person with totally misplaced values. I can live with that.