Baseball season is again winding down, and it's not looking real promising for the home team. While not yet "mathematically eliminated," as I write this it appears that, barring a fairly unlikely series of improbably propitious wins and losses, the Giants will be resting comfortably at home when the post-season begins, part of their master plan of alternating-year world domination. Why the binary pattern? Simple. Absolute supremacy, of which the Giants are eminently capable, would take the starch out of the other teams and so take all the fun out of winning. Plus, those Dodgers and their fans are so fussy and brattish that if we didn't let them win at least the division once in a while, they'd probably give up baseball entirely and take up competitive ballroom dancing. The way I see it, we're doing a service to baseball, to history, and to umpty-million Angelenos whose team has become so adept at championship-dodging that there's no fear they'll take home the big prize.
I put the above phrase about elimination in quotes because I find it manifestly absurd, and every time it is uttered by a sports analyst or fan who thinks it makes him sound intelligent and informed I just want to shake them and ask, How, pray tell, else is a team supposed to be eliminated? Alphabetically ("Sorry, only room for letters A—J")? Psychologically? (That happens at the beginning of the season when the pitching staff suffers a crisis of confidence from opposition harassment.) Philosophically ("The playoffs are a meaningless construct and our participation in them would only serve to foster and perpetuate the illusion.")?
What these geniuses are trying to say, presumably, is that in order to make the determination that Team X is out of contention for the playoffs, they used math. Not chemistry. Not feng shui. Not carpentry. They observed the team's won/lost record, counted up the remaining games in the season, factored in the most favorable possible outcome for the team, and if they still came up short, darn! Eliminated! Mathematically! They used counting, and addition, and subtraction. Math! And they want you to know it. Well, I'm taking the position that it goes without saying, and if you tell me a team has been eliminated from playoff contention, I think it's reasonable to assume that you didn't use sorcery or lasers or forensic pathology to arrive at that conclusion. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go biologically take a crap, after which I will hydrologically wash my hands and kinetically remove myself from the washroom.
It's a grand thing when your team wins a championship, though not a phenomenon that bears up under intense scrutiny. Like religion, the relationship between a fan and his team is best accepted as is and not analyzed overmuch. We love our sports teams, and that's that.
The Giants are an easy team to love. They play in the coolest city in America. Hell, cool was born there. San Francisco is so cool that "cool," as a state of being applied to humans and their artistic endeavors, was propagated from her very bowels. She is so very sui generis that we call her simply "The City." What other locale or institution or object can make that claim? Is there a college so smart that it's know as "The School?" A mountain so singular in form that they call it "The Mountain?" A car so speedy and awesome that it's simply “The Car?" Well, Renault did produce something called "Le Car,” but I don't think anyone took that claim very seriously. Possibly the French, though I doubt even they are that credulous. With its absurd color scheme, underpowered engine, and tiny dimensions, Le Car was barely "a" car, much less "the" car. Doubtless the hills of The City were too much for the innate feebleness of Le Car.
They are a colorful and scrappy group who play with grit and verve, who have rewarded their fans with enough dramatic moments and unlikely victories in the past five years to inspire loyalty forever.
If, in an admittedly fantastical scenario, the Giants and the rest of the teams in the National League West became somehow imbued with all the physical characteristics of their respective team nicknames, here's what would happen. The Colorado Rockies would just stand there stolidly, rooted to the earth, their heads and shoulders capped with snow as skiers and other outdoor enthusiasts gamboled about their piney slopes. The Padres would be genuflecting, offering benedictions, fiddling with their rosaries, and engaging in ritual prayer eight times a day. You can't play competitive ball in heavy woolen robes and sandals. No worries there. The Dodgers would be getting the hell out of everyone else's way, so pretty much business as usual. The Giants would, with bats hewn from the mighty sequoia, be slapping dingers across the bay into the San Quentin yard. They would traverse the ninety feet between bases in a single stride. Their gloves, each one crafted from the hide of an entire buffalo, would allow no green space for an opposing ball to fall fair, even if they could get wood on a 200-mph fastball coming at them from a forty-five degree angle. It would be a good thing that their stadium was constructed with the local propensity for tectonic activity in mind, for the force of their post-game celebrations would be seismic in energy and ebullience.
I do think this is something that teams should think about when naming their squads. While it is highly unlikely that it would ever occur, if the universe does ever become so whimsical you don't want to be caught playing for the Marlins or Bluejays. Not if you want to win ballgames.
I was inside (prison) for the last two Giant victories, occasions both joyful and lucrative yet lacking in the kind of raucous bonhomie and festive atmosphere you want to be a part of when your team emerges ultimately victorious. You don't want to be around a bunch of sullen, whipped Dodger fans who are beginning to question the wisdom of a life decision like permanently blasting the team logo of a pack of perennial also-rans on their face. That'll suck the fun out of anything. You want to be around your own people, and you want the booze flowing, and you want your right hand red and swollen from excessive high-fiving.
I was fortunate enough to be between prison sentences for the 2010 Series. I watched the first four games at home with my lovely and demented girlfriend, Christine, who, although not a fan, asked penetrating questions and made incisive comments like, "What the hell are they all doing down there?" and "This seems really stupid to me."
I had a feeling about Game 5, though, so we decided to venture out among the cheering throng for the victory. After much consideration, we opted for the Tradewind's relatively civilized ambiance, as Christine does not care for dive bars. I'm not saying that the Tip-Top and Welcome Inn and Golden West are dive bars, even though they clearly are, just that my honey preferred a place with a little less grit and miasma.
We all know how Game 5 shook out, and the response from the assembled patrons was immediate and uproarious. There were cheers, and tears, and hugging and backslapping and high-fives aplenty. Christine, sipping her Patrón at the bar, said, "Would you people please just quiet down?"
When the revelry subsided, I sat down with her to enjoy a drink and savor the sweet and soothing glow of victory. I beamed and held up my glass. "To the San Francisco Baseball Giants!" I said. The rest of the bar cheered and hoisted their glasses, but Christine wondered aloud what the big deal was. "You're never this happy," she correctly observed.
So I set about trying to explain about baseball and all it meant to me. I told her about summers as a boy that signified baseball above all and the sights and sounds and smells of the game. About outfield grass and infield dust, glove leather and neatsfoot oil, seasoned ash and itchy wool. I told her how when not occupied with our organized teams we engaged in endless pickup games, and catch and pepper and pickle and 500 and flys and grounders and on the rare occasions when I was alone, I tossed the ball to myself or bounced it off the side of the house.
I told her about growing up in a Yankee family so rabid that I had two uncles named Casey (after Stengel) and finding my own identity as an A's fan in the late 60s. I told her about baseball cards and about all the defining milestones I witnessed, about Reggie and Rollie and Roberto and Johnny and Cal and Hank and Barry and Yaz and Bird.
When I finished my impassioned spiel, satisfied that I'd adequately expressed the bigness of the deal, Christine—and I should mention here that she is the undisputed queen of the non sequitur, responding to topics she finds uninteresting with comments so off-the-wall and out of left field that you could call her the Green Monster at Fenway—said, and this is absolutely true, "Have you ever heard of the Dead Sea Squirrels?"
"Scrolls?" I said. "Do you mean the Dead Sea Scrolls?"
"No, I'm pretty sure it was squirrels," she said. "Dead Sea Squirrels."
"No, but they sound hecka interesting," I said. "Maybe they float around on the surface of the excessively saline waters of the Dead Sea."
"Or maybe they're dead," she said. "Maybe they're sea squirrels who died."
"That's definitely a possibility. C'mon, let's go home."
* * *
By the time this sees print, the postseason picture should be resolving itself into a clear picture of the stupid Dodgers getting spanked and sent home by the Cardinals. All I can say is enjoy yourself while you can, other National League teams, for 2016 shall again be the Year of the Giants.
Articulate, incisive, correct.