Their Flag to April's Breeze Unfurled

The day before we entered this vale of tears Bobby Thomson fired the shot heard ‘round the world. Not the one at Concord that Emerson immortalized:

“By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled;
Here once the embattled farmers stood,
And fired the shot heard 'round the world."

No, it was the one Mr. Thomson of the New York Giants cracked over the left field fence at Coogan’s Bluff to defeat the Brooklyn Dodgers in a playoff game for the senior circuit pennant. We have felt a strange connection ever since we became cognizant in early boyhood of our place in baseball history, which leads us to coin a phrase – a day late and a dollar short.

We’ve run our race, as Paul said in his second letter to Timothy. Yet we take solace in Brett Favre (how do you pronounce his name?) writing another chapter. Or Eli Manning kneeling like Y.A. Tittle, bloodied warrior.

Mr. Thomson passed away the other day, and so did a piece of our life. Ralph Branca, who threw the fateful pitch, is still with us, but is surely to join his friend in glory soon. Days defy us. Years eat us up. Decades doom us. We only wish to tell our sons and daughters that once there were Giants, like Mr. Thomson, the embattled farmers at Concord and Mr. Tittle kneeling in the end zone with blood streaming down his bald noggin.

Apologies to Emerson and the young men who serve and die.

C'mon Man

Why do ladies and gentlemen bother with silly games? Why does Rice play Texas (as it used to in the old SWC)? Why does the sun go on shining (as Skeeter Davis sang)? Ask me why and Tell me why (as The Beatles sang)? Because, as Wordsworth wrote, “The world is too much with us.”

Is there any sillier game than golf?

A club with a blade rested in a bit of dirt thought to be a random piece of scalped carpet and Dustin Johnson was consigned to the dustbin instead of a chance to raise high the Wannamaker trophy as PGA champion.

The son of a gun was corralled by some sunburned guy and told that he broke some rule by grounding his club in a hazard that had no rake and had been trampled by the crowd outside the ropes. C’mon, man. If this had happened on the first day to some unknown you wouldn’t have heard a peep.

Oh well, life is not fair and golf is what it is. We just play for fun and have no illusions about our ability. But this seems particularly unfair, given the prestige, not to mention the do-re-mi at stake. As we’ve pointed out before, Our Father sendeth his rain on the just and the unjust.

Meanwhile, take the over in every Canadian Football League game (for entertainment purposes only).

The Dead

Ever since the world began, God decreed that old men must die even if he were Methuselah, who managed to make it to 969.

One guy, crowned by some as the Voice of God, did not find a cure for cancer. His contribution to this vale of tears in 99 years was announcing the name and numbers of batsmen appearing at the plate of a stadium in the Bronx.

The other guy was an 80-year-old rich boor who never hit a curve ball and was twice banned from baseball. Scott Fitzgerald said there were no second acts in American lives. But, as a friend of ours pointed out to us, this observation is false. He became in death the beloved Boss. The rich are different from you and me.

Now, we’re no saints. Some, hopefully, will shed tears and others will harrumph at our demise and perhaps some will come to our service to see us planted in the ground awaiting the second coming and the roses on home plate.

But let’s get serious. We all are destined to go where the Voice of God and the Boss are assigned to. We only have 750,000 years in purgatory before we meet them.

And our beloved Alouettes failed to cover the spread (for entertainment purposes only), costing us much entertainment. Stick with them while we’re still here and out of purgatory.

Carry a Big Stick

We all must part or join at some point, through the vicissitudes of time or the mistakes that estrange us from one another. King James leaves Cleveland for Bosh and Wade in South Beach, home of the family friendly hotels across the street from the all-night clubs. Cliff Lee goes from Seattle to pitch in Texas, where he will wilt in the southwestern sun. The Cubbies can’t score a run against the eephus-pitching Vicente Padilla of the LA Dodgers, costing us a big payday (for entertainment purposes only).

Our episodes are epic. Why! We recall them better than who’s the pitcher after the All-Star break for the Queens County Dodgers/Giants, i.e., the New York Metropolitans, a senior circuit baseball club that disturbs its fans with streaks of brilliance and abysmal failure.

Fail or triumph, we must. We are creatures who resemble our primate cousins when we bare our teeth in screams of agony or delight and see them in slow motion HD TV. Our fourth cousin, once removed, Mr. Donovan of the United States soccer team, resembled the great ape when he pounded the rebound into the goal against Algeria in the silly game known as futbol. Why doesn’t anyone pick the darn thing up and throw a forward pass, as Teddy Roosevelt commanded?

The taverns and ristorantes were filled to the gills in our corner of Brooklyn with folks enamored of the play-not-to-lose game called, accurately, futbol. We must admit, these guys are fine athletes, but c’mon man, take a shot now and then. And who was the fellow with the hair who couldn’t head the ball into the goal on a corner. Maybe he needed a haircut.

Meanwhile, the most exciting futbol game around is being played by “hosers” in North America’s northernmost nation. Our beloved Alouettes recovered mightily in the 4th quarter to win the day against the Eskimos, who seemed to have the upper hand. More than one man in motion is exciting. Teddy Roosevelt, where are you?

The One That Got Away

While working on our tan the other day, braving the risks of melanoma but capturing Vitamin D in copious amounts, we thought about the benefit/reward of relying on the solar system that God created and the number of perfect putts He has granted us.

Our laps around the star that lights our world, as a friend of ours puts it, is limited, but lap we must, and sometimes we gallop. Mr. Posada, who returned behind the plate for the Highlanders yesterday, stroked a grand slam homerun for the second day in a row. Has he used them up?

Mr. Bryant of the Land of 1,000 Lakes in subtropical Los Angeles scores 38 points in a losing effort against the Pierces and Rondos of the New England Westies. What does a guy have to do? Take another lap.

Ted Lilly of the baby bears and Gavin Floyd of the pale hose each flirted with no-hitters late into the Midwestern afternoon, but while flirting is fun, it leaves us misting up for the one that got away when our song is played. Harvey Haddix, he of the perfect game for 12 innings before losing, must wish for one more lap.

Mr. Green, the goalkeeper of the sceptered isle in the World Cup football matches, has earned the scorn of tabloid journalists in his native land for his butterfingers when Mr. Dempsey from the pines of east Texas slithered a round ball into the net. Mr. Green, meet Bill Buckner.

Mr. Strasburg of the Nationals baseball club was pulled after 5 1/3 innings, strikeouts galore with walks as well, but 100 mph cannot be denied. Kerry Wood can relate.

As the Kinks sang, “The World Keeps Turning ‘round.”

Perfection

In Prospect Park a few weeks ago, a young man in blue called the batter out after a foul ball hit the top of the backstop and popped into the catcher’s mitt. Which brings to mind that only catchers and first basemen have mitts. The other seven have gloves. We wince when parents say “Have you got your mitt?” to their young outfielders when they leave for their suppers in Park Slope.

After the evening contest, the young man making a few bucks adjudicating a young ladies’ softball game admitted he was wrong but couldn’t change the outcome. We patted the fellow on the back and thanked him for his effort, and he went home to Mom and his supper in Bensonhurst.

But it was Bloomsday 14 days early for James Joyce of the American League. Not the author of “Ulysses” and “Finnegan’s Wake.” Just a humble man in blue who will carry a much greater burden than a chest protector, mask and shin guards when he takes his turn behind the plate. We doubt if he had supper last night.

Mr. Joyce, umpiring at first base, will forever be linked with Detroit’s Armando Galarraga as the man who called the 27th man safe after replays showed Mr. Galarraga, covering first, clearly gloved the spheroid and tapped the bag before the batsman reached first. Mr. Galarraga’s pitching perfection marred by a moment’s imperfection.

The greatest invention of the 20th century was air conditioning. The greatest of the 21st will be a time machine. How many of us long for such a device to undo the missteps of the past? To redeem the sins of yesterday is the greatest wish of a great swath of Homo sapiens, who nevertheless march ahead, knowing that the time machine will only go forward.

We think Mr. Joyce knows this. He joins the rest of us.

Weep No More, My Lady

Louisianan Mr. Bo-rail rode the name of an extinct Park Slope, Brooklyn, drug store to victory in the 136th edition of the premier equine race in North America. Yes, Super Saver (the colt, not the drug store) hugged the rail and then split a couple of fellow thoroughbreds amid the mud and mint juleps to be adorned with roses.

He was in our trifecta box along with Ice Box. Boxes abound! Alas, Lookin at Lucky finished out of the money to render our ticket another relic of 2010 nostalgia, along with the bull market. Would’ve, should’ve, could’ve. As Dandy Don used to say on Monday nights, if ifs and buts were candy and nuts, we’d all have a very merry Christmas. Got to hand it to Meredith. He knew how to use the subjunctive mood, which Cosell would have applauded when “speaking of sports.” We loved those radio spots.

And if we hadn’t broken our Cardinal rule (pun intended) of going against Roy Halladay of the Philadelphia club today we would be in the money despite the plunging Dow Jones Industrial Average, which forgot to beware of Greeks bearing debt (forget about the gifts). Granted, there may have been someone pushing a button that he thought was a million and turned out to be a billion, but times being what they are, he took the job and took the market away down south in Dixie.

Still, there’s more going on than an errant ring finger on a keyboard. There are too many languages in the old world. You travel 100 miles and you’re in a different land. If you can speak a bit of Spanish, you’re OK in the new world, which awaits the jobs report tomorrow morning. This may be China’s century, but the USA still has a few licks left in her. Expect gains in payrolls but not enough to nick the unemployment rate

We’re betting against the euro and still believe that investors should hold Ford, buy Hovnanian Enterprises (a home builder; ticker HOV) and never go against Halladay.

We can’t say it better than this:

“France was a land, England was a people, but America, having about it still that quality of the idea, was harder to utter--it was the graves at Shiloh and the tired, drawn, nervous faces of its great men, and the country boys dying in the Argonne for a phrase that was empty before their bodies withered. It was a willingness of the heart.”
(F. Scott Fitzgerald, “The Swimmers”)