Baseball Talk

Dear Boston friends,

I was going to put this little piece in the Frog Hospital newsletter, but I realized most readers wouldn't get it or be interested. I thought that maybe some friends of mine in Boston would get it, and I am lucky to have nine Boston friends on my mailing list. Please read it and let me know what you  think. It's too short I know, but this is the Internet and it has to be short, as I have learned. The challenge is to explain death and baseball in under 500 words. I could go to 1,000 words or more -- maybe.

The 1986 World Series

Red Sox Legend Bill Buckner Dies May 27

Buckner bobbled the ball on this key play in the 1986 World Series. The Mets won the game because of that error. It was the 6th game. The Mets went on to win the seventh game and became the champions. I had only to mention this to my Bostonian classmate John Moore when I saw him at the reunion last year. His face winced with pain. "Don't tell me about 1986, don't say it."

It was the choke of all time. The choke of all chokes. It was one of the most tragic moments in my life. And I wasn't even in Boston. In fact, I was driving an old Buick across the country from Texas to Washington State during that October, passing through Los Angeles, listening to the World Series on the radio when this happened -- when Buckner let the ball roll between his legs and the Mets won the game because of that error. For some reason I identified with the Red Sox that year and hated the Mets. That's just what happened. I loved the Red Sox. I wanted them to win. And they were only one out away from victory when the doom of New England came knocking on the door.

I realized later that the fateful moment of 1986 was tied to my age. I had turned 40 that year. I turned 40 and I saw Bill Buckner bobble the ball and I knew I was going to die. Death. It was going to happen with a certainty. When didn't matter. But I could no longer kid myself. All through my childhood and youth, I thought I might be the exception and live forever. No more. In 1986 I came to know that my doom was foretold. I want to thank the Boston Red Sox for helping me to realize that tragic necessity.

From John

Thanks Fred.  That was a lovely anecdote.  That event seemed to be  the distillation of the Curse of the Bambino  .My long-suffering father, who was born the year after the Red Sox last World Series triumph in 1918, finally saw another in 2004 at age 85.  Thanks for the memories.

From Harvey

I understand the urge to connect sports to existential things, but feel this is too short, needs some filling out.

Also, for what it's worth, though I was living in Boston I was doing so as a New Yorker — in short, a Yankee fan. I would say the Red Sox had two great things over the course of their career — Ted Williams and The Curse. One is gone forever, not necessarily the other.

From Fred

You understand! And it needs to be longer. I was not a Red Sox fan at the time. I was living near Houston in the autumn of 1986 and the Astros were hot that year, so I joined in the enthusiasm. The Astros were up against the Mets for the playoffs. I spent a very pleasant all-night vigil in the Astrodome parking lot in order to get tickets to the playoff games. The Mets came to town for the games and I hated them, I couldn't help it. Especially the catcher Gary Carter. His joyful grin drove me nuts. But I couldn't hate Darryl Strawberry, he was too beautiful......... So if I tell the whole story, it comes to thousands of words...... But I would be  breaking a long-standing rule at Frog Hospital -- no baseball stories, not ever, not even once....... too sentimental and long-winded, like the time I saw a game at Busch Stadium in 1983. They have a statue of Stan Musial at the entrance in his famous stance ..... well thanks for your interest, take care ..

From Ted

We are all doomed I agree yet sometimes its ugly and sometimes it quite & peaceful. He got the ugly side.

My Mom passed in April at 99 3/4's after dementia eat her body away over 3 1/2 years. That was ugly too yet not nationally known like Bruckner.

Cheers Fred. Glad all goes well 4 u.

ted

From Fred

Sorry to hear about your mom. You had good times with her in Palm Springs.

From Dan

Nice piece, but... a little confusing...you heard it on radio, and then you say you saw it... I guess on the eternal  TV replays? I loved the point that it gave you the sense of mortality. I assume it was more than sheer dread... but also a modicum of mature wisdom.

I was a die-hard Mets fan growing up. It warped my whole life, making me so afraid of losing I didn't play the game of life with enough courage.

I remember crying in 1962, when I was 12, in my backyard tool shed... when the Mets were inches away from finally winning a game only to lose in the bottom of the 9th with a multi-run gopherball.. STILL EASILY THE WORST RECORD IN BASEBALL HISTORY that year, at 40-120. (The next year they only managed 51 wins against 111 loses.) Then, after the pennant win of 1973, I wasn't a baseball fan at all. I guess I had more exciting things on my mind in the sensational sexy tumultuous and cinema and  music-rich 1970s. But in 1986, suddenly, I realized, that I was officially  a Red Sox fan. I had become a Bostonian. I just found myself rooting for the Sox! I saw game 6 from a Boston bar, after reviewing a jazz show for the Herald at Jordan Hall. When Buckner missed the grounder, all of a sudden there were  a few wild cheers erupting from a few college kids at the center of the bar!  I was rather astonished these young Mets fans from NY had the nerve to exhibit wild joy at this tragic moment in a Boston bar. But... I was very impressed no fights erupted that night. I don't even remember any jeering and hissing. (I think we Sox fans might've been too shocked to exhibit any vituperative brio. But it also seemed like good sportsmanship. )

From Fred

Thanks for your comments and your memories. I grew up in Chicago with a complicated relation to the Cubs and the White Sox.

From Dan

I did not mean to say the Mets alone made me a less than courageous and adventurous person. Parents not getting me prepared for the competition of society and career was a bigger part. There were other factors, too. But you're mentioning the Buckner influence on your feelings of death made me ponder the Mets' possible influence on my childhood. I quit being a Yankee fan to go with the Mets at age 12 because the Mets were the return of National League baseball in NY, My father's favorite team was the National league  NY Giants. So being a Mets fan and a baseball fanatic for a while was an obvious attempt to get closer to my father. And baseball did give us something to talk fluidly about.

From Fred

Baseball is an important metaphor. My youth was troubled by losing. I could be a Cubs fan and enjoy finishing in last place because we were the nice guys. Or I could be a White Sox fan and come in second place, year after year, to the Yankees.