Where did July go? Damn, it just flew by.
This morning I was burning some DVD's of Formula One stuff for a friend, and happened upon the two-part PBS documentary gem "Baseball: The Tenth Inning" by Ken Burns. These four hours are the update to the 18 1/2 hour, 1994 PBS Series, "Baseball"
Watching a little while I edited and added chapter marks to the F1 discs, I was reminded again of baseball's beauty and ability to charm. "Baseball: The Tenth Inning" covers the strike season in 1994 through the 2009 season. I found the post-9/11 coverage especially meaningful.
I was on a Baja fishing trip on 9/11, and stayed in Mexico for several days longer than planned because of the post attack grounding of aviation nationwide .
When we did get home to the States, baseball was just resuming play. Watching the Yankee's game from New York City at the Ancestral Digs in matching La-Z-Boys with my Dad was very therapeutic...that's when I knew America would come through the attacks OK. Later that same season, my Dad and I watched side by side again as San Francisco Giants' slugger Barry Bonds broke the Single Season Homerun Record with his 73rd.
Like millions of other American boys, I learned my love of America's Pastime from my Dad. He taught me to love the game, and to love his San Francisco Giants...I still think about him most when I'm watching the Giants play. He would have been thrilled to watch the Giants last season, as the scrappy team with no All Star sluggers and great pitching found a way to win, all the way to becoming World Series Champions. He'd be thrilled by this week's trade for NY Mets slugger Carlos Beltran too, though I'm a little worried that a star in the dougout might upset the delicate chemistry of San Francisco's "Band of Misfits"
The Giants have been playing their patented version of ball known to Giants' fans as "Torture". I've really been entertained so far this season...I'm liking the Giants' chances to repeat a little more each time they eke out another one run win.
I'll have plenty of time to enjoy the beginning of the Giants' "Stretch Run" because the Tour de France is over and my two favorite motorsports series are taking most of August off as usual.
MotoGP, the World Championship motorcycle road racing series takes three weeks off after Laguna Seca's USGP last weekend. Formula One races Sunday at the Hungaroring before taking their month-long summer vacation. Sadly, America's IndyCar has become as boring as the good ol' boy's NASCAR show. I'll watch a little of the NHRA drag racing spectacle, it is a technology series like F1, but it'll be Giants baseball that gets me through again.
Be assured, after catching that yummy halibut Monday, SturgeUrge and I will spend a couple of days on the water this August!
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Dad's are good teachers. I was just thankful that mine wasn't around to witness the treacherous acts of 9/11. As a Navy pilot in WW II he would have been furious that we got caught with our pants down.
ReplyDeleteI disagree with you. I don't believe our great nation has ever recovered from the 9/11 attacks. We pulled together for one moment, united in dismay, grief and sorrow, only to be torn apart by political fear and maniacal retribution. We've spent trillions of dollars and wasted hundreds of thousands of lives on the Iraq and Afghanistan "conflicts". These acts have torn apart and undermined the strength that makes us a great nation.
Now, when the bill comes due, we don't want to pay the price for the "conflicts" that were waged?
As for baseball, well, the game has changed. It was a more pastoral pleasure in the past. Turn on the radio or watch the black and white picture on the TV and sit back and relax and let the mind take a breather.
The last Giants game we attended, while interesting and fun, was, well, kinda loud and raucous for my taste. If I had wanted to have my senses bombarded with pop music and the big screen jumbo tron throbbing, I'd go to a concert.
I say, take the big screen, pumped up sound and wi-fi away and put in more bathrooms so one doesn't miss three innings while waiting in line to pee.
More importantly, sell "Beer Heah" in the stands. Now, that's my kinda baseball.
Oh yeah, and let what's his name smoke!
It seems to me that MLB owners are doing everything they can think of to attract returning and future customers...kids today are multitasking fools, hence the caterwallering music and videos between innings...Go Go Go!
ReplyDeletePut a winner on the field, and they will come. The Giants have sold out every home game so far this season.
At the risk of standing on the front porch and yelling: "You kids stay offa my lawn", I found the game we went to pastoral and peaceful...before the first pitch!
It was after all was said and done, a Torture game, won in come from behind fashion in extra innings. #GoGiants
It's the Devil's Arithmetic...beer and bathrooms at the ballpark...never enough of either! Hey Beer!