Not So World Serious Anymore (But You Gotta Love Those St. Louis Cardinals)

 

 

Apparently the St. Louis Cardinals are in the baseball postseason. Again. The men where I work have talked about little else for three weeks, each with his favorite teams, his own opinions, and, of course, his predictions.

 

 

It is a major league yawn.

I was going to say it is a waste of time, but it’s really not. They are interested, involved, happy. And, at least, it diverts them from video games, their main topic of conversation the other 330 days of the year.

 

 

None of these guys were alive when I first found myself in that same place, sweating out a pennant race, swelling with pride when the Cards beat the Yankees in the 1964 World Series.

My team went to the Series three times that decade, beating the Red Sox in 1967 and losing to the Tigers in 1968. Those men were my heroes: Gibson, Brock, Flood, Cha Cha, Maxvill (my glove had his autograph), Carlton, even Roger Maris. Roger Maris!

 

If we weren’t playing ball, we were talking about it or listening to a game. As I grew, I listened faithfully through the lean years, then rejoiced in new heroes of the 1980s, winning it all again in 1982, then losing to Don Denkinger in 1985, and the noisy Twins in 1987.

Then I stopped. I quit listening one day in 1988, cold turkey. I was watching a game – no sound, Jack Buck on the radio. My kids were playing outside the window, uninterested in professional sports. I turned it off to go play with them, and haven’t bothered since.

The Cardinals have been in several World Series since then, but I would have to look it up to know what years or who they played, or, for the most part, who their players were.

I don’t miss it, which would surprise you if you knew what baseball meant to us.  Nor do I frown on people who are so absorbed these days. Baseball is a great game, and a mighty fine pastime, too. It’s just not mine.

Go Cards!

 

 

 

World Series program image borrowed from here, Sports Illustrated cover from here. Adam Wainwright from here. Thanks.

30 Years Later But Still Burning About Missing Game 7

 

I have three Lou Brock autographs, all gifts from my older brother, who was big into baseball collectibles in the early 1980s. When I say big, I mean he had more than 250,000 baseball cards, including a Mickey Mantlerookie card, and hundreds of autographed bats.

 

Gary Jo had a booth at a card show where Brock was one of the celebrities signing autographs. He got several balls signed, and gave me one because he was a nice guy, and we were, you know, brothers.

 

He gave me a framed autographed photo for Christmas.

 

But the bat he gave to me purely out of guilt. We lived two houses away from each other, and went to quite a few Cardinals games in 1982. So when he bought two tickets to each of the four home games in the World Series against the Brewers, I was sure he would take me to at least one. It got to be Game 7, and I was so sure he would invite me that I called in sick to work and waited by the phone. The call never came. My brother, my only older brother, took some guy named Dan to Game 7 of the World Series, in St. Louis, which the Cardinals won. The party in the streets lasted for hours afterward, and I wasn’t there. I was at work, where I called in not sick after all, watching the game on a small black-and-white TV that I smuggled in to the plant.

To make it up to me, Gary Jo gave me this autographed Lou Brock edition Louisville Slugger, that Brock had actually used in games. It is a beautiful piece of wood, blonde, sleek, perfect for my grip and swing. A work of art. One of my favorite possessions.

 

But it still doesn’t make up for Game 7.

WTT For My Birthday: Wow, That's Terrific

For my birthday, Kelly and the girls took me to opening night of the WTT season, Springfield Lasers against the Kansas City Explorers. It was great fun, even with the rain showers that delayed the arrival and warm up of the players for more than an hour, and even though we lost.

Through it all, as is tradition, Kelly managed to get some knitting done.

All four players are new to the team this year, and two are new to World TeamTennis. To be honest, to me they look like high school students, but their credentials are sound. Some of them will be successful in their careers, I’m guessing, but they didn’t play especially well last night, with a lot of unforced errors.

Perhaps it was nerves from playing in front of 900 people, you know, with some of them being fresh from Wimbledon in the past fortnight.

Libby and Aubrey like the tennis, but their phones got a lot of attention, too. They were especially aware of the hairdo of the young man who plays singles for our side, and I pondered how they have changed in three years from little girls wanting to be the next Vania King and Liezel Huber to not so little girls who whisper how cute that player on the other team is. To say nothing of the two (no good stinkin') boys who kept hovering around them.

Win or lose, it is fun to watch, and it is fun having family along. We had a very nice Chinese buffet, watched some good tennis, then came home to eat some left-over birthday cake and ice cream. Another very good birthday, one of my best.

Thanks, Kelly.

World Team Tennis, The Shortest, Hottest, Funnest Season In Sports

Even our picky “that’s so stupid” teenage girls like going to watch World TeamTennis.

You don’t have to be a tennis player, or even a tennis fan, to enjoy the matches. Unlike tennis on TV, WTT is fast, loud, and fun. It’s also co-ed.

Each team has four players, two men and two women. I used to think the males would dominate the mixed events, but they don’t. Most of the players are up-and-coming hopefuls, with world rankings usually between 80 and 120, which means they are really, really good. Most teams have a marquee star on their rosters, such as a Williams sister or Martina Hingis or Lindsay Davenport, but those pros usually only play one or two home matches.

Martina Navratilova came here a couple of years ago, and although she was no longer the dominating opponent she once was, she was amazing. John McEnroe came to town once, as did Anna Kournikova, who was injured but signed autographs for far more men than usually come to the matches.

We were lucky to have Vania King and Liezel Huber on our side for two years, both top-ranked doubles players, so there is no shortage of excellent play and excellent players.

The game is shorter than on TV, with simple scoring and no ad play. The first side to win four points taks the game, the team with the most games won at the end of the night wins the match. They play men’s and women’s singles, men’s and women’s doubles, and mixed doubles, my favorite.

The crowd is close to the action, and you can hear the players talk, when the crowd isn’t making too much noise. It's exciting.

Uncle Dan, Libby and Aubrey wait for Vania King's autograph
while she admires the drawings of her the girls made during the match.

If you live in or near a WTT city – Newport Beach, Sacramento, Springfield, KansasCity, New York, Boston, Philidelphia, Washington, D.C. – you should go. Or maybe you can swing by one on your way to Elephant Rocks.

But you better hurry. The WTT season only lasts from July 9 – 28.

Signs That I Am Not Much Of A Man, Part 2 Of 3

Unlike most men I see....

I rarely play sports anymore, and I don’t watch or follow games at all. I own a couple of old Cardinals t-shirts, but I rarely wear them. I don’t know anything about the NFL standings or college draft picks, or who won the Heisman. I am aware of the NCAA Basketball Tournament each March, because the ads are all over the grocery stores, but I haven’t watched a game in many years, and I couldn’t tell you who won the last one. I don’t know who won the last Super Bowl or the last World Series. As near as I can tell, the only difference between the NBA and professional wrestling is the ball. I like World Team Tennis, and Vania King is my favorite athlete.

Mighty, mighty Vania King.

I don’t whistle at women who walk by. One, I can’t whistle, and two, as a married man with seven daughters, I learned long ago that ogling women is degrading, to them and to me. I notice women, I suppose, more than I notice men, because there is nothing attractive about men. I might notice a woman’s hands, or hair, or even a nice shape, but I don’t stare after women. Generally, my reaction to most females is “put some clothes on.”

I know nothing about cars, except where to put in the gas. I wouldn’t know a carburetor from a solenoid, and I had to look up how to spell both. I know what an antitragus is but not a carburetor. I know a Mustang when I see one, and Volkswagon Beetles, but otherwise I can’t tell the make or model of a car unless I’m close enough to read the emblems on the back. I’ve driven nothing but mini vans for about three decades, which is fine by me, and I haven’t had a moving violation since 1985.

My bedroom is two shades, pink and burgundy, with white trim. There are not one but two ruffles around the pink bed (I painted it myself) and doilies everywhere, with embroidery and plates and hats from the 50s on the walls. There is lots of lace, three hat boxes, a basket of linens, several quilts, bowls of jewelry and a handful of dolls of various sizes. And I like sitting in there.

Read Part 1.

Read Part 3, tomorrow.

The Missouri Tigers Are Number Two (And I Don't Mean Their Seed)

I gave up televised sports 24 years ago for two reasons. One, the football Cardinals moved from St. Louis, and two, and more important, I realized that my children weren’t interested. I would sit for hours in front of the TV and listen to the kids playing and laughing outside, so I quit, cold turkey, and haven’t missed it.

Which explains why I had no idea that the Missouri Tigers got knocked out of the NCAA basketball tournament in the first round this year, despite a No. 2 seed. I grew up a Mizzou fan, and thought it might be fun to catch them in a Sweet 16 game this weekend.

I’d heard they were having a good year, ranked near the top all season, and I saw they won the Big 12 tournament, which is a big deal. There must be a lot of disappointed fans who have probably never gotten used to the disappointment despite many opportunities. I think the Tigers have that reputation, that they can’t win big on the national stage, no matter where they are ranked.

Of course, I also grew up a fan of the football St. Louis Cardinals, too, the NFL team, the Big Red. Talk about disappointment. Except for a year or two in the 1970s, when they were the Cardiac Cardinals, they were consistently bad. I always joked that the only reason I was a fan of the Cardinals was that I enjoyed watching kick-off returns.

It seemed that most of the teams that played against Missouri and the Cardinals made it to the top of their leagues at least once over the years, but never my guys. Of course, the Arizona Cardinals finally made it to a Super Bowl a few years ago, and I did watch part of that game, but I didn’t enjoy it much because I didn’t know any of the players, and it just wasn’t very interesting.

The baseball team in St. Louis has been successful many times over many years, but I don’t watch them anymore, either. Once every other year or so, if I’m home alone, I’ll try to catch part of a game, but it is just so DULL, I can’t do it.

There are just so many better things to do.

What do you think?