take me out to the ballgame

I will admit to being only a casual baseball fan. I've enjoyed the sunny, lazy, convivial atmosphere of being in the ballpark (mostly Dodger Stadium years ago in my gone but mostly unforgotten youth)but the game never struck a chord in me the way that football did (this probably says something about me but we shall continue not to overthink the psychological implications and just go with the flow :-)

That said, I do start to pay some attention once they get into the playoffs...once the seemingly-endless slog through a 162-game spring, summer, and early fall has shaken out the pretenders and left us with a scant handful of teams ready to do battle for the World Series crown. (An aside: the term "world" series seems more than a little vainglorious even for us egocentric Americans...granted the game as we know it was created here but there is quality baseball being played around the entire world...Cuba, Japan, etc...and so it seems that calling the championship the "world series" when only American...and a couple of token Canadian...teams can be involved would seem to have evolved into a pompous misnomer.)

So I watched some of the playoff games with some...yes, causal...interest. And I watched the first game of the World Series between the Boston Red Sox...they of the so-called "Curse of the Bambino" (having not won the Series since they sold Babe Ruth to the dreaded Yankees)...and the equally storied St. Louis Cardinals. The "fall classic" (as baseball announcers like to call the Series) was off. And between them they gave up 20 runs, 24 hits, and made 5 errors...the playoffs were supposed to shake down to the two best teams and that's the best they could do. It's an auspicious start...but we'll have faith that things can only get better.

And, one last thing, I'm as patriotic as the next person (well presuming the next person isn't a candidate for high public office since those folks seem to be the most patriotic...and piously churchgoing...people who ever lived) but I don't get this business of having someone sing "God Bless America"...instead of the much more appropriate "Take Me Out to the Ballgame"...during the 7th inning stretch. I know that after 9/11 the President asked Major League Baseball to do it when they came back but it seems pandering and jingoistic to still be doing it in every game. But maybe that's just me.

Play ball!