It has been a week of amazing television, between baseball and the Daily Show. Baseball, baseball, baseball. I am an enormous Brooklyn Cyclones fan — but that’s minor league, single A short season, New York Mets minor league team.
The game play has been epic. No other word for it. Think Greek Mythology. Schilling, bleeding at the heel last night. The Zeus-ian showdown of Ortiz and seventh-pitcher Loaiza Monday night in a stunning 14 innings. And tonight — a complete repudiation of a decade or so of Yankee hedgemony.
All of it brings back 1986, the last time the Red Sox were in the World Series. That was the year I fell in love with baseball. It was the Red Sox vs. the Mets, and my father, born and raised in Queens, was a big Mets fan. I was in fourth grade, we had just moved to America from Indonesia… and in a year or two we were going to leave again, moving to Korea.
My parents would let me watch the beginning of each game, and then send me to bed before it got too late. But the game would get too exciting, my Dad would get all worked up, and he’d run upstairs and wake me up to watch the game with him. In my little kid brain that image of Ray Knight and Mookie Wilson coming home just as the Red Sox thought they’d won it is seared into my skull. It’s what you’d call a formative memory.
Yes, the 1986 Mets — I can still reel off their names: Keith Hernandez, Bobby O, Gary Carter, Lenny Dykstra, Kevin Mitchell, Dwight Gooden, Darryl Strawberry. The electricity and unexpected intensity of that Series set me off on a life-long love of baseball, and watching the games this week brought it all back. So here’s to baseball — let’s hope that the Sox fare a little better this year than in 1986 — and that their fellow Bostonian wins his November contest as well. Although it’s seriously disappointing that his campaign blog doesn’t even mention the game. At least Blogging of the President is going nuts.
As If It Matters 
October 21, 2004 at 2:09 pm
Nicco, could you give me a call for an article I’m writing? Thnx. Ed
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My son is a Red Sox fan. I think he just liked the name Nomar when he was little. Joy in Mudville.
October 22, 2004 at 3:43 pm
I remember your father shouting, “I don’t care that he’s got school tomorrow! This is A HISTORIC MOMENT!” The TV was in the basement, where there was no heat, because we were trying to discourage TV watching by making it inconvienent and uncomfortable, which it was. I had various strategies for this: in Korea putting the TV under the stairs, in Malaysia putting it on the landing where there was no air-conditioning, no chairs. And look at the results: a man who loves poetry! Future Parents of America: let me recommend this practice.
October 22, 2004 at 4:25 pm
As some of us remember, the Cards have a 2-0 World Series record vs. Boston. Of course, I don’t think Ruth ever played for the Cardinals, but Bob Gibson, Stan Musial and a host of other greats are sure to be in the stadii for the games.