I suppose that in light of the fact that I come from a town whose team has not won a world series that I should today be a baseball fan? I know many are and I imagine a good quantity over the last evening have become so. One thing that is essential to survive in this school of fish is a memory of supposedly telling statistics that at the right moment, winning or losing will explain everything. Consider that each longstanding fan, mostly male, is primed from youth to keep all these little bits and pieces of heroic and less than legendary showings at his mental fingertips. God forbid a stranger dressed in the right combination of memorabilia queries you and you have to say the demeaning words, “I don’t know?” Is it a form of insult to be caught in the position of obviously having no respect format the game or posing the threat of an alien species discovered within the body of the faithful to enact what form of possible dark magical mischief with tour team’s prospects of wining.
Oh yes, did I mention that team sports types while they may not be religious are amazingly superstitious. They will turn their overpriced memorabilia to the task of ensuring winning or staving off defeat by a variety of eccentric conventions. One that pops up from inning to inning being the ‘rally cap‘. When the home team is up at bat it gets worn on the head inside out. When the opponents get their turn at the plate it is restored to its conventionality. Slightly pungent human aromas of persistently unlaundered game shirts are endured by all and routinely taken in stride. Talking or rather screaming out incantations suggesting that victory is assured before the end of the game is also a gross offense punishable by collective blame after the defeat. Once again the fan’s that are late to join the core entourage of the game’s inner workings as far as adjudicating umpire decisions of the bio-technologies of the endurance of pitchers arms are enjoined to be conservative in their patter. The wives and girlfriends of the males engaged in this strict science become ferociously protective of the reputations of their significant males like mama grizzly bears defending the spatial honor of their cubs. No pun or ironies intended.
The whole experience of being part of the crowd at your local watering hole or at work being to seamlessly fit in. This becomes remarkably challenging when you are one of those few who are unashamedly indifferent tot he sport. Especially when the series is clinched. Now the sporadic high fives of the run up to the win ascend to the proverbial ‘rocket’s’ red glare‘ of the melody by Francis Scott Key. A frenzied ritual of enthusiastic comradeship is mandatory with everyone, male and female and beyond hugging and kissing and tangling raised limbs in odd combinations or connection. The inevitable grouping and regrouping before the smartphone camera for pictures has the crowd sloshing back and forth in the room so that everyone is recorded as having been there for the next future season to come. Every booze soaked male and female careening about is now ‘my‘ brother or sister! When you reach that point of epiphany just smile along and freely offer your photographic services to others. One thing that anyone can attest to is that mankind grouped as a whole has many undiscovered faces collectively and otherwise that have and will confound authors and newscaster’s for many centuries to come. Mark this previous day upon your calendar because it has now become as an important a date as the great Chicago fire, the Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre and The attack by the Japanese on Pearl Harbor. God forbid someday soon the technology to build an android possessed of these capabilities does not arrive. Go Cubs!