Baseball, Miles, and the non-fan anti-jinx...

As I fly from DC back to LA I am reminded of that strange impulse that I have to write while traveling.  I think its more so on trains, there is something inspiring about them, but planes can be included too.  How efficient they are.  Basically they are just people moving machines, and everyone who boards knows this, (well except for small children I suppose,) but pretty much everyone realizes that they must sit in a small space for a couple of hours, so they might as well make the most of it.   Many writers have been inspired on trains for this reason.  I think the brain secretly likes being utilized in this way.  The body is useless right now, time for thoughts to take over! 

So reflecting on my short trip to DC, there are a few things that come to mind.  First off, I got to see an old childhood friend, my best friend from the 5^th through 7^th grades, Mike Anderson who now lives in Glen Burnie, Maryland.  The last time I saw Mike was in the summer of 1991, I remember it well.  We had been friends in England, when both of our fathers (and his mother too,) were stationed overseas at now defunct Air Force bases, borrowed from the Royal Air Force, by the US military.  We both moved from there in 1990, but I visited Mike in 1991 in Denver, Colorado where he had moved.  It's hard to believe that it’s been more than twenty-one years.  (Feels more like forty-one.)  

In a bizarre twist, the only two times I’ve ever been to an NFL team’s training camp were both in Denver.  Once with Mike in 1991 and then again in 2010, when the Lady Underdog and I saw the rookie Tim Tebow and his innumerable entourage of jersey-wearers, (before he had played a single second in the NFL by the way.)  

Mike met up with the Lady Underdog, Lakisha, and I at the Knicks-Wizards game downtown at the Verizon center.  We had a beer and talked about the old days.  We were transient, growing up (he even more so than I was,) but while I’ve continued that trend into my thirties, seemingly traveling more so than naught in my career, he has settled down in MD, living there for the last ten years.  Hopefully I will get to that place soon.  Imagine it!  The same place… for ten years!  

New and OLD faces on the Knicks bench... 

It was great to hear about Mike’s family and what’s been going on for the past two decades.  And the Knicks looked pretty good against the Wizards, pulling away in the closing minutes.  Even though they may be older than (the proverbial)… dirt!  More on that later.

Anyway, the aforementioned, greatest baseball weekend in Washington DC history ended up being a bust.  Crazy.  But I told Emily and Kevin that I think it's a good Omen.  I don't know a single couple that got married on a night when both of the local home-town teams won series-deciding playoff games, that are still together.  It's just better this way. No need to tempt fate.    

At the wedding reception, there was buzz about the Nationals and their huge early lead against the Cardinals, but no one seemed to care about the Orioles loss to the Yankees.  I think that was mainly because all of the older generation guests at the party were out-of-towners, and all of the younger in-towners had probably only been in town since around ’04 when the Nationals arrived.  The Orioles had already lost by the time we got back to the hotel that night, but the Nationals still had a chance.  They had given up their early lead but still were leading 7-5 in the ninth, so I stopped watching thinking they were going to take it.  The next day Lakisha and I walked all over DC and had a blast.  We even stopped by the ballpark and I just assumed they would be playing there the next day.  I didn’t realize until the following day, that… oops, they had, in fact, LOST that game 5 to St. Louis.  What???  That’s why baseball is a great game.  So unpredictable.  And that’s why this post-season has been nothing short of amazing!

Fast forward to tonight, when I ran into my friend Miles, from the Bay area.  My mind flipped back to three weeks ago, when he came into the bar all bummed out.  “Looks like the Giants are out of it.  They lost the first two at home.”  He looked so sad.  Instinctively I wanted to cheer him up, so I said, “Hey, don’t worry, they’ll pull it out!”  “Nah, they have to win three on the road.” he moped.  “Nope,” I said without hesitation,  “They got this Miles, they’ll come back, don’t worry.”   Of course, they then made history, winning three in a row on the road to advance on to the National League Championship Series.  A week later, he had that same look.  Like a true fan, he wears his heart on his sleeve, so I could see the genuine pain in his expression.

“Down three to one,” he lamented, “looks like we’re really done this time.” 

The last game this year had already been played...

I hadn’t watched any of the games, but there was something about how honestly hurt Miles looked, and somehow, I just knew that the Giants were going to come back.  “Nah, they got this brother,” I said solidly, “they’ll win this one in seven.”  Of course, if it was my team I would never be so brashly optimistic.  When you’re not emotionally invested you have the luxury of irrational confidence.  For some reason, when it is your team, and you really care about the outcome, you almost have to protect yourself by assuming the worst.  You cannot take that leap, because if you do, you’ll blame yourself for jinxing the team!  So weird right?  We have nothing to do with the outcomes whatsoever anyway.  It’s illogical to think that we do, but that doesn’t stop us does it?  Ahhh, sports fans.  We have issues.

Anyway, so tonight Miles came into the bar looking very happy, a huge smile on his face.  “You called it!”  he said giving me a big hug.  “You said it, both times!  Amazing right?  We’re going back to the World Series!”

Obviously, I can’t take any credit for San Francisco’s second historic turnaround.  No sane person would think that way, but maybe that’s part of the fun of being a sports fan in general.  We are connected to the games, and we care about the outcomes, but we are literally helpless to affect them one way or the other.  So it stands to reason that because of the absence of any real control, superstitions eventually crept in and became a staple in sports-fandom.  That’s why countless fans throughout history have blamed themselves for losses, for years, because their team lost, when they forgot to wear their “lucky hat/shirt/socks/kimono.  You name it, the true sports fan can use it, to blame themselves for any loss.  

“I jinxed em!  They were winning until I TURNED ON THE TV!” 

Rational people say that’s ridiculous.  And they’re right.

But we have a World Series coming up.  It's Detroit vs San Francisco, and anything can happen, so all you true fans better get out your old lucky rally caps, that have never been washed of course.  Dust off those lucky shoes or stretch into that lucky sweatshirt, because if your team is going to win this thing you better show some consistency!    

But seriously, I think we should all just act like Miles, and have some fun during these games.  Because we’re all playing with house money at this point right?  Gotta enjoy it while it lasts. 

Baseball is a beautiful game.  And so is life. 

Thanks for reading.

Underdogs OUT!