my favorite play is the alley oop
ok. mon crew and i hit up the weekly dj hotspot of caps y jones "we got mixtapes" this sat and were duly flattened by their breadth--those dudes drop sharp conjunctions, assonance i.e. "I'm Really Really Hot" (missy) into "Hot Hot Hot" (the cure)--and on some straight "my ass moving" tip, HI. Blas and Nicole and I got down for somewhere between four and 400 consecutive hours, the peak being a fresh introduction of Prince standard "Erotic City," after like, 35 club tracks in mindbreaker crescendo-denouement. And, um "Tenderoni"? HI, again. Totally made up for missing the auditions for So You Think You Can Dance.
(speaking of Blas, John Blasioli dot com will soon be open for business: handmade and tailored shirts for you by the dude who made the Decemberists look like a Soviet constructivist poster.)
Sunday, Ezra quipped, "There's nothing like getting a one-size fits all T-shirt fired at you from a machine gun," as Shea Stadium was pelted with the universal truth of all sports: sure, some games are fine examples of triumph of will, excellence of character, metaphors for social climate... but the guarantee of every major sporting event is the part where they shoot promotional Ts into the stands. I was also rather disillisioned when I discovered the "take me out to the ballgame" singalong is now the "Fisher Peanuts" singalong but there it was, in my face, American pasttime.
I never really got into baseball, but I faulted television; I always thought when I saw it live and in concert its mystique would finally be revealed. But when #1 NY baseball fan Ezra flew in from Portland yesterday, ostensibly to make Trevor, Mike and I attend Mets vs. Dodgers game 53... two things happened. First, without realizing it, I spent most of the game either talking about music, asking Ezra and Mike who was who and what was what on the field, and scouring Shea Stadium for vegetarian snacks, with little success. Second, life reiterated to me that basketball is my favorite sport (I like the way they dribble up and down the court). I grew up watching video-era MTV; perhaps the information age has compounded my already hi-NRG yearning for tight courts, speed, tension, spectacle (PEACE TO DEBORD), but baseball still doesn't engage me. Spent the train ride home caressing my rasheed wallace wallet photograph.
BUT. did you know that when an individual met is up to bat, a song of his choosing accompanies the projection of his face on a giant television? LIKE
David Wright, VA rookie: "Suck My Kiss" by the Red Hot Chili Peppers
Doug Mientkiewicz, 31--Poison's "Nothin But a Good Time" (this says to me: "Get to the beer line, jokers, I'll just be down here on home plate CHILLINNNN")
Mike Cameron: Jay-Z's "Public Service Announcement"--THE FIRST VERSES, from "my name is Hov" and ending on "hottest chick in the game wearing my chain," which helped me bond with the dudes behind us who also continued rapping past the cut-off. Is baseball's slow appeal couched in bonding/community? Is it the intellectual sport, or the mathematical sport like billiards or something? I would like to know and don't. Baseball people, help me out, please and thank you.
Easy: baseball is stone cold mathematics Erykah-Badu-style ciphering zen buddhism crossed with hot and cold running Howard Zinn history lessonz. Also: more space in game, like Timbo beats, makes for more in-between-em fan bullshittery.
i miss you. how's it going?
Baseball is territory. All sports are like miniwars; capture-the-flag on an increasingly larger scale. I grew up in Queens, so I'm a Mets fan. When I was growing up, that's how it was. You from BK, Staten, Manhattan, or surrounding areas, you got to choose. But the Bronx was the Yankees, and Queens was the Mets. I took comfort in that and all I wear is hats with round NY's, regardless of whether or not I'm really following the "Amazings." Watching baseball live though...that's just about getting burnt/freezing while drinking beer.
If I ever got the chance to play a professional sport with entrance music, I'd take my cue from Homer Simpson and play "Why Can't We Be Friends."
Check out the latest issue of Blender, the one with the Family Guy on the cover. They do an all-star team of baseball players with the best song picks, and they report that Daddy Yankee is far and away the most popular artist among pro ballplayers right now.
baseball is radio sport, paced for the stoop. mix in dominoes and presidentes for added effect. the stadium is cool, but there the beer is no longer an option, its absolutely essential. a radio helps too, the mets have some of the best announcers in the game. tv is worthless, save that shit for the football season, baseball is summer in the city, and that means outside, hydrants on blast style..
I'm just going to respond to this on my blog. It should be noted that yesterday for my birthday Ilene bought me a crisp David Wright Mets jersey. Which speaks to how much I care about baseball and is also the best gift I've gotten since like He-Man.
Motherfuck a throwback, I give 'em the blowback.
It's for zoning out in the sun. Whenever I go to a baseball game I understand the Impressionist idea of seeing without comprehending: green, white lines, brown, small multicolor shapes drifting and darting. It's like a big Stan Brakhage movie.
I usually leave a game having ignored at least one entire side of an inning. What am I doing otherwise? I'm not really sure. Probably thinking about how the Wizards are going to handle losing Larry Hughes, or my plans afterward.
It's true, as Matt says, that one of the pleasures of the pace and distance of baseball is arguing about baseball even as it unfolds in front of you. That's very astute.
Kind of relevant, but not really--I once read a piece on learning baseball by a veteran cricket journalist. He said that the most impressive part of the game from his perspective was not the batting and the pitching but the fielding--particularly, the reflexes of infielders, which he found otherworldly.
this is unrelated, but i gotta post somewhere...does amy linden have a blog site? i see she posts here. i dig her work. letta brotha know sumthin...
i think baseball can be beautiful or profane, like all sports. its got its own rhythmn, which could be relaxing, inspirational, or rigid. depends i think. but i do think baseball is _important_ just like soccer. more so than arena football. of all sports i dislike football for the ananmymous violence
also, being able to discuss with other fans is contingent on other fans wanting to talk to you. having gone to games with a group of indian dudes, sometimes the people around don't want to talk. tres depressing cie la vie