So it’s come to August 4th, 2010, with the Astros still not dead yet in the NL Central, despite sending away Roy and Lance, and the Indians somewhat revived with a roster averaging under 27, and the Padres in first place in the NL West with great pitching and .238 hitting. And I find myself in first place in the fantasy baseball league.
I can’t remember when I have been in first place in fantasy beisbol, and it is likely not for long, but it has been fun to see my lineups produce, with several rookies leading the pace in their respective positions, and with die-hards Evan Longoria and Brian Wilson holding their own.
August is a semi-satisfying time of year, nestled just before September call-ups and at the start of heated-up pennant races. August is neither summer nor fall, and thus capable of raising hopes while dashing them a day later. But August is still for dreaming.
None of the previous copy would have made any sense to me in my childhood reveries about baseball.
The NL teams, the divisions, the very idea of “fantasy baseball”—these did not yet exist. Baseball was still a wonderfully compact mystery of faraway midwestern cities (Kansas City, Baltimore), gorgeously unpronounceable uniform names that didn’t fit into agate type box scores (Aspromonte, Amalfitano: they both ended up playing for the Houston Colt 45s), and two equally balanced though stretched AL and NL leagues of 8 (LA and SF now made for quite a journey for any team east of St. Louis).
I’ve had 57 Augusts, and thus 57 pennant races, as I head into my 58th year on Sept. 5th. My earliest memory of a significant pennant race is probably 1959, when I was 7. It was the year the White Sox won the pennant over the Indians with speed and defense, and Cleveland had great pitching and slugging. Imagine, the Indians in a pennant race—it actually was more common than you would think. The winner would face the transplanted Los Angeles Dodgers, two years removed from Brooklyn, whence they last were in the World Series.
This would be my first remembrance of caring purposefully about a team and not just a player or two. The Indians were in a pennant race. I remember being excited by finding out that Gillette blades came with a little booklet of rosters and schedule for the whole year.
I had not yet discovered The Sporting News which featured the box scores of all the games from the previous week, even the West Coast ones that hardly ever appeared in the local papers. (How was one to find out, pre-internet, ESPN, or late night news, how your team did on the West Coast?) So this little orange booklet was a real find, a gold mine, a treasure so amazing, that listed player names and numbers! O brave new world that has such things in it!
Expansion would eventually come to the AL in 1961 (with teams in Los Angeles and Minnesota–the Angels, and the Twins, the latter inheriting the Senators roster and Washington being the expansion team), followed in 1962 by two NL teams (Astros and the Mets), but they would not split into two divisions for 7 years, making for a lot of disappointed fans come August each year. So it was your team against the seven others in a single “division.” 1959 was the last great year for pennant races, and it boasted not one, but two All-Star games a month apart (July 7 in Pittsburgh; August 3, LA Coliseum). Wow!
Anyway, I remember being outside on one of those hot, mid-August Akron OH days in 1959 pretending to be an outfielder taking away home runs near the top of my grandfather’s garage, and doing play by play. The Gillette booklet in my back pocket gave me the real names of real ballplayers to use in my commentary and near home run calls. The Indians batters (say, Woody Held or Rocky Colavito) would, of course, exceed my grasp and win the game for the home team Indians. (BTW Rocky was the AL home run champ in 1959—and still was traded to the Tigers in 1960!)
Indians alas faded in July and August, leading till then dog days of summer, but losing the pennant by 5 games, after being only 2 games behind on Sept. 20, and despite such formidable batters and pitchers as Vic Power and Tito Francona (Terry’s dad), and Mudcat Grant and Jim Perry; but this was the year the Sox’ Luis Aparicio (“the Go-Go Sox”) established himself as a star through his lead-off and base-stealing prowess, and C Sherman Lollar, 2B Nellie Fox, and OF Jim Landis had superb years. All the names are still fresh for me, but carry with them the whiff of August, my dad and mom, and intense radio surveillance of the Indians.
The White Sox started fast in Comiskey (a 11-0 first game rout), but wilted themselves under the sublime pitching of the Dodgers, who had to win a one-game playoff game against the (Milwaukee) Braves. Oh what names the Dodgers roster sported: pitchers Drysdale, Podres, Koufax, sluggers Snider, Hodges, Moon!!
The White Sox could only muster one more win, the fifth game, and simply couldn’t tame the Dodgers, who played in the spacious LA Coliseum—check the dimensions for Left field (251.6 ft.!) and the attendance for the LA games (92,000)! They were day games, all of them then, and I rushed home from school to see if the games were still on at 3:30. I was glad for the LA games; for they did not start until 4:00 EST!
The icons of the sport, the color and design of the home and away uniforms, the records broken or established, the urban greenery of a storied ballpark or random diamonds seen from an aerial view, the magical, magisterial voices of hometeam broadcasters rendering a game with the unique lore and jargon of baseball (“he stood there like the house by the side of the road”), oh the mighty power of memory to distill or capture a moment, even a whole summer in the mention of a single ballplayer or his hometown.
This is the part of baseball’s attraction that is unduplicated by the NFL or NBA, or any other sport, its standing as a uniquely American though increasingly worldwide phenomenon. I know there is someone just like me in Japan and Venzeuela and Australia and South Korea this very moment savoring a local or national or international baseball memory, from the present or from the past. A box score from last night.
Ah, baseball. Thanks for keeping me going every August these past 57 years, and some more Augusts to come, I hope.
My son sent me a surprise gift for “Post Season.” It’s an improbable baseball book by an improbable author whose embrace and love for baseball is even more improbable. Written by Craig Robinson (turns out there are a bunch of them including the actor on The Office), but I am talking about the Englishman, who by trade is a whimsical and talented graphic artist. Who happened to become profoundly enchanted by baseball while residing on the other side of the Atlantic.
NLCS