Amazing pic. The only downside is there are no gloves to catch it. Because there are no kids there. Because the World Series, like all professional sports championships, is far too pricey an endeavor per ticket to allow mere youngsters to attend. That would be a waste.

Great essay GVDL; you knocked it out of the park - amen.
D

Lovely, lovely, lovely.

Yes,lovely.

Thanks. I needed that.

Das said it. " . . . out of the park . ."

thanks....just set that picture as by background

Only in America
Can a guy from anywhere
Go to sleep a pauper and wake up a millionaire

Only in America
Can a kid without a cent
Get a break and maybe grow up to be President

Only in America
Land of opportunity, yeah
Would a classy girl like you fall for a poor boy like me

Only in America
Can a kid who's washin' cars
Take a giant step and reach right up and touch the stars

Only in America
Could a dream like this come true
Could a guy like me start with nothing and end up with you

Only in America
Land of opportunity, yeah
Would a classy girl like you fall for a poor boy like me

-Jay and the Americans

Nice post, Gerald

Very very cool!

That fly ball puts Phillie ahead and Yankee fans are smiling. Won't happen that way in Phillie.

Refreshing. Here I thought I could lump you in with the intellectual snooterati which bemoans sports at every turn.

It's a beautiful thing, the game, the spectacle, the symbolism.

Gerard...

:)

Bill Henry

For what it's worth, I'm posting World Series updates and random musings here.

Why is it called the World Series, when just about nobody outside the USA plays the game? Maybe it's because so many Americans think the USA IS the world.

I also find it interesting that for at least two of the major spectator sports in the USA, you have to be a genetic freak to play the game at high level. (Basketball and American football - one of the most misnamed games ever - of course.) And that at least one of those requires vast amounts of apparatus to get off the field alive.

Bit more snark; I find it funny that rounders and netball are two of the most popular games in America. (Yes, I know the rules are slightly different.)

Fletcher,

At the risk of taking this a bit too seriously - while the teams are all North American, Major League Baseball is full of players from other countries. A great number of players have actually used baseball to defect from Cuba to the US. Some of the league's biggest stars are Japanese, Venezuelan, Dominican, etc. Perhaps it was not so much in the past, but these days the World Series is, indeed, a World-wide contest, as the home countries of those foreign players care very much about the outcome.

"Why is it called the World Series, when just about nobody outside the USA plays the game? Maybe it's because so many Americans think the USA IS the world..."

You need to get out more, Fletch. A few years ago, the most common name in the Majors was Martinez. It might still be, or it might also be Rodriguez. No matter. Baseball may not be quite as widespread as soccer (football to you, I suppose), but it's certainly more so than cricket, which is pretty much confined to places where Britain once ruled (except for Canada; baseball is the bat sport of choice north of the 49th Parallel). There are serious baseball leagues in Latin America, Japan, Taiwan, and Korea, as well as in North America. Who knows how world politics would have turned out if Fidel Castro had made it as a pitcher with the White Sox? Baseball's easier-to-play derivative, softball, is even more popular globally. For instance, here in the concrete jungles of Jakarta, I play in a softball league that is made up mostly of Indonesians. They play well, too.

Point taken on the number of inordinately large men in basketball and American football. But I got to share a flight from NZ once with the Springboks, who had just played the All-Blacks the previous night. Most of them weren't exactly normal-sized either. But I felt pretty sure that the plane wasn't going to get hijacked:-). And FWIW, I think that's part of baseball's appeal: you don't have to be 6'10" and 300 pounds to play it. Look at Ichiro Suzuki, one of the best hitters in the game today: 5'9", 160 lbs., as average as average gets.

Wow. Just wow, G.

A further thought- I must someday tell you of the sandwich shop I ran in Murfreesboro, Tennessee and the ruggers who were my unofficial bouncers. Think "Elephant Walk".

This happens to me all the time. Really becomes quite boring after the 9th caught World Series ball. Ho hum.

Great essay. Illuminates many themes about baseball and America, and despite all of our problems, the joy of living here. In October, the leaves change color and baseball crowns a champion. May it always be so.

Fletcher--

The World Series was originally promoted as the World's Championship Series in the 1890's, when there weren't professional leagues in any other country--might as well call it the championship of the world, right? And then people just got in the habit, and the name stuck.

I'd be interested in seeing the World Series made into an actual world series, but it would probably have to be an every four years sort of thing, like that sport which people play by kicking a round ball around the lawn.

I wish it were so. But it's over. Even baseball can't save us from the Obamians.

After 5 months of crappy weather here in MI, there's nothing like a relaxing, warm summer evening spent in the old ball park. Baseball has the most family friendly atmosphere of all the major sports IMHO.

iri said it best. baseball is out game. I've seen kids in France and Italy playing it on schoolyards but it's ours. Eat your hearts out.

To my friend Gerard:
You really must understand that "American" does not completely capture what is going on north of the border.
It is a positively religious war of Reformation intensity going on when the Blue Jays open the season, the New Testament being played out in ERA's and batting averages, while the Old Testament believers rail that the Maple Leafs are the only true god and that life can only be measured by goals, assists, hat tricks and fine, firmament rattling body checks.
The war for the soul up there is intense.
Expect an Inquisition someday.

When we were skinny kids we'd ride our bikes to our friend's house with a bat, ball, and glove.

Today, mom drives the fat kids to the friends house with a wallet full of SIM cards and USB drives.

No, baseball is alive and well. Not the mega-buck commerciality of the owners vs. players, but the game itself. Aside from a few small changes, like the designated hitter and the instant replay, it's the same game, that same slice of Americana that's been going on since it's inception. It would still be recognizable to any of the pioneers of the sport. Same diamond dimensions, pitch, hit, run and field.

Summer evening, got my Dodger's on the radio, Vinnie callin' the game, and it doesn't get any better. ISIS what? Barack who?

I love football and basketball, but neither can come close to our true "national pastime" in terms of transporting me to another place. Still magical after all these years.

I wonder who finally ended up with the ball.

Let's go Red Sox!

John Cheever, a great American writer, reflecting on the doldrums of American fiction, said American fiction should reflect the excitement of 400 people reaching for a baseball...

The picture above taken in 2009 shows Nick Swisher in 2009 when he was 28. That was a good year for him. He had some good years thereafter. But last year when he was 33, and having an unproductive year, his season was cut short by knee injuries. Today I saw in the news that he will not be ready to play by opening day.

Eventually, the Turk comes for everyone.

The Turk has seemingly over-looked A-Roid, who curiously enough is back in the game! But, in the spirit of Charlie Hustle, who's now too old to participate, I say play ball.

LGRS!

Fletcher, it's called the "World Series" because the NYC paper called "The World" either first proposed it in the 1890's or they did the first comprehensive coverage of it (can't remember which).

I grew up about five miles from Dodger Stadium and rode my bike down to watch it being built. The I-5 was being built at the same time in that area to link up Downtown L.A. with the suburbs in the SF Vally.

I remember going to the L.A. Coliseum to see the Dodgers play while the stadium was being built. Wally Moon was a great slugger and his home runs were dubbed "Moon Shots" when the L.A. Times was still a somewhat readable paper. Go back and read some of Jim Murray's pieces. Their coverage was beyond wonderful.

It was a great time to be a kid.

Screw the National Felons' League or National Blacks' League. Quit watching them years ago.

Thank God for baseball. I just hope and pray the higher-ups don't screw the game over even more than they already have. The DH is an abomination, the new slide rules are horrific and just contribute to the pussification of the real American Man and instant replay is a joke, but they seem bound and determined to keep digging the hole even deeper.

They keep this shit up and they will lose more audience (and $$$). Talk about killing the goose that laid the golden egg.

Sorry for the double post.

Two more things before I leave off re: The Pussificatiion of men's sports:

I am sick to death of ESPN's use of wymyn "announcers" in baseball.  They obviously don't know shit and it's a transparent ploy to get more wymyn to watch the game. Here's a hint, you bastards.  It's not gonna work and, in fact, it's alienating more and more men from the game each day. 

There are plenty of games I automatically tune out due to these screeching bubblehead know-nothings being mere window dressing (oh, and I despise that prick Joe Buck as well). Now, get back in the kitchen, bring me a few beers and make me a sammich.

The other one is the NHRA and the white-knighting of wymyn drag racers.  That used to be a Real Man's sport. But now the power skirts are always front and center. And don't even get me started on Anton Brown being the next Jackie Robinson.  I now firmly believe the entire NHRA is a rigged game.

There was nothing like sitting at the beach beside Lake Champlain on a steaming July afternoon next to the old Zeineth portable while Curt Gowdy described what Ted Williams just did.

I grew up near Cincinnati in the early 70's and listed to Al Michaels (before he hit the big time) and Joe Nuxhall (former RED's pitcher) do the play by play on the radio.My dad took me to several RED's games at Riverfront to see the Big Red Machine, and we passed ball in the yard frequently. I took my kids to a local Wichita State baseball game yesterday and we saw a first class triple play! All had a good time.

Ah, opening day. Every team is in a tie for first, however short lived, and anything feels possible. Who will rise to the top and outlast the rest into October? Smell the smells, hear the crack of the bat, and the roar of the crowd. Bring on the boys of summer. "Play ball" !!!

Another vote for summer evenings and afternoons with baseball on the radio. When I was a kid in Illinois it was Harry Caray doing the Cardinal games on KMOX. I vividly remember going down to St. Louis on the Illinois Central with my Uncle Tom Scaiefe, and seeing my hero Stan Musial put one out just over the 402 sign in right-center field.

People used to take portable radios to the ball park just to hear Harry Caray do the play-by-play of the game they were watching, believe it or not.