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".