You know the old saw about politics making strange bedfellows?
Well, forget about politics. When it comes to strange bedfellows, politics are as nothing compared with baseball.
The MLB Countdown To Spring Training clock is ticking merrily away, and we're down to three days and some-odd hours before those magic words that we fans so love to repeat to each other in the iron-gray chill of bleak midwinter become reality: "Pitchers and catchers report!"
They report this coming Wednesday, the Grapefruit League (eastern U.S.) to Florida and the Cactus League (western states) to Arizona. We fans are already in a dither. The Mets have acquired Johan Santana! Will Manny Ramirez stay with the Red Sox after 2008? Check the sports page, quick...Did the Padres reach an agreement with Kahlil Greene?
Will the respective sorry asses of Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens end up in jail for lying about steroids?
All of that aside, it's the time of year when we're all checking our team web sites and picking out season ticket packages, or just picking out the individual games we might try and make it to over the long, glorious summer.
I'm a San Diego Padres fan, and I live in Washington, D.C. Now where does that leave me? The Friars don't have a game scheduled against the Nationals in Washington until September. I can go to that, but what do I do in the meantime? Yeah, sure, I watch games on ESPN and Fox and all that jazz, and I follow the day-to-day stuff on the Internet. But I don't want to wait until September to go out to the brand-spanking-new ballpark that's about to open here in the nation's capital. So I have to pick which Nationals games might interest me enough to attend. After all, it's not much fun paying to go to the ballpark if which team wins is a matter of complete indifference to you.
And that's the subject of today's post: the shifting sands of baseball loyalty.
This is where logic twists and turns like the L.A. freeway system.
Let's look at the schedule. I see that the Baltimore Orioles will be here for interleague play at the end of June. Now, I understand the whole rationale for that interleague idiocy (the official story, anyway) was to create "regional rivalries." Yeah, right, like there's ever going to be a "regional rivalry" between the Seattle Mariners and the Los Angeles Dodgers. That interleague crap was cooked up so that the owners, respectively, of the Yankees, Mets, Cubs, White Sox, Giants, A's, Dodgers and Angels can line their pockets scheduling "crosstown" games between the American and National League teams in those large markets. Period. Greed and cynicism, the most honored and venerable of all baseball traditions.
But the Washington Nationals vs. The Baltimore Orioles? There you have a "regional rivalry" that might actually fly. The presence of the Orioles in Baltimore has long been one of the few things Baltimoreans could point to, aside from crabs and the Inner Harbor, that makes their city actually cooler than D.C. Now D.C. has baseball, so it's a question of kid brother swinging at big brother. And since the Orioles have truly stunk for the last season or two, the matchup might actually yield some suspense.
So who do I root for when I go to see the Nats play the birds?
That's actually a toughie. I lived in Baltimore for a while, and though I never became an O's fan, my heart actually inclines more toward Charm City than the Swamp On The Potomac. Of the two cities, I really prefer Baltimore.
On the other hand, the Orioles' owner, Peter Angelos, is generally adjudged to be the biggest son-of-a-bitch in all of professional sports. He fought like hell to keep the Nationals out of Washington, on the perfectly reasonable assumption that all territory within a 100-mile radius of Baltimore was his personal ranch, you know, like John Wayne in Red River grabbing a chunk of Texas and chasing everyone else off it. Major League Baseball had to bribe Angelos to quit bucking the deal that finally brought big league ball back to Washington after an absence of 34 years.
Decision: Nationals. I root for the home team. When the game's over I'll take my wife to Baltimore for a romantic dinner and a stroll around Camden Yards.
How many times over my life as a baseball fan have I grappled with the question of which side to root for in a game in which my team isn't actually playing? Plenty. When my Dad was alive, he and I danced around this mulberry bush through plenty of World Series contests, since the Padres, in nearly 40 years as an MLB franchise, have gone to the Series exactly twice, and lost both times.
Now, there is a small handful of teams for which I harbor a special hatred or a special liking, so the choice is easier. Cardinals: thumbs-up, thanks to such great players as Stan Musial, Curt Flood and Bob Gibson. Braves: thumbs-down, if only for having the unmitigated gall to think that being broadcast on a Superstation makes them "America's Team." Yankees: thumbs-down, always. I think the Yankees' team motto is "Commitment to Excellence," whereas it ought to be, "We're entitled to win every year because we play in the largest media market and have more money than the gross national product of most Third World countries." Red Sox: thumbs-up (especially if they're playing the Yankees.) Yeah, I know they're a big-budget team too, but somehow they wear it better. This rivalry divides America like Republicans vs. Democrats, and no, I am not going to stretch that simile any further.
Here are just a few samples of baseball contests in which my loyalty was decided by something other than pure team loyalty: (to keep things simple, I'll restrict myself to the World Series):
1986: New York Mets vs. Boston Red Sox. I was for the Red Sox, because the media had already declared the Mets to be World Champions on Opening Day.
1989: San Francisco Giants vs. Oakland A's. I was for the earthquake.
1990: Cincinnati Reds vs. Oakland A's. Dad and I rooted for the Reds, who won. Why? Because Jose Canseco played for the A's, (see 1989, above) and he was just about the most obnoxious, howitzer-mouthed butthead in all sports that year. There was also the fact that in 1990, based on Oakland's appearing in its third Series in a row, the media were hollering "dynasty." Yeah, that was some dynasty all right. They lost in '88, won in '89, lost in '90 and haven't been heard from since.
1992: Toronto Blue Jays vs. Atlanta Braves. Dad and I rooted solidly for the Jays. This was easy: I hated Ted Turner and Dad hated Jane Fonda.
1995: Cleveland Indians vs. Atlanta Braves. I rooted for the Indians because (a) They hadn't won a series since 1948 and (b) See "Ted Turner," above.
2000: New York Mets vs. New York Yankees. I turned the TV off.
2001: Arizona Diamondbacks vs. New York Yankees. As a Padres fan I'm not inclined to root for Arizona at any time, but look who they were playing. Let's just say that when Luis Gonzales got that little walk-off bloop hit in Game 7 that sent the Pinstripes home in tears, I was pleased enough to light a cigar.
2002: San Francisco Giants vs. Anaheim Angels. I was for the Angels. In any game involving Barry Bonds, I'm going to be for the other team. (See you in horizontal stripes, Barry.)
2005: Chicago White Sox vs. Houston Astros. My Dad had just died, so I wasn't too interested in this one, but I enjoyed seeing the White Sox win, if only because they hadn't won a Series since Woodrow Wilson was President. (Also, when I think of a benighted swamp as a place to live, Washington, D.C. comes first, with Houston a close second. And the Astrodome was in SUCH poor taste!)
Okay, let's get everyone on those planes for Arizona and Florida! After all, we can't start playing the game of miasmic loyalties until there's actually something to watch. Play ball!
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