spooorts!

i used to be a big baseball fan.

after a 45 minute yellow bus ride through north ukiah's finest neighborhoods (including, but not limited to, empire gardens, the pinoleville res, and north state street) my brother and i would get off at the lucky angler, a mom & pop convenience store near the muddy shores of lake mendocino. chet and laura would sell us a pack of baseball cards, and before climbing up the hill through the horse pasture, luke and i would stop off at a log hidden from the road by an overgrowth of bushes. we'd tenderly free our cards from their wax paper packets, and hope for a don mattingly or nolan ryan card.

i spent a few hot summer days listening to a giants game on knbr. i even spent a few of the afternoons at candlestick, including game 5 of the '89 NLCS when the giants clinched the pennant against the forlorn cubs

now i could give a shit about sports, unlike, surprisingly, friends of mine who are hecka into sports these days. i haven't sworn off the whole endeavour; i'll still watch a game every once and while. i am a total fairweather giants fan, but it's hard not to be when one lives in san francisco.

i haven't so much been into sports since high school. i think the baseball strike in 1994 had something to do with it. or maybe it was exposing my tender mind to a world outside of the sleepy ukiah valley walls.

i got caught up in this year's ALCS and i actually watched about 30 innings of the world series. i am baffled at how dirty and baggy and hip hop the red sox of current are. i felt like i was watching the '93 phillies or something. the red sox of pete-fan days were clean cut and sometimes sported red moustaches. the relaxed curls, untucked shirts and ruggish stubble were pretty shocking to me.

almost with a whisper, the red sox finally broke the curse, yielding the lamest, boring-est world series in recent history. (although one could argue winning 8 straight post season games is an exciting feat.) last night i was pretty excited during the 8th and 9th innnings, mostly because i was convinced they would choke, but that prolly has something to do with various giants games i've seen in recent history. the four game roll over by the cardinals doesn't seem to do justice to the heartbreak of guys like wade boggs, roger clemens, oil can boyd or even bill effing buckner.

i don't expect to ever care about the game the way i did when i was a kid, but i don't mind remembering warm sunshiney afternoons with AM radios and rookie cards and wiffle ball bats.