The enemy

Date: 6/14/2010
Watching: Mariners vs. Cardinals
The St. Louis fans just gave a BIG cheer for Albert Pujols hitting an RBI single, even though they were already up 8-3 in the bottom of the 8th, it's not like the outcome was in doubt. But a.) they were appreciating a good at-bat (and did I only notice that because I'm constantly told how "good" and "knowledgeable" the St. Louis fan base is? But then, I have an eyewitness account from a co-worker that Rams fans are the nicest road fans he's ever encountered, so there may be something to it), and b.) he's their guy, their own personal superstar, and they want his numbers to be the best, so that everybody in the country knows: St. Louis has the best hitter in baseball. The closest Cincinnati's come to that in recent memory is Carson Palmer in 2005, and it's an intoxicating feeling. Everybody in the city feels it. I had just moved to Cincinnati from Dayton (only about 30 miles down the road), and the feeling was everywhere you went, the pride and excitement and happiness. Does that make sense? No. But the feeling is real, and wonderful. Of course, it helped that the reason I'd moved was to move in with my now-wife (I LOOOOVE you, puddin'!), so I was feeling pretty fantastic regardless. But the Palmer thing was a whole different kind of happiness.

During that Pujols at-bat, Aaron Boone (he really is an ESPN baseball analyst!) had just been talking about how batters may say they don't know what their average is, but they know, and guys like Pujols or Ichiro, when they start dipping around .300, they kick it up a notch. Which sort of ties into what I'd just been thinking about, that the ideal mentality of the sports fan is really very similar to the ideal mentality of the athlete: the same simultaneous forgetting and remembering the past, and the same simultaneous planning for and ignoring the future. Like, I shouldn't feel differently about the Reds based on whether they're .5 games in first or .5 games out of first, the difference between the two is miniscule. And I shouldn't feel differently about the Reds season than I would if they had the same record but they had been contenders in recent years. They're all independent events. And yet I do, and to some extend should, because the fact is they're NOT independent, both for the reasons that a.) players' performances generally don't jump around randomly; their path is chaotic, but continuous, and b.) nobody can really forget the past, and everybody knows that nobody can really forget the past. You know when your success is unexpected, you know that everybody else knows it, and that they're waiting for you to regress to the mean. And again, because sporting events are public ceremonies, the opinion of the masses is central, and will find some way to make itself felt. So players, and fans, need to have quantum memory, both present and absent at the same time.

In an unrelated note: ESPN is usually good at these things, but whoever designed their on-screen score graphic for baseball should be demoted to the horse racing division. Instead of just giving the count in the "3-2" format that has been working perfectly well for a hundred years, some genius changed it to "B:xxxS:xx:Oxx", where each of the x's is a little light that turns on as the count changes (green for balls, red for strikes, yellow for outs). Which is both less readable, and takes up MORE space, than the traditional format that again, has been working for a HUNDRED YEARS. I have NEVER heard anybody say, "If only there were an easier way to communicate the pitch count!" And thank you so much for condescending to me with your cutesy color scheme, jackass. "Oh, strikes are bad and balls are good? I never knew that!"

Some ESPN anchor just asked Pujols (I think it was Pujols, I heard it from the other room), whether he was optimistic that the Cardinals could "put some distance" between themselves and the Reds in the division. Excuse me?! The Reds are still in first place! I understand that you don't think they're going to stay there, and I even understand why, but at least acknowledge it! They'll have to catch us before they can put distance between us. Screw you, ESPN.