(Jayson Werth slams it out of National’s Park. Photo AP).
Can’t do it this morning. Well, maybe I can, but there is so much I have to ignore that it makes me a little disoriented. Bear with me- I am sure you are inundated as well.
I drove my younger boy and a buddy out to Dulles, late in the afternoon. Going out was not that bad, but coming back toward the capital the surge of traffic toward Nationals Park and Game Four, and maybe the desperate finale for a Washington baseball team’s first appearance in the post season since 1933.
The town is a little giddy about having something other than the endless spewing of half-truths and misconceptions that goes along with the endless campaign, and with first pitch at four in the afternoon, the usual patterns of the commute were all screwed up. By the time I got a drink and was comfortable enough to rail at Major League Baseball for blacking out local television coverage in preference to their own premium cable baseball channel, I gave up and just listened on the radio.
Listening- the theater of the mind is what they call it on NPR- took me back to the days I listened to the legendary Ernie Harwell, play-by-play announcer for the Detroit Tigers in the sepia-toned radio days of my youth.
The Tiggers themselves were up against it against the surprising Oakland A’s, so there was plenty of competition for my attention, and the Nats put on a nail-biter right to the bottom of the 9th inning. Then, to my astonishment, Jayson Werth strode up to the plate, played some cat and mouse with reliever Lance Lynn for twelve pitches before parking the lucky thirteenth and winning the game.
Hysteria ensued, and it was refreshingly not about a gaffe or some other act of public stupidity. Later, the Tiggers stumbled, 4-3, and will go to a fifth game to settle the matter with phenom Justin Verlander on the mound.
(Oakland keeps it alive against Detroit. Photo AP).
I was pretty agitated from the drive and the games. I am not sure I can go back to commuting in this crazy town, and wound up going down fairly early with the iPad slumped on the covers next to me.
I woke up to the sound of the radio- I assumed it was 0445, and time to get rolling and accordingly rolled upright. Then I realized it was just the radio left “on,” and it was two. I hit the head and was awake.
Crap. I tossed for a while and gave up and fished around for the iPad and went back to the blood-soaked mystery that had put me down for the count.
I was so happy about the games. Anything to keep our attention off the antics of the politicians. I finished the mystery in the small hours of the deep night, which included a body count of at least a dozen, and then started an account of the Eisenhower Presidency called “Ike’s Bluff,” which purports to explain the whole boring 1950s thing as being the General’s secret battle to save the world.
It is so quaint that it made me quite homesick for another era.
I finally drifted off again in time to be gently roused by the sound of classical music. I like waking to music, even if it is occasionally disorienting. I remember the “buzz” function of the alarm used to provoke a Pavlovian response from me, which meant slamming a palm down on the top of the clock, necessitating periodic replacement of the device.
I have adjusted to not panicking at the first blast of consciousness. Life is good. I understand there was a debate or something on last night, too. Apparently no one hit a home run, though both sides are claiming decisive victory.
Four weeks to go- to the World Series, anyway.
Copyright 2012 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com