The Weekly Screed (#644)

"Bye bye, Braves. Hello Emptiness…"
by David Benjamin

MADISON, Wis. — There are still thousands of people in Wisconsin, of a certain age, who share a bond that hearkens back to their trusting youth and leaves in their hearts an ache that will never quite subside.

Along with that mild, lingering pain and the pang of betrayal from which it springs, there are notes of poignant nostalgia, long hot summer nights under the covers or on the back porch, listening to the fluid voice of Earl Gillespie piercing darkest Dairyland from exotic outposts that taxed our geography aptitude: Queens, Cincinnati, Candlestick Point, Chavez Ravine, Waveland Avenue.

On Monday over coffee, I saw Suzie, who remembered Earl Gillespie, and County Stadium, WTMJ Radio (AM), Johnny Logan, Lew Burdette, Joe Adcock, the hero we just knew as Henry. When we were kids, they just sort of appeared as a kind of miracle that burst upon us from nowhere — actually Boston — in 1953. They were winners every year, made the Series twice and beat the hated Yankees in ‘57. And then, as Suzie recalled, as I cannot forget, nor any of us forgive, the rotten bastards who owned our beloved Braves up and hauled them South, to Jim Crow Georgia where the white people welcomed Henry but permanently nicknamed him “Hank,” because addressing a black boy by his Christian name was a trifle too respectful, even if he happened to be the greatest power hitter ever, in the history of baseball — yes, ever! The record is still 755 home runs and everyone knows it.

Suzie got around to reminiscing about the Milwaukee Braves because of an article in the Times about her adopted team, the Boston Red Sox. I, too, embraced the Red Sox during those empty five summers between the Braves’ betrayal and the arrival in 1970 of the erstwhile Seattle Pilots (re-christened as Brewers).

The Times article discussed the adoption by the Red Sox of beardedness. The Sox dugout has become a strange haven of hairy men, battering their unshaven way to victory in the American League East. I remarked to Suzie how strange that none of the commentary on the hirsute Sox has cited their most storied baseball forebears, the semi-pro House of David nine, a team of religious celibates that required beards. The Davids barnstormed America from the 1920’s to the 1950’s and included a number of notable non-celibate signees including Grover Cleveland Alexander, Satchel Paige, Mordecai Brown and Babe Didrickson.

As the discussion wandered, I suggested that one of the semi-pro squads the House of David almost certainly battled would have been a fearsome Wisconsin outfit called the Beloit Fairies, so named because they were underwritten by their employer, the mighty Fairbanks-Morse Engine Company. The Fairies, who struck fear into the hearts of Major League teams, were once described by Baseball Commissioner Kennesaw Mountain Landis as an “outlaw team” after they swiped star lefty Hippo Vaughn from the Chicago Cubs. In 1919, the Fairies, who also played football, handed the Green Bay Packers their first defeat — ever.

But I digress, which is what Suzie and I did, lazily, while our coffee cooled and other customers elbowed past, on their way to the office. As I returned to my own newspaper, I thought of how sports seem to sand off the sharper edges of human contact. Politics and religion inevitably irk people, but sports (except, for some reason, soccer) tend to soothe and mellow. They summon nostalgia and inspire homespun philosophy. There’s a tendency toward empathy — even among rivals — that’s a little more evident in an underdog community like Wisconsin.

When I lost the Braves in ‘65, barely a teenager, I didn’t turn to the Yankees, who were on TV, on CBS, every Saturday all summer long. I hated the damn Yankees, because they were on TV, on CBS, every Saturday all summer long. The Cubs, a bonafide underdog, were tempting, but they’d been the Braves’ nearest rivals. The Red Sox, a yearly Greek tragedy with a Polack hero (Carl Yastrzemski) were the logical alternative for a chronic darkhorse-rooter. I’ve never looked back.

If you come from an underdog culture, like Suzie and me, you tend naturally toward both pessimism and romance. You also take pride in knowing the fine details of the sports you love, so as to explain — indeed, to justify — the latest disappointment. Even in victory, we cavil. For instance, after a recent ten-inning win over the Yankees, I couldn’t help saying to Hotlips: “Sure, a great come-from-behind… But if the bullpen hadn’t coughed up a five-run lead in the 7th… This could bode ill in the playoffs… If we make the playoffs… Sure, we have a seven-and-a-half game lead, but dammit, the bullpen’s worn OUT…”

And so we go, the lovers of long shots, the dark romantics, the overanalyzing pessimists, surprised by success and wary of instant replay.

But underdogs and front-runners alike, we get along somehow. Because we know the rules and nuances, we can overlook differences in politics, religion, race and roots that might otherwise cast us as enemies. We might argue, even fiercely, as we compare, say, Favre and Montana but — usually — we notice that the whole debate seems a little silly. It’s only sports. So we say, “Hey, they were both the best. And you can’t really compare eras.” (High five)

An old friend (and nemesis), Big Mike, told me once he had been estranged from his father for decades. But when the old man was dying, Big Mike buried the hatchet and went, cautiously, to the hospital. For a while, neither dared to speak, lest they open old wounds and end up raging at each other unto the father’s last breath. When finally they spoke, they found themselves reminiscing fondly for hours about the one innocent passion they had shared since Big Mike was little and they had watched, together, every Sunday in the fall, the San Francisco 49ers. Mike found a a way, through a bond that seems unique to sports memories, to comfort his father lovingly until he died, and to feel that love for him forever after.

Of course,  Big Mike is probably still a horse’s ass. And I still hate the 49ers.