I knew from the get-go that last night would be one of those catch-as-catch-can games, grabbed by bits and pieces while out and about. That's one of the joys of baseball, after all — when life dictates that you be elsewhere, you can nearly always sneak off for a half-inning or at least a quick update. (And most of the time, some truly marooned baseball fan will chase after you and beg to know the score.) Mindful of the Greg Commandments [1], I was carrying my portable radio.
A portable radio is your friend — mine is a nondescript little silver thing with a loop that lets it hang around my neck. The letters have long since worn off of it, and each spring I have to figure out what button does what through trial and error, but a few minutes' refresher course usually suffices — it's a portable radio, after all, not the space shuttle. I carry a pair of earbud headphones as well, and it's the easiest thing to put the radio around your neck under your shirt, pop one earbud in and keep track of the game while remaining at least nominally part of the world. I've even become fairly good at putting the bud in the opposite ear and carrying on a conversation. (Emily may dispute this.)
As excuses for not watching/listening to a whole game go, I had a good one: Last night was the second installment of Varsity Letters [2], a monthly showcase of great sportswriting read by the authors. Tonight's authors were Mark Lamster, whose “Spalding's World Tour” [3] sounds like an intriguing look at 19th-century baseball; David Margolick, writer of “Beyond Glory,” [4] about the 1938 rematch between Joe Louis and Max Schmelling; and Jeff Pearlman, whose new Barry Bonds bio, “Love Me, Hate Me,” [5] I devoured last week. If you're in New York City the first Wednesday of next month, drop by.
I listened to the first inning while walking across the Manhattan Bridge, marveling that I'd barely heard of most of the Pirates. (Freddy Sanchez? Ronny Paulino?) Ian Snell's on my Rotisserie team, setting up an unstoppable force/immovable object debate, since the universe seems to have dictated as laws of physics that the Mets can't hit rookie starters and that my fantasy team sucks. But I couldn't tell you what Snell looks like, beyond guessing he's bipedal. Across the bridge, I stepped outside the astonishingly tasty, astonishingly dirt-cheap Dumpling House [6] in Chinatown (I'm full of recommendations today) to hear David Wright and Cliff Floyd's misery continue. Then we made our way to Varsity Letters.
And then, an interlude. Look, a portable radio is a must-have, but there are some situations in which even a subtle bud-in-one-ear is verboten: The list includes weddings (during the actual ceremony, in the receiving line, whenever your significant other threatens you with bodily harm), funerals (the whole shebang) and when authors are reading from the books they spent so much time and trouble writing. Even were I not a writer myself, I like to think my vestigial sense of decency would have seen me through this one.
After the reading, I popped a bud back in my ear — just in time to hear “Enter Sandman.”
“3-1 Mets, Wagner on his way in,” I told my companions, offering a jaunty little thumbs-up because hey, these were the Pirates. I even let myself think that this was a pretty nice fantasy-baseball outcome: Pedro would be 6-0 and Snell couldn't have pitched too badly in the loss, so it was all good. Perhaps that's when the Baseball Gods decided punishment was in order: Suddenly those anonymous 2006 Pirates became the anonymous 2005 Pirates who sank their pointy little teeth into Braden Looper's hinder [7] one dreary night last July: Tike Redman and Humberto Cota, meet Jose Hernandez and Ronny Paulino. As the authors shook hands and signed books, I stood in the middle of the room frozen in shock and dismay, hand over one ear.
Extra innings passed largely without me, because I was risking being rude and because the night had already demonstrated that I wasn't exactly a good-luck charm. Another of the joys of baseball on the radio: Listen for a second or two in extra innings and you know what's going on, even if they don't tell you the score. Howie and Tom chatting matter-of-factly about the weather with the Pirates up was a pretty good indication that I could check in again after a couple of minutes. So it went until, finally, one more check before heading out into the night….
“Delgado being mobbed by his teammates!”
Hmmm. Did he just win them over with a stirring declamation about the bombing of Vieques? Did he just do something really cool with the donut in the on-deck circle?
No, silly. That's a walkoff. No thanks to me, but I'll take it all the same.