The Morning After

I rolled over this morning and snuggled with Baseball as I usually do. “Oh, you are the best!” I cooed. “The things you do for me.” Yet Baseball seemed a little distant.

“What's the matter honey?” I asked. “You were GREAT! You're always GREAT!”

“Uh, yeah, about that…”

“What? What about that? What about that pinch-hit you gave me? The one off Rivera that won that game 9-8. MY GOD that was great!”

“That came off the bat of a guy who would later be implicated by Kirk Radomski. Radomski said he sold him steroids the season after that pinch-hit and the guy denies it, but I thought you should know.”

“Mmm…I don't care. It was so HOT!”

“There's something else I need to get off my chest,” Baseball said to me.

“What, baby?”

“That series-winning homer against Arizona?”

“Oh that was ECSTASY! I could do that whole year over right now if I could. You wanna try?”

“That homer…it came off the bat of another guy implicated by Radomski. Again, he said the sale came later, after that home run, but he also said the guy bought something along the way from another source. I'm not sure when, but I thought you should know.”

“Baby,” I told Baseball, “you should know me better than that. I'm in this with you for the passion and the thrills and the satisfaction you give me. I know you make mistakes. I could sit up right now and make a list of them. But you give me so much! I can look past a few mistakes.”

“Well, that's good to hear,” Baseball told me. “Because there were some other 'mistakes'.”

“They don't matter to me.”

“That team record for homers probably wasn't achieved, shall we say, naturally.”

“Water under the Whitestone Bridge.”

“Some of that fire behind the plate you kind of liked these last couple of years — it may have been 'roid rage.”

“It's part of the game.”

“And you know that guy you wish had never been traded to Philadelphia? Well, he apparently started on some bad habits while you were cheering for him in New York.”

“Honey,” I said. “I'm not judgmental. I know that things have happened. Would I like it better if they hadn't? I guess. Would I sort of prefer not to know about them? Probably. But does it matter to me that they did? Not really. The swings have been swung, you know? When I think back to some of the great memories you've given me, they're not gonna be clouded by allegations or even evidence. I know how I felt when the homers were hit. I really, really got off on it. I always will. I can't stay mad at you, Baseball. And I can't get mad at any of my favorite players on my favorite team retroactively. What's done is done.”

“I'm glad you feel that way,” Baseball told me. “I thought this would be difficult.”

“For some other fans,” I reassured Baseball. “Not me. I'm easy.”

“Good. 'Cause Roger Clemens has been a big-time user, too.”

“What?”

“Imagine that. One of the greatest pitchers ever may have been getting the latter half of his career out of a bottle.”

“What?”

“That's probably at least three Cy Youngs right there.”

“What?”

“Helped him win a World Series with the Yankees.”

“WHAT?”

“In 2000. The year he threw at Piazza.”

“WHAT?!”

“Him and Pettitte. Same source for steroids, albeit later…though Pettitte was working out with Clemens and his trainer McNamee before 2000.”

“WHAT?!?!”

“Yeah, they rode down the Canyon of Heroes in 2000 with Chuck Knoblauch who was also implicated in all this.”

“WHAT?!?!?!”

“Say, wasn't Knoblauch in the middle of that interference call with Zeile that made you so angry?”

“GET OUT!” I screamed at Baseball.

“Huh?”

“GET OUT OF MY LIFE YOU BASTARD!”

“Honey, you said everything was fine. That what was done was done.”

“That was BEFORE you told me about this! Clemens and Pettitte and Knoblauch…”

“Denny Neagle too. He was mentioned. Didn't he start Game Four?”

“THEY CHEATED? AND THEY GOT TO WIN THE GODDAMN 2000 WORLD SERIES?”

“But you were OK just a minute ago when I told you about Matt Franco and Todd Pratt…”

“THE YANKEES CHEATED!”

“…and Todd Hundley and Paul Lo Duca…”

“THE WORLD SERIES! AGAINST US!”

“…and Lenny Dykstra. You knew Dykstra had been charged with DUI years ago and yet you stood and applauded for him at Old Timers Night in 2006.”

“OHMIGOD! THE YANKEES STOLE THE 2000 WORLD SERIES! THERE NEEDS TO BE AN INVESTIGATION!”

“There was an investigation. It was all over TV yesterday.”

“THERE NEED TO BE SUSPENSIONS! IMPRISONMENTS! EXECUTIONS!”

I was seething at Baseball. Baseball tried to calm me down.

“Honey, you seem to be…”

“WHAT? WHAT? WHAT DO I SEEM TO BE?”

“Well, you're rationalizing.”

“I'M WHAT?”

“Well, you're taking the information about the players and the team you like and processing it one way and taking the information about the players and the team you don't like and processing it another way.”

“WHAT DID YOU CALL ME?”

“I didn't call you anything, but you are acting a little irrational toward me.”

“YA THINK?”

I gave Baseball a piece of my mind after that.

“Of course I'm irrational when it comes to you. How could anyone be very rational for very long when it comes to dealing with Baseball? Does anything I do with you make any sense? Does it make any sense the way the 2007 season ended?”

“Um, this has nothing to do with that.”

“SHUT UP! I'M TALKING!”

“All right…”

“IT'S ALL PART OF THE GODDAMNED BEAUTIFUL AND PERPLEXING TAPESTRY! Don't you understand that? Don't you understand the little deals we make with ourselves? Don't you know how hard I fucking rooted for players I absolutely hated because they were on my team? Don't you know how I couldn't stand the way my team was acting all this year and yet I kept trying to force myself to BELIEVE in them? Don't you think that if there were a pill or a shot I could have given all of them in September that would have made them NOT COLLAPSE that I wouldn't have shown up in their clubhouse quicker than you could say 'Kirk Radomski' and administered it? DO YOU THINK I CARE HOW THEY WIN?”

“I guess you don't.”

“No. I don't. Not really. Maybe after the fact. Maybe for a little while. You think I didn't cringe for a second or two when I saw Todd Pratt's name in that report? You think I didn't immediately scroll down to see it happened in 2000, not in '99? And that I didn't breathe a sigh of relief? You don't think I did the same thing for Matt Franco? That I was thrilled that whatever he bought or took came after he got that hit off Rivera? You think I want to think any of my best memories are tainted?”

“No?”

“DAMN RIGHT NO! And if I have to twist the chronology of everything that ever happened to make it so Pratt's homer to win the NLDS and Franco's pinch-hit to win that Subway Series game were untainted, then let me tell you, Baseball, I will make it so.”

“I see.”

“And if I have to — and I hate this cliché, but in this case it's appropriate because I would literally do it — throw ROGER FUCKING CLEMENS and his cheating, hypocritical, headhunting, bat-throwing, excuse-making, revolting ASS under the BUS to make myself feel better, then after all the time I've put into this game and after all the money I've spent on this game and after all the fucking tears I've shed over this game and all the vocal cords I've damaged yelling at this fucking game, then, Baseball, I am going to do whatever it takes to keep me sane in an absolutely insane fucking endeavor. Believe me, it won't be the first time either.”

Baseball grabbed me and held me tight.

“You're not mad at me?” I asked.

“Mad? Hell, that's exactly how I hoped you'd react,” Baseball told me. “Actually, it's how I figured you'd react. You're a Baseball fan. You're beautiful, but you're not that perplexing.”

“Oh Baseball. You always know just how to get to me.”

“Enough of this. Let's say you and I jump back into bed together. You can tell me again where you were when Pratt hit that home run.”

“Well, I was in the mezzanine, and at first I thought there was no way it was going out…”