Give me a doubleheader funeral in Wrigley Field / On some sunny weekend day – no lights / Have the organ play the National Anthem / And then a little ‘Na Na Na Na, Hey Hey Hey, Goodbye’ / Make six bullpen pitchers carry my coffin / And six groundskeepers clear my path / Have the umpires bark me out at every base / In all their holy wrath — Steve Goodman, A Dying Cub Fan’s Last Request, 1983.
One of the many differences I have with the Conventional Wisdom is that I see professional sports as part of our popular culture and not as a religion. If every player on the New York Mets were from New York City, and so on, that might be different. Root, root, root for the home team. Continue reading “Brainiac On Banjo #097: Yeah, Baseball!”
As I note at every available opportunity, I was born on the north side of Chicago, possibly in a log cabin. This makes me a Chicago Cubs fan by birthright. I followed baseball as a kid, but less so as an adult. The 1961 expansion confused me: why take 16 teams worth of good players and spread them out over 20? Brooklyn moved to Los Angeles, which still seems pointless, Washington moved to Minneapolis, and everybody started to do-si-do as though when the music stops somebody is going to pull a chair. A decade later some dick dreamed up the designated hitter rule and destroyed the American League forever.