By Ronald N. Guy Jr
In the immortal words of Buffalo Springfield, “There’s
something happening here and what it is ain’t exactly clear.” But by the time you read this, the verdict
will be in - the Washington Nationals will have won the World Series or have
fallen painfully short – and I…we…will have lived, for better or for worse, what
was previously unknown.
Crazy statement: The outcome doesn’t matter. Some context…
I worked with a Yankees fan in the early 2000s. A keen eye will recognize the timeframe as a
glorious, multi-championship era (the Yankees won four championships between
1996 and 2003) and question my colleague’s authenticity. No need – “Bob” arrived in Southern Maryland
from New York and the shadows of Yankee Stadium. He wasn’t a Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera
bandwagon fan; the pinstripes were in his bones.
At the time, I had never had a baseball team of my own
– the Nats wouldn’t arrive until 2005. I
casually rooted for the Orioles as a kid, but once Cal Ripken Jr. retired, I
abandoned them and Peter Angelos, their curmudgeon owner, altogether. Me and the O’s? There was never any love.
This is relevant because loving a baseball team is
different from other sports. Baseball is
beautifully antiquated, a unicorn of sorts in this otherwise instant and
over-stimulated age. It forces us to
slow down, to contemplate, to think carefully and notice little details normally
smudged by life on fast-forward. During
the regular season, sitting in the park on a beautiful summer day offers a
therapeutic calm; during the playoffs, watching this untimed sport filled with
mind-racing dead-time can torment like no other.
Bob and I worked together for about three years and
his beloved Yankees made the playoffs every fall of our professional overlap. Sometimes things went the Yankees’ – and Bob’s
– way, and sometimes they didn’t.
Whatever the outcome, the games were usually long, dramatic affairs with
an emotional, anxiety-inducing crescendo with every pitch.
I loved talking to him the morning after epic games (easier
if the Yankees won). The outcome wasn’t
my primary interest; instead, I was intrigued to hear from a true, diehard fan,
what it was like to root for a baseball team - your beloved baseball team - during
a deep October run to the World Series.
Bob had a light-up-the-room, beaming smile that was
typically accompanied by a warm chuckle.
I remember pressing him once after a particularly epic Yankees playoff
game, “Bob what was it like for you watching that…pitch after pitch, inning
after inning?” Bob grinned and said,
“Ronnie, you can’t understand…it is like misery and joy at the same time.”
Bruce Springsteen is known to scream, “Is anybody
alive out there?”, before ripping into his song “Radio Nowhere”. It’s a rousing pulse-check, just to make sure
his audience is appropriately frenzied. This
October, as the Nationals marched to the World Series, obsessive pacing, sweaty
palms, guttural screams of joy and anguish and a permanent knot in my stomach became
evening norms. Sleep…was in short
supply. At all points, I felt very much
alive. Or was I accelerating toward a premature,
stress-induced demise? Maybe both?
Regardless, and like Bob earlier this millennium, I
wouldn’t have had it any other way. The
Nats didn’t just inject my October…our October…with adrenaline, they brought us
together in a way that few things other than sports can. We rallied behind the excellence of Juan
Soto, who just turned 21, the irresistible story Ryan Zimmerman, the 35-year-old,
lifelong Nat, and “Baby Shark”, the Gerardo Parra walk-up song that galvanized
Nats Nation. It was all highly contagious,
memorable stuff.
Whatever the ending, we rallied together and shared
much - ups and downs, hope and doubt, joy and anxiety. Curly “W’s became our trademark; wearing red,
white and blue represented more than patriotism; and starting work days with
discussions of baseball was certainly more fun than, you know, actual
work. D.C. in the fall of 2019 transformed
into the New York that was described to me so many years ago. What a time to be alive.
Wherever Bob is, I picture him smiling while he
whispers, “Now Ronnie understands”.
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