Man Crush

I admit it—I have a man crush. And no, I’m not talking about Justin Timberlake. (Why does everyone think I’m kidding when I ask for a life-size anatomically correct J.T. doll every Christmas?) The tender dude-feelings I have are directed toward someone else. And I have even talked to him.

I reckon I’m a pretty simple feller. I was born and raised in Caldwell, Idaho, so I have not had many brushes with certain types: the famous, the rich, the actor, the professional athlete. So when Dude (that's what we will call him) moved in down the street from me, I was pretty stoked (the seeds of man crush were planted, you could say). See, I found out Dude was a pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals. At first I wondered if that meant he was on one of their minor league teams, or threw BP or something, but it was the real deal. Starting pitcher for the Cards. The 25 man roster and everything.

After meeting him one night down at a pick-up basketball game at our church, it was decided Dude would come and play on our church basketball team. Not a very big deal or anything. Just a lousy 'league' with a bunch of riff raff, hacks, and guys who had wrestled in high school. But with Dude on our team the games were no contest.

One night Dude was straight killing it from outside. He must have made fifteen three-pointers. The other team was pissed, and not for the regular reasons (too many fouls, bad refs, people saying "Crap!" too much). They were actually angry at Dude because he kept raining three-pointers. Our team would get a rebound, throw an outlet pass, head up court, and look for Dude. And once he got it, he was money. It was sick. Never saw anything like it before. But I didn't know I was crushing yet.

There was a mid-season tournament for our league as well. One Friday night, we played the first two rounds--the rest of the tournament would be completed the next day. After our Friday night games, Dude said, "Hey, let's all meet at Perkins tomorrow at 6 a.m." Maybe I need to clarify here, but we are talking about six-in-the-morning-on-a-Saturday; this is a sacred time for me. I will be sleeping at this time on any Saturday of the year. But at 6 a.m. the next morning I was there, throwing down my pancakes and omelet, and I am pretty sure Dude paid the bill. He was reeling me in.

Apparently Dude thought enough of my "skillz" on the court that he asked me to play on his city league team that year. I felt like a high school girl getting asked to the prom. I used to hate the way Dude liked to warm up for the game, though: he would throw the basketball overhand to me from about fifteen feet away. His arm was so strong it hurt me every time I caught it, but I never said anything. I didn't even complain when Dude recruited a couple of former players from Boise State's men's team; my playing time diminished greatly, but I was happy to be there.

It finally hit me one night when I got a phone call. It was Dude, and he just wanted to shoot the breeze. As we talked I found out he was drafted by the Orioles and pitched for them in 1996. How cool is that? He knew several of my favorite players on the team. He didn't like Davey Johnson (I forgive him that). He was thinking about moving to Florida. Anyway, we chatted for a while as I lay in my bed next to my wife, and when we hung up I sighed with satisfaction. I looked over at my wife and she was laughing at me. She never said a word, but I could tell from her look she thought I was ridiculous. And then I knew.

So, yes, Dude moved to Florida, but he is back in town now; I have seen him a few times on TV and heard him on the radio. And I am still waiting for him to call.

This should clear things up

Okay, okay. Slow down! I have had hundreds of readers e-mail and demand an explanation for the name of the blog--especially after seeing that the first entry was sports-related. So here goes:

I like W. Somerset Maugham. Heard of him? I had read most of his novels, plays, and short stories when I decided to return to college to get an English degree. I live in Boise so I enrolled at Boise State. I planned on reading a little more Maugham, and learning more about him and his contemporaries; I figured I might like some of them, too.

Wrong: I learned that academia despises Maugham as trite. And it hurt. I had learned so much and been so many places and felt so many things as I had read his words. What would I be learning over the next few years? Would I still like Maugham when I finished my degree? Well, in my studies I have come to love British literature (well, novels, anyway) from the two centuries before Maugham. There was only class in which I read anything at all by his contemporaries--20th Century British fiction--and I hated what I read. Woolf, Waugh, Lawrence? Please. I've had more satisfaction reading the side of a cereal box.

Now I am done and I still like Maugham, and my blog has his name. I will write about Maugham here, but--know this about me--I am a sports fan. And I love the Orioles. I can't explain why--since I was born and raised in Idaho--I just do. I check the box scores almost every day, and my wife always knows when the O's blow a late inning lead: I am in a bad mood the rest of the night. And if they blow a late inning lead to the Yankees? Cover your ears.

So on this blog I will write about my two passions: sports and English literature. I figured two things so closely related should naturally occupy the same space.

[I reserve the right to write about anything else I feel like, as well. Just thought I would make that clear.]

Whose fault is it?

Don’t blame Peter Angelos. He’s a lot like the rest of them. He is very smart and made a pile of money (as a lawyer) and then bought a baseball team. Then he figured because he was smart and successful in one career that he naturally could run the team instead of just own it. So he has been involved in plenty of the decisions made by the Baltimore Orioles since he bought a majority share in the franchise in 1993. And as the owner, yes, he has the right to decide what the team does. But how about hiring a “baseball person” as the general manager or president of baseball operations or whatever you want to call it? Get someone who knows how to make good baseball decisions and then stay away. But he hasn’t. So I can see why you might want to blame him for the rough ten or so years Orioles fans have endured.

The Orioles are a team with a successful history. No, really. The St. Louis Browns moved to Baltimore to become the Orioles in 1954, and in 1966 they were world champions. The Orioles played in the World Series three years in a row starting in 1969, winning in 1970. From 1968 to 1985 they never had a losing record and won ninety or more games thirteen times over that span. They lost to the Pirates in the 1979 Series but were champs again in 1983. A few lean years followed (I try to pretend sometimes that 1988 never happened; they started the season 0-21…) but by the early nineties things were looking up again. And along came Angelos.

Sure, he had his hand in some of the bad decisions that were made: I am sorry, but you do not let Davey Johnson resign over a tiff with you after he has taken the club to the ALCS in successive years. Kiss and make up and keep a good thing going, jackass! And don’t piss off Mike Mussina to the point that he won’t re-sign with the team he came up with. (Especially if he is going to go sign with the Yankees, for crying out loud!) Don’t give Joey…er, Albert Belle sixty-five million dollars when his best years are behind him. Don’t sign other aging veterans in a vain attempt to…nevermind. I told you it wasn’t his fault, anyway.

It’s Rich Garcia’s.

Yes, Rich Garcia. The right-field umpire in Game 1 of the 1996 ALCS. Baltimore had just mowed through Cleveland to face New York for the pennant. Game 1 was in New York and the O’s had it won. Until, of course, Dick (that’s my friendly name for him) Garcia was forced to make a quick decision in front of thousands of screaming New Yorkers. Instead of making the correct call on Jeter’s can of corn to right field in the bottom of the eighth inning, Garcia awarded the rookie a home run when a fan interfered with Tony Tarasco’s opportunity to catch the ball. Satan’s—oops I meant Garcia’s—gaffe tied the game and the Yankees won in extra innings. (Baltimore won Game 2 in New York, but folded after that. But had they won both games in New York…)

My favorite part is that Dick admitted after the game that he blew the call. That is nice. Thanks for that. Don’t bother getting it right when it matters. In describing his first reaction to the play, he said he never saw anyone reach out and hit it. Right. Yes. And I prefer eggplant fillets instead of meat. Why did Tarasco immediately start going crazy and pointing to the stands? You can’t youtube the video anymore because Major League Baseball yanked them all, but google ‘Jeffrey Maier’ or ‘1996 alcs’ for images and several photos (especially the side view shots) help tell the story. Or just go to this page from MLB’s webpage for the Yankees: http://newyork.yankees.mlb.com/nyy/photogallery/anniversary/1954_2003/page_13.jsp
The little blurb says it all. The fact is Garcia chickened out, realizing he might not have made it out of Yankee Stadium alive; he confessed his blunder only when it was safe.

Since then, almost everything has gone wrong for the Orioles. Yes, they made it back to the ALCS the next year, but could anyone expect them to win? And after that it has been more than ten years of utter suckfullness. (I know I don’t need to remind you that 1996 was the first of the four Yankees championships. I blame Rich Garcia for that, as well.)

So, yes, I am with those who want Peter Angelos to sell the team and move on. But I don’t expect anything good to happen for the Orioles. Rich Garcia won’t allow it.