I never cried reading a newspaper. Until today.
I never cried reading a newspaper. Until today.
Last night we screamed when Howie Kendrik's home run clanged off the foul pole (I wonder how many people in DC will use that sound as their phone's ring tone.). Robin and I kissed and hugged the cats and each other at the last out. We fell asleep in bed saying "The Nats won the World Series." to each other in the dark as the cats made themselves comfortable on the bed.
This morning I put on a Nationals cap and went out to buy a Washington Post and have a cup of coffee at Hype Cafe, the home of the best cup of coffee on Capitol Hill, perhaps in all of Washington, DC. The woman serving the coffee and I smiled and laughed about the headline on the newspaper. Then I sat down and started to read Thomas Boswell's column and other articles about the game.
And I started to cry.
I had watched all the games, so it wasn't as if anything in any of the articles was news to me. Sure it's fun to relive the moments of the previous week and month and season. And yes it's sweet to remember the wretched seasons of the past while savoring this year's season of wonder. Barry Svrluga listed the number of losses in earlier seasons, a couple of them over 100, when Robin and I would sometimes sit alone in a section of the stadium watching loss after loss. Kudos to Svrluga for the observation that summed up those days: "The World Series was a television program."
The path the Nationals took this season from the doldrums of May to the glory of October is a dream for sports writers. Players refusing to accept defeat eventually rising to do the miraculous. Some of the games of the World Series were almost microcosms of the season, fizzling offense and frustration in early innings, followed by an exhilarating comeback and triumph. So it's probably no surprise that the prose is so beautiful, because the story is so beautiful. It's the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy played on a baseball diamond. If the team's season came out as a movie, I'd watch it in the theater three times and then buy the DVD and watch it some more. I love a great story, so that's why I started to cry.
Turning the pages of the paper and looking at the color photographs and articles made the story of the Nationals win seem permanent. Looking at stories online last night seemed ephemeral by comparison. The newspaper sitting on our desk today will never leave our house. A guy in line at the cafe asked where one even bought a newspaper anymore. I told him the drugstore across the street. He came back empty handed, saying they'd sold out. People want last night's story to be permanent.
As I sat in the cafe reading and hiding my teary eyes behind the paper (you can't do that with a stinking phone or tablet), I remembered the opening sentence of Shirley Povich's masterpiece about Lou Gehrig's farewell speech: "I saw strong men weep this afternoon..." Yes, the circumstances are completely different, the laying low by disease of one of baseball's true titans versus the eventual victory of a talented team often favored to succeed in post-season that always fell flat. And I'm not a particularly strong man. But baseball can make a person cry in a way that no other sport can.
Shirley Povich's column in the Post--This Morning--was required reading in DC for decades (If you've never read his stuff, find some and read it.). As I thought of Povich, I remembered my dad reading the Post in the morning with a cup of coffee beside him, even teaching me how to read the paper, "First look at the stories on the front page, then go to the editorial page, then go to This Morning." For most people in DC, the order was reversed. This morning I didn't look at the front page apart from World Series stories nor the editorial page. Sorry, dad.
I only went to one Washington Senators game with my dad as a kid in 1970. After the Senators deserted DC, we didn't really follow baseball much, devoting our male sports genes to the Washington Redskins. When baseball returned to DC in 2005, Robin and I walked to games at RFK and then Nationals Stadium. My dad never went to a game as my folks were getting up in years, though we brought them hats and such, and I'd sometimes watch a game with him on TV. My folks died just as the Nationals started to win frequently in 2012.
When the Chicago Cubs finally won the World Series again in 2016 after a century long drought, there were poignant stories of people going to graveyards to listen to the games on the radio at their parents' graves as the Cubs won the World Series. Well the Nationals/Expos just won their first World Series since they were founded in 1969 and DC has it's first World Series win in 95 years. So that's pretty special right there. The way they got there and the way they won it makes it even better. So I suppose my folks should see the paper.
This morning, the World Series is not just a television program.
Last night we screamed when Howie Kendrik's home run clanged off the foul pole (I wonder how many people in DC will use that sound as their phone's ring tone.). Robin and I kissed and hugged the cats and each other at the last out. We fell asleep in bed saying "The Nats won the World Series." to each other in the dark as the cats made themselves comfortable on the bed.
This morning I put on a Nationals cap and went out to buy a Washington Post and have a cup of coffee at Hype Cafe, the home of the best cup of coffee on Capitol Hill, perhaps in all of Washington, DC. The woman serving the coffee and I smiled and laughed about the headline on the newspaper. Then I sat down and started to read Thomas Boswell's column and other articles about the game.
And I started to cry.
I had watched all the games, so it wasn't as if anything in any of the articles was news to me. Sure it's fun to relive the moments of the previous week and month and season. And yes it's sweet to remember the wretched seasons of the past while savoring this year's season of wonder. Barry Svrluga listed the number of losses in earlier seasons, a couple of them over 100, when Robin and I would sometimes sit alone in a section of the stadium watching loss after loss. Kudos to Svrluga for the observation that summed up those days: "The World Series was a television program."
The path the Nationals took this season from the doldrums of May to the glory of October is a dream for sports writers. Players refusing to accept defeat eventually rising to do the miraculous. Some of the games of the World Series were almost microcosms of the season, fizzling offense and frustration in early innings, followed by an exhilarating comeback and triumph. So it's probably no surprise that the prose is so beautiful, because the story is so beautiful. It's the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy played on a baseball diamond. If the team's season came out as a movie, I'd watch it in the theater three times and then buy the DVD and watch it some more. I love a great story, so that's why I started to cry.
Turning the pages of the paper and looking at the color photographs and articles made the story of the Nationals win seem permanent. Looking at stories online last night seemed ephemeral by comparison. The newspaper sitting on our desk today will never leave our house. A guy in line at the cafe asked where one even bought a newspaper anymore. I told him the drugstore across the street. He came back empty handed, saying they'd sold out. People want last night's story to be permanent.
As I sat in the cafe reading and hiding my teary eyes behind the paper (you can't do that with a stinking phone or tablet), I remembered the opening sentence of Shirley Povich's masterpiece about Lou Gehrig's farewell speech: "I saw strong men weep this afternoon..." Yes, the circumstances are completely different, the laying low by disease of one of baseball's true titans versus the eventual victory of a talented team often favored to succeed in post-season that always fell flat. And I'm not a particularly strong man. But baseball can make a person cry in a way that no other sport can.
Shirley Povich's column in the Post--This Morning--was required reading in DC for decades (If you've never read his stuff, find some and read it.). As I thought of Povich, I remembered my dad reading the Post in the morning with a cup of coffee beside him, even teaching me how to read the paper, "First look at the stories on the front page, then go to the editorial page, then go to This Morning." For most people in DC, the order was reversed. This morning I didn't look at the front page apart from World Series stories nor the editorial page. Sorry, dad.
I only went to one Washington Senators game with my dad as a kid in 1970. After the Senators deserted DC, we didn't really follow baseball much, devoting our male sports genes to the Washington Redskins. When baseball returned to DC in 2005, Robin and I walked to games at RFK and then Nationals Stadium. My dad never went to a game as my folks were getting up in years, though we brought them hats and such, and I'd sometimes watch a game with him on TV. My folks died just as the Nationals started to win frequently in 2012.
When the Chicago Cubs finally won the World Series again in 2016 after a century long drought, there were poignant stories of people going to graveyards to listen to the games on the radio at their parents' graves as the Cubs won the World Series. Well the Nationals/Expos just won their first World Series since they were founded in 1969 and DC has it's first World Series win in 95 years. So that's pretty special right there. The way they got there and the way they won it makes it even better. So I suppose my folks should see the paper.
 |
| I brought my folks today's paper. |
This morning, the World Series is not just a television program.
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