Enthusiasms

When a man become preeminent he is expected to have enthusiasms.

What are mine? What draws my admiration? What is that which gives me joy?

Baseball!


Yes, I thought I'd throw a little Capone everyone's way today because I'd like to say just a few words about America's Pastime.

I love baseball. It seems every year I fall more and more in love with this game. And even though every year I end up getting deeply hurt by Chicago's National League Ball Club I'm usually able to spend some time with my good friend Jack Daniel's and be bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, and naively optimistic by the time spring training rolls around.

I guess this lovefest was spurned because of a great chat I had yesterday. I went to Santa Monica to do some stuff and I wanted to go to this big sports bar and have a beer, some lunch, and catch the Cubs-Cardinals game.

I soon found out the game was blacked out by FOX in the SoCal area, and I was subjected to Orioles-Angles instead. In the process of getting my beer I struck up a conversation with a fella next to me at the bar. He was a Red Sox fan (though 20 years in LA he roots for the Angels too) and we were soon knee-deep in baseball talk. Cubs, Red Sox, Angels, the hated Yankees, fantasy players, classic stadiums, Bill Buckner, Steve Bartman....you name it we touched on it.

It also turns out the guy is a writer for Variety, My favorite part of the conversation was when I was talking about the HBO documentary "Brooklyn Dodgers: The Ghosts of Flatbush" and he was like "Oh yeah, I wrote a review for that".

Cool town, L.A. can be.

Incidentally, the Dodgers doc is really good and is an especially good watch b/c the Dodgers prior to 1955 were a lot like the Cubs-who, by the way, just died in St Louis tonight. Plus I had to listen to that idiot Joe Morgan for 3 hours.

Anyway, I think it's just great when two absolute strangers--in a bar, on the train, in the stands--can talk for a couple of minutes or a couple of hours about this great game. It's been the link (through the Cubs and fantasy) that keeps me tied to my friends across the country. And coming home and going to Wrigley and maybe....maybe...even getting a game of tennis-baseball in on the (completely refurbished) cul-de-sac, that's what it's really all about.

Just thinking about it, we'll have to spray paint some new bases on. Man, the village of Glen Ellyn's gonna hate that. But what can you do? The game must be played.

5 days til New York.
7 days til Cannes.
21 days til Chicago.