Friday night descends, warm and full of crickets. It is a nice change from the rowdy din of cicadas, an old stand-by down here in Texas. A quiet blankets the craft room; I have just finished watching a few hours of playoff baseball. First, the Cleveland Guardians won against the New York Yankees, and then the Philadelphia Phillies rather soundly defeated the team from Atlanta. This year baseball has excited me in a way I thought lost.
One reason for the renewed thrill? My team is back in the postseason picture, with the Guardians having won their division, and now the Wild Card Series, to land in the Division Series. Another reason, more prominent, is that a good college friend of mine is a huge baseball fan, and her team is the Phillies. She is perhaps more passionate about sports than I am at the moment, and her fanaticism is fueling my own. The Phillies did not win their division, but they played well in their Wild Card Series and are now one game away from winning their Division Series and advancing.
I am thankful for Brittani, and her enthusiasm. Baseball has always been a top passion of mine, and for her to bring out that competitive spirit in me and renew my love of the game is huge. I haven’t had someone to share baseball with in this way for a long time.
I will go to a few games a year with my parents, but my mom is being lost more and more to football and soccer, and my Dad quietly enjoys baseball, but isn’t as deep into as I can be. Yelling about a big play, and living and dying with each strike or foul ball is something I used to do all season, but a few partners that couldn’t care less have dampened that in me a little. I am glad to see that part of myself flourish once more.
Game three between the Yankees and Guardians is tomorrow night. Cleveland is two wins away from advancing to the next round. I want this scrappy team from northern Ohio to do well, and prove the naysayers wrong. They are about the youngest team in baseball, but their never-say-die attitude is invigorating to experience. Their future is in their hands, to win or lose, proving once again that October remains the best season for baseball!
In June, or even August, a series win or loss is not so important. There is time to make up a mistake, or regroup for the next series. Not so in October. Here, each moment is full of tension, promise, and promises the greatness of victory or the ignominy of loss. Teams win or lose in a moment, and once gone, those moments never come again, except in happy or bitter memory. I have many such memories from my thirty-five years of watching baseball, and I cherish them all. One day I will see my Cleveland Guardians win it all, something I’ve not witnessed yet, though they’ve been tantalizingly close a few times. Brittani’s Phillies won it all in 2008, though that now is fourteen years past. Time for them to win again? We shall see!
She and I have talked about a Phillies/Guardians World Series, and while that would be fun, I would have to cheer for the team from Cleveland and she the team from Philadelphia, and I hope the odds wouldn’t break up the fun we have now. But, we are a long way from there, and many wins yet to achieve before that can be possible. Still, the possibility remains.
All this to say, I have been a one team fan for (most) of my life: the Cleveland Guardians. They are an American League team, and I have thought for a while about picking up a National League team to root for. While in Pennsylvania, it was the Phillies, and for a while after. Then I moved to Wisconsin, and flirted with the Milwaukee Brewers. But my first love was always Cleveland. But, would it be possible to return to an old champion, and pick up a fandom once more?
I don’t think it would be the Brewers. I have too many bitter memories from Wisconsin, and I don’t like beer anyway. I remember, memories now fading, of the early 90’s, and watching an old Phillies’ team play in the postseason. In 1993, when I was six, the Phillies made it all the way to the World Series, only to lose to the Toronto Blue Jays. I don’t remember much beyond a few images and feelings (even then the excitement of October was like so much magic to me) but I remember the Phillies. Plus, my name is Phil, and well, that just fits.
Would it be too much bandwagon to jump back into the Phillies’ fandom once more? Can a man love more than one team, in my case, the Guardians my first love and the Phillies my second? Is that possible, permissible, acceptable? You know, I wrote awhile back about embracing live, and living exuberantly. I also wrote more recently about cherishing memories, and walking with a smile. Baseball allows me to do all of this and more, and if the Philadelphia Phillies brings that back, who am I to worry about made up rules and social norms?
Leave it all behind, I say, I jump in to the ocean of life. Let it wash over me, and carry me on it’s strong tides* to distant shores on which are baseball diamonds and magic! Who cares what anyone else thinks or says? Not me. So: go Phillies! and always, go Guardians!!
*Speaking of tides, the Norfolk Tides, a AAA, or semi-pro, baseball team was the first team that I got to see in a real life honest-to-goodness stadium. I remember sitting in the upper deck with my family watching Minor League baseball. We didn’t have a Major League team in our city, so this was the closest we could get. I loved those summer nights out at the ballpark, feeling on my face the breezes in from the sea, and watching baseball. So much of my core identity is out there at Harbor Park with the Tides. So I already have two teams, if I’m being honest. What’s one more?
a simple man 