Small Town
Arrogant New Yorkers, be wary. This is the dawn of the Boston Red Sox' victory, coming from three games down in a best of seven series ending at 12:01 in the morning, the "biggest comeback in baseball history." I cannot argue the facts here, it was just too late for me. I am just repeating what I've heard, that Boston won in heroic style in Yankee Stadium is incontrovertible.
So, at the gas station, I say to Andrew, the manager: "A hard morning for New Yorkers," and he smiles, agreeing with me. Mike, the one-armed garbage man, AKA "Flip" says: "New York is the financial capital of the world." And I say to Flip, not calling him the name we knew him as when we were little boys: "Mr. Harrington, I thought that Saudi Arabia was." And he said, "All the money in the world still couldn't buy the series for the Yankees over the Red Sox." No one in this little New England town seemed terribly dismayed. So Andrew tells me to look at the picture on the door going out. After looking at all the wrong pictures, postings and cartoons, there I see the picture of W Bush and in a dark suit standing next to Flip, also in a business suit. What's wrong with this picture? Flip-Mike-Mr. Harrington comes over to see the photograph. "Holy shit! That's me with the president!" I guess it was some kind of trick, a computer morph job, merging two separate images into one, the way they do it on the cover of The National Enquirer, since the two had never met.
Everyone laughed. Even though it is nearly November, the days shorter and colder, people seemed in a genuinely fine mood today, especially for having stayed up so late. Thanks, Yanks! Thanks for putting the curse of the Babe to rest after all these 80-something years. It was a kind and gentle thing, from the softer, unglimpsed side of gentle owner Steinbrenner. Just think how, in a single game, he cured the collective psyche of hardcore New Englanders, not to be confused with Yankees. It is something to give thanks for at Thanksgiving, an early Christmas present to beat all presents. They say in these parts that there will be a lot of deaths in the coming weeks, people who have been hanging on all these years just to see the baseball miracle of the past century now may breathe a final breath and expire.
So, at the gas station, I say to Andrew, the manager: "A hard morning for New Yorkers," and he smiles, agreeing with me. Mike, the one-armed garbage man, AKA "Flip" says: "New York is the financial capital of the world." And I say to Flip, not calling him the name we knew him as when we were little boys: "Mr. Harrington, I thought that Saudi Arabia was." And he said, "All the money in the world still couldn't buy the series for the Yankees over the Red Sox." No one in this little New England town seemed terribly dismayed. So Andrew tells me to look at the picture on the door going out. After looking at all the wrong pictures, postings and cartoons, there I see the picture of W Bush and in a dark suit standing next to Flip, also in a business suit. What's wrong with this picture? Flip-Mike-Mr. Harrington comes over to see the photograph. "Holy shit! That's me with the president!" I guess it was some kind of trick, a computer morph job, merging two separate images into one, the way they do it on the cover of The National Enquirer, since the two had never met.
Everyone laughed. Even though it is nearly November, the days shorter and colder, people seemed in a genuinely fine mood today, especially for having stayed up so late. Thanks, Yanks! Thanks for putting the curse of the Babe to rest after all these 80-something years. It was a kind and gentle thing, from the softer, unglimpsed side of gentle owner Steinbrenner. Just think how, in a single game, he cured the collective psyche of hardcore New Englanders, not to be confused with Yankees. It is something to give thanks for at Thanksgiving, an early Christmas present to beat all presents. They say in these parts that there will be a lot of deaths in the coming weeks, people who have been hanging on all these years just to see the baseball miracle of the past century now may breathe a final breath and expire.
posted by Stonechuck at 11:37 AM
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