I still sorta can't believe they beat the Yankees. And the Yankees didn't beat them. And they didn't beat themselves.
I swear, it feels as if maybe the little guy might get a little something for a little while, you know?
I remember reading somewhere when I was young that it was the American Way to root for the underdog. That's a concept I'm sentimental about, as one is sentimental about innocent things of one's youth.
Now I wasn't a terribly big baseball fan as a kid, and my father & brother were more into football. It took (as I was telling
disclaimerwill not so long ago) the losin'est bunch---the 1988 Orioles, setting a record at the beginning of the year for consecutive losses to open a season---to get me. And for me to get it.There are reasons, as I'm sure it's been speculated many a time, that baseball is the literary sport. But it's the game little kids can play, that may involve muscles but not brute force---it's the way it's that game that they're playing that means you HAVE to root for the underdogs. The diamond's where the underdogs can get a little back on the bullies, the dominant.
In the great baseball musicals and films, after all, our protagonists aren't the freakin' perennial beaters-up of teams with fewer resources.
But enough of that. Let me ask you this: Is there any way the Yankees would have been out there hugging each other, one on one, in probably at least half the mathematically possible pairings, for a good ten solid minutes after the game?
Well, IS there any way?
no!
0(0.0%)
no WAY!
1(33.3%)
no way in HELL!
2(66.7%)
Yankees don't hug. Or if they do, they're careful to be manly about it.
HA! The Axis of Evil goes DOWN!! Steinbrenner--Torre--Jeter! Or name yer Axis---YANKS LOSE! RED SOX SURVIVE! HAIRY JOHNNY IS STAR OF GAME!!
There's never, in my lifetime, been such good cause for a feeling of destiny about the Babe lifting the curse.
The implications for the Bush administration are dire! Fates, are we hearing you right? Is it time for a small uprising of the people again, for whatever time we can manage to hold the window open before they slam it down again?
