We were playing in the dusty back field of West Hempstead High, a forgotten Senior Minors baseball game that normally would have meant the world to us, except the world had gotten a lot smaller suddenly. We were 13 years old, meaning we were 5 years older than the Islanders but, really, we all had grown up together.
And now the Islanders were in overtime. They were a game away from winning the first Stanley Cup in their history — but, more important, they were a game away from winning the first championship of our lifetimes. There were four of five of us sitting anxiously on the bench, living and dying with every description of every play. I remember a coach reminding me I was up. I remember striking out on three pitches. I remember that for the first time in my life, I didn’t care.
In the field, we never wanted to record a 1-2-3 inning quicker, and we did. By the time we got back to the bench, the overtime period was about half over. Our coach was disgusted. Our heads were in the game, just not the one we were playing in. They were about 10 minutes away, a straight shot down Hempstead Turnpike.
And this is what I remember then:
“NYSTROM!”
That wasn’t from the radio play-by-play man. It was from one of my teammates. The radio just confirmed it. Bobby Nystrom had scored the goal. The Islanders were champions. Both sides of the baseball game were in chaos now. Green team and blue team exchanged high fives in an absolute torching of non-fraternizing guidelines. We didn’t care.
We were champions.
At the end of the day, that’s really why we keep coming back, right? Because we ascribe a second-person plural to these games — “We win!” “What does Pettitte’s injury mean for us?” — and we take them personally, and we suffer and we bleed, and every now and again we get a team that really does make it all seem worthwhile, you know?
I was listening to a tape of Chris Russo’s monologue the other day, the one from after his San Francisco Giants finally won him a championship, and I heard all the things you expect to hear from a pleased fan — joy, relief, euphoria, all of it. But mostly what I heard was this: satisfaction. So often we ask ourselves why we put ourselves through the rigors of fandom, the brief highs and extended lows, the awful prices, the sour athletes who wear vestments that mean little to them and everything to us.
That’s why. For that feeling. For the moment Bobby Nystrom slipped the puck in the net at Nassau Coliseum, making 13-year-old me understand that yes, once in a while, your devotion pays off. People who don’t like sports don’t get it, never will, and I find myself pitying them. My wife went to LSU, and she responded to their two BCS titles in the last 10 years with yawns.
But it was when LSU made the basketball Final Four a few years ago when it really cut deep. See, my alma mater, St. Bonaventure, does play hoops, and it actually did make a Final Four 40 years ago, and almost certainly never will again — though I would volunteer various possessions, relations, and body parts if I could will it to be so.
My wife’s reaction to Big Baby Davis taking LSU to the promised land, my promised land? An even bigger yawn. Sigh. So she will be spared the agony sports can provide. She also will never know the flip side, ever.
I would feel sorry for her.
Except I think she’s the one feeling sorry for me.
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WHACK BACK AT VAC
Steve Friedman:
Derek Jeter was a great player but is in serious decline and a name synonymous with past achievements, like Posada. Don’t you think paying Jeter $189 million the last 10 years was good enough for services rendered? Cutting ties with him and Posada will hurt temporarily, but thinking objectively, it would be in the best interests of the Yankees as they move forward as a team.
Vac
: As expected, Derek Jeter’s free agency inspired amazing amounts of letters on both sides of the fence. This is one side. An equal amount sit in the opposing camp:
BDDREBLKOB@aol.com:
I realize Jeter’s production has declined, but he is vital to team chemistry, vital to the fan base. He is the heart and soul of the Yankees He spews class in all aspects of his professional career on and off the field and should be allowed to play far as long as he wants as long as his performance is not openly hurting the team.
Vac
: These are the fans the Yankees, I believe, ultimately will listen to. And if not, they can always envision an apocalypse like this one:
John DeMarco:
If you are Messrs. Epstein and Henry, what is the down side to offering Jeter four years at $75 million? You might be driving the number of years and dollars up, and even if Jeter were to accept you have crippled the Yankees at that position, embarrassed the Yankees organization, and ably filled a position where you have not had a decent shortstop in years.
Vac
: Or this one:
Angela Olchaskey:
What’s the chance of seeing Jeter in Port St. Lucie come February. . .?
Vac
: Any Yankees fans shuddering yet?
VAC’S WHACKS
* It’s probably not much consolation to Jets fans if I point out they’re just 10 points away from being undefeated, or that they’re 5-0 in games where they score a touchdown, right? No, I didn’t think so.
* He hasn’t coached a game yet on Utopia Parkway (or the Garden), let alone won one (or lost one) but Steve Lavin has people talking about St. John’s basketball in a way they haven’t talked in years. This means the school didn’t only win the press conference, it has won the honeymoon period, too.
* The only good reason I can think of why you aren’t watching “Parenthood” on Tuesday nights is that it’s on opposite “The Good Wife” — but then that’s what DVRs are for, right?
* Now the Giants are knocking out quarterbacks before they show up?