{"id":1051,"date":"2009-03-11T18:12:30","date_gmt":"2009-03-12T01:12:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/2009\/03\/11\/march-musings\/"},"modified":"2009-03-18T20:14:34","modified_gmt":"2009-03-19T03:14:34","slug":"march-musings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/2009\/03\/11\/march-musings\/","title":{"rendered":"March Musings"},"content":{"rendered":"

Musings on the month of March and its similarities to lions and lambs.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Yankee Years<\/em> has officially changed its name to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Torre Book.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/strong>
\nI don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t refer to The Old Man and the Sea<\/em> as \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Hemingway Book.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00c2\u00a0 So why has this piece, written primarily by Tom Verducci of Sports Illustrated, become known solely by its author?\u00c2\u00a0 Walk into a New York bar.\u00c2\u00a0 After paying ten dollars for a watered down drink and elbowing your way past seventy people all wearing the same \u00e2\u20ac\u0153trendy\u00e2\u20ac\u009d outfit, ask someone if he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s read The Yankee Years.\u00c2\u00a0 Then wait for the blank stare and awkward references to Bobby Murcer\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Yankee for Life<\/em>.\u00c2\u00a0 Ask about \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the Torre book\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and be prepared to endure hours of gesticulations and obscenities.<\/p>\n

I read the book.\u00c2\u00a0 It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s good.\u00c2\u00a0 It spends a lot of time explaining how the economics of baseball have shifted, how steroids were an unspoken part of the baseball culture, and way too much time explaining how the Yankees screwed Torre.\u00c2\u00a0 Reading the book was like speaking with your best friend\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s longtime girlfriend after they just broke up.\u00c2\u00a0 Every few sentences, she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s going to badmouth him.\u00c2\u00a0 You know it.\u00c2\u00a0 You expect it.\u00c2\u00a0 But you also ignore it.\u00c2\u00a0 You know they had plenty of good times in those years they were together.\u00c2\u00a0 You were there.\u00c2\u00a0 The hugs, the kisses, the dancing, the tears of joy, you saw it.\u00c2\u00a0 The same holds true for Joe Torre, just with more tears.<\/p>\n

Alex Rodriguez had surgery.\u00c2\u00a0 He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be out 6-9 weeks.\u00c2\u00a0 <\/strong>
\nI mention this only because I live in the New York area and am legally obligated to do so every time I write.\u00c2\u00a0 Seriously, I just read about the injury in an issue of Superman.\u00c2\u00a0 One of my students handed me a paper on the assigned topic of Ben Franklin\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s desire to unify the American colonies. The student wrote on how the cyst in Rodriguez\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hip resulted from the malformation of the joint and not from steroid use.\u00c2\u00a0 I gave the kid an A.<\/p>\n

The WBC Has Become Must-See TV.<\/strong>
\nHave you ever woken up one morning, flipped on Sportscenter or checked the internet, seen the highlights of a truly outstanding, once-in-a-lifetime type game, and thought to yourself, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Man, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s one I wished I stayed up for?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00c2\u00a0 Throughout the summer, on any given day, there are upwards of fifteen baseball games.\u00c2\u00a0 The law of averages says that you will simply not see every game or moment you want.\u00c2\u00a0 It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s natural.\u00c2\u00a0 My cable can simply not air eight games at once.\u00c2\u00a0 I watch the highlights, I marvel at the exploits, I get over it.\u00c2\u00a0 The kicker: I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve never felt like I missed anything in early March.\u00c2\u00a0 Players injured in spring training stayed injured, bad outings faded away as the season approached, anything that happened down south on a baseball field could wait a few days for my attention.\u00c2\u00a0 Not anymore.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday evening, an upstart Netherlands team met the talent-laden team of the Dominican Republic in a World Baseball Classic elimination game.\u00c2\u00a0 Despite the Netherlands\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 early victory over the same team, a comparison between the two would lead one to believe that the Dominicans would simply outclass the Dutch.\u00c2\u00a0 Heading into the tournament, the Dominicans boasted a gaudy, star-heavy lineup featuring players like Hanley Ramirez, Robinson Cano, Jose Reyes, and David Ortiz.\u00c2\u00a0 If I were to enter a rotisserie league with the Dominican roster, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d feel good about my chances in the league. Conversely, if that of the Netherlands was my lineup for opening day of the fantasy season, you would have found me wandering the streets of San Francisco, having not shaved for days and drinking warm milk like Ron Burgundy after Jack Black punted Baxter.<\/p>\n

Guess what: the Netherlands won!\u00c2\u00a0 They beat the heavily favored Dominicans!\u00c2\u00a0 Twice!\u00c2\u00a0 In a row!\u00c2\u00a0 And I missed it! Instead, I chose to watch Jack Bauer violently berate all sorts of state officials and to marvel at the fact that most participants of the Amazing Race spelled \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Chekhov\u00e2\u20ac\u009d correctly in one try. There aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t enough exclamation marks out there to adequately describe my frustration.<\/p>\n

The game had everything you would ever ask of a baseball game: crisp pitching, passionate competitors, and plenty of tense moments.\u00c2\u00a0 Besides Pedro Martinez\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s continuing audition for a major league contract (3 IP, 0 ER, 2 K) and Ubaldo Jimenez\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s delight at not having to face major league hitters (4 IP, 0 ER, 2 H, 10 K), the game also included extra innings, and a final eleventh inning for the ages.\u00c2\u00a0 When the Dominicans scored in the top of the eleventh, established major leaguers\u00e2\u20ac\u201dbona fide all-stars\u00e2\u20ac\u201ddanced, cheered, and hugged like they had pulled ahead in the eleventh inning of a World Series game.\u00c2\u00a0 When Eric Aybar mishandled that ball at first base and Gene Kingsale crossed home plate as the winning run, pandemonium ensued.\u00c2\u00a0 You see celebrations like that at the end of the World Series\u00e2\u20ac\u201dbe it Little League, NCAA, and MLB\u00e2\u20ac\u201dnot in March.<\/p>\n

Say what you will about Major League Baseball over the last few years, it got this one right.\u00c2\u00a0 If the crowds are any indication, the world is watching this tournament.\u00c2\u00a0 I know I will.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Musings on the month of March and its similarities to lions and lambs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":53,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1051","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1051","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/53"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1051"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1051\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}