Geaux Saints!

I rarely write about sports here on the blog, but I'm faced with something I truly never thought would happen: The New Orleans Saints going to the Super Bowl. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad for them, you might even say delighted. When I was growing up in Mississippi, the Saints were the nearest NFL team, so we saw their games every painful, excruciating week. And they were awful. I mean really bad. If you didn't grow up watching them every week, I'm not sure you can truly appreciate the depth of atrociousness that was the Saints.

They really sucked.



Yet there were glimmers. There was Tom Dempsey (a man with half a left foot) kicking a 63-yard field goal in 1970, a record that still stands today (although Jason Elam tied the record a few years ago). And of course, there was Archie Manning. I remember watching the Saints on TV and going to a couple of games. At the time, I didn't know a lot about football, yet I did know that quarterback Manning was clearly talented, but he couldn't do it all by himself. As a whole, the team just never seemed to be able to put it all together. Manning's last season was in 1982, about halfway thorough my college days. I still watched, still hoped, but to no avail. It really boggled the mind how the Saints would have a game all but locked up and lose in the closing seconds due to either a bonehead play or a freak sequence of events that no one could have predicted. When Ken Stabler went to the Saints for three seasons in the 80s, there was hope, but those hopes never materialized. I remember the "Aints," the bags over the heads and everything.

Then came a real turnaround in 1979. The Saints won 8 games and lost 8 games that season. It was a really, really big deal: the first time they weren't losers. If you don't know the rest of their history, you will. Just turn on any sports station or watch ESPN for the next two weeks. You'll hear all about it.

Again, I'm delighted for them. It's hard to describe, but there's almost a sense of relief in last night's Championship Game. There was something about growing up, watching the Saints lose week after week, year after year, even decade after decade that really got to me. I'm not sure why. I never played organized football and my favorite team was the Dallas Cowboys (perhaps because they did win a lot?), but something about all those Saints losses really hurt. Maybe it caused me to want to strive for something bigger, not just to not lose, but to win, to excel. Maybe watching those Saints games made me work a little harder to achieve my goals as a musician, a teacher, a writer, a person.

Or maybe I just like to see the underdog win sometimes. I don't know.

But I'm glad for the Saints. Best of luck in the Super Bowl. Enjoy!

Baseball Fever

For reasons I can’t explain, I was never interested in baseball until the 2001 World Series, and even after the Diamondbacks won, I soon slipped back into indifference. But the 2004 post-season changed all that. (C’mon, how could you not be interested in baseball after that season?)

Since then, I’ve enjoyed many games on TV and in person, but the more I watched, the more I realized I knew next to nothing about the game. I believe the best way to learn baseball is by watching it played, preferably with someone who knows it well. Without such a person available, I recommend two valuable baseball resources: George Vecsey’s Baseball: The History of America’s Favorite Game (2006) and Zach Hample’s Watching Baseball Smarter (2007).

Vecsey provides a basic history of the game, starting with the game’s origins, founder(s) and early days, leading right up to the present. The book makes no claims to be comprehensive, yet the historical highlights and key players are all there: the first teams, the icons (Cobb, Ruth, Young, Gehrig, DiMaggio, Robinson, Mayes, Rose, etc.) how war affected the game, the Negro Leagues, minor leagues, broadcasting, ballparks, traditions, the World Series, commissioners, owners, rivalries, scandals and controversies including, yes, steroids. Longtime baseball fans will find little they don’t already know, but for those new to the game, Vecsey provides a good crash course.

Watching Baseball Smarter is a fun, irreverent breakdown of the mechanics of the game including chapters titled The Basics, Pitchers and Catchers, Hitting, Baserunning, Fielding, Stadiums, Umpires, Statistics, Random Stuff to Know, Random Stuff to Notice. Hample explains the hows and whys of just about every conceivable play in baseball, often using baseball slang. But don’t worry: there’s a glossary included so you can look up what it means when a batter hits one up the elevator shaft. A fun, informative read for newbies, but seasoned veterans might also learn a thing or two.