The Whining Stranger on Sport: World Series Bound!

World Series Bound!



The ball goes sailing from Magglio Ordonez's bat into the left field seats at Comerica Park and I am somewhere between ten years old and thirty-two. More than two decades I have waited, ever faithful about baseball, but cynical about so many other things. I've grown weary with age about politics, about religion, but baseball. Sweet baseball. Those heartbreaking Detroit Tigers, in whom I put so much faith and hope every April.

Finally.
The World Fucking Series.
Finally.

Amen.

The Whining Stranger on Sport: Hasta la vista, New York Yankees!

Sweet jubilation! Unbound joy!

I thought this series was basically over after Game 1 in the Bronx? How many times did we have to hear about this New York team possibly sporting the greatest line-up ever assembled? And wasn't Kenny Rogers supposed to be a playoff dud?

No, all around. Of course.

Just as the Detroit faithful knew it would be.

The Whining Stranger on Sport: My Hero!

God bless you, Zoom-Zoom. And how do you like them apples, Jeet?

The Whining Stranger on Sport: Back in the Hunt--Finally!

The thirteen year old boy has become a thirty-two year old man, but he's no less giddy than the adolescent he was in October 1987.

Back to the playoffs again at last.

The Whining Stranger on Sport: It's Been a Long Nineteen Years; or, One is the Magic Number

As I write, the Detroit Tigers currently lead the Royals 1-0 in this afternoon's game. If the Tigers win, they have clinched a spot in this year's post-season, making it to the playoffs for the first time since 1987. Nineteen years. Nineteen long years I have waited since the last time they were even in long sniffing distance of the World Series.

When the Tigers last clinched a playoff spot--with a 1-0 victory over the Toronto Blue Jays on 4 October, 1987, in the last game of the regular season--the number one box office-earning film in the country was Fatal Attraction; Ronald Reagan was the President of the United States; the number one song on the radio was Whitney Houston's "Didn't We Almost Have It All?"; and the above Calvin and Hobbes comic strip was part of the Sunday funnies.

Long time.

And in the time I've written this entry, the Tigers have scored four more runs. 5-0.

Musings: Serendipitous Weekends

So, the Whining Stranger walked into a serendipitous proposition this weekend, my friends. My two serious homebrewer friends invited me to be a judge for a regional beer-brewing competition. That's right: a weekend of sipping porters and California commons and altbiers and filling out comment sheets, in which I scored each beverage on its appearance, its flavor, its aroma, and its "intangibles." Granted it's been a long time since the WS started drinking in the a.m. hours (ah, for my lost salad days), so pacing was a bit of an issue, but overall it was a swimmingly pleasant weekend of foam and hops and good food (prime rib dinner on Saturday night!). A charmed life.

Today though I need to start filling this 30GB of mp3 player space. Any recommendations for must-have songs? Upbeat suggestions are especially welcome since this technological investment was especially made in the interest of charging me up on morning walks to campus, before I go teach. The mp3 player-filling is, of course, another procrastinatory measure when I should be doing scads of backed-up academic work. But all I really want to do is pile into my easy chair with headphones on and a Haruki Murakami novel in my lap. Sigh.

Oh, and go Tigers. Two weeks left to the season and then cling to the AL Central division lead.

Musings: On Poll Results and First Weeks of Teaching

So the poll results are in for August. Apparently nobody (but me) gives a rat's ass whether the Tigers win the World Series or whether Barry Sonnefield makes the right casting choice for Jack Gladney in White Noise or if Philip Roth gets his Nobel laureate due. But you do care about fixing that mess down in D.C. that's contributed to our world getting progressively more miserable since early in 2001. (Not to mention that some of you think I'm underpaid. I am. Criminally.)

Meanwhile, your old pal, The Whining Stranger, survived his first week of teaching without too many public speaking panic attacks or confrontations with water-balloon-toting or vodka-swilling hyenas. I was a bit put off by one student in one of my classes who confidently announced to me in his introduction that he doesn't like using intelligent words to discuss literature nor does he find much joy in sitting around talking about books. I told him I expect plenty of both, so hopefully there won't be too much trouble there. Otherwise, the student population in my classes seems eager so far, though my jokes are only earning resounding laughter about 62% of the time thus far. The generation gap is widening, I fear. I need to incorporate more physical comedy into my schtick. Nothing goes better with a good literary discussion than a well-timed pratfall.

And Mom called this morning to say that she scored free tickets to see Steely Dan and Michael McDonald. I'm happy for her. She was envious when she heard my glowing review back in July.

Musings: Three Reasons to Smile

1. The cover of the latest issue of Sports Illustrated.



2. A new graduate student in my department told me the other day that, bearded, I am a dead ringer for Johnny Damon. I imagine this kid was just sucking up as he'd heard me say earlier that I'm a lifelong baseball fan who would have loved to play centerfield in the majors, but still--



3. The film version of the Amy Sedaris-Stephen Colbert-Paul Dinello vehicle, Strangers with Candy, which I saw last night, and which made me laugh so much that my stomach hurt.

The Whining Stranger on Sport: 5.5 is the magic number.

5.5 is a meaningful number. That is how old I was (in years, of course) when I started to really take an interest in world events. My parents left copies of Time magazine around the house, and I would peruse them. I remember being particularly interested in the Iran hostage situation, as covered, for instance, in the issue depicted above from November 1979.

Well, seemingly more trivial, 5.5 is also the number of games by which the blessed Detroit Tigers lead Ozzie Guillen's surly Chicago White Sox after this afternoon's splendid victory back in the Motor City.

Go get 'em, Tigers!