So I'm at Safeco Field on Sunday afternoon, at a Mariners game against the Texas Rangers. I'm with Kate (it's her birthday) and my five-month-old daughter (it's her first M's game). We get to the park way before opening time, get nestled into some pretty damn nice field-level seats, Sec. 146, Row 5, Seats 9 and 10. We watch the Rangers take batting practice and do warm-ups. (The Rangers might be our divisional rivals, but they're very nice to the kids in the stands, as they toss errant foul shots and fly balls to 'em.) It's shaping up as a nice day.
Then the game starts, and my daughter falls asleep, which I have to admit is pretty convenient. The Mariners take the field.
First inning, the Rangers at bat. Somebody hits a light bouncer to left field, right in front of us, which Randy Winn is covering. Winn realizes he can't get there in time to make a difficult fly catch, and instead palms the bounce in his glove so he doesn't make an errant throw.
The dude sitting in front of us complains. "You should have hustled on that play, Randy!" Eh, typical reaction, I don't pay it much mind. Yeah, Winn could've sped up a bit, maybe done a risky physical dive to catch the ball, but it's a low-percentage possibility. Who cares -- it just falls for a base hit and not much else.
Another Ranger comes up -- I think it was Michael Young. He hits a towering fly ball to left field, high over Winn's head. Winn heads back, but the ball's flying so fast, he probably realizes he's not going to make the catch. So he forgives the base hit, and gets in position (I assume, I can't see him behind a wall in the field seats) to play the ball as it rebounds off the left-field wall. He does, and makes a powerful throw to cut off as much base-running as he can. The throw works: runners advance, but nobody scores.
Again, the dude in front of me complains about Winn's lack of "hustle."
There's a guy in back of us I'm not really listening to, but Kate does. She tells me he's calling a certain M's defenseman -- I'm assuming it's Winn since he's been the only ballthrower so far, besides the pitcher -- a "retard." She rather pointedly and justifiably says she'd be having a better time were it not for the guys in front and in back of us complaining about how the M's are playing defense.
Supposedly these two guys think they can do a better job at defense than Randy Winn. The guy in front of me is flabby and out of shape; the guy in back of me is wispy, cantankerously angular in jawline, the kind of guy that would be an oblivious, villainous New England comptroller in a John Irving novel, provided Irving would find him intriguing enough to write about, which I'm guessing is an outlying possibility at best.
The M's get out of the first inning with no runs allowed, so I figure these guys will pipe down with the color commentary. Actually, the guy in front of us does kind of quiet down. Mr. Retard -- who now that I think of it looks just like the middle-aged coke-sniffer who beds down an obviously much younger and more coked-out Melora Walters in the opening minutes of Magnolia -- isn't done.
It happens in the 4th inning, in which the Rangers put up five runs. This is partly due to Gil Meche's already-overworked pitching arm, and a bad misplay on the part of shortstop Willie Bloomquist.
But it was also because of a fly foul ball that Ichiro Suzuki was unable to catch. Not because Ichiro didn't "hustle" -- he got to the spot in time. Not because he didn't try to make the catch as it hung over the borderline between the playing field and the stands. He did. No, it was the Mariners' very own Steve Bartman for a day robbed Ichiro of the catch, reaching over the fielder's outstretched glove. We don't know the guy's name, because this was not a league championship series, and the M's have 156 games left this season. The embarrassed fan offers to give the ball back to Ichiro. Ichiro, understandably, glares back at the fan, but walks away. The Rangers, as I said, go on to score five runs in the inning.
Now, because of all this, the guy behind me calls Ichiro -- you guessed it -- a "retard".
At the time, I didn't know that Ichiro had been robbed of the play by an eager fan. I found that out late last night on ESPN.com. If I had known, which I would have if I were listening to the radio, I would have turned around and laid into this pasty-white shriveled-johnson sniveling dirtwipe, making it my first-ever verbal altercation at a major league ballpark. It would have been justified. As it was, I was thinking about complaining to the ushers about him, but I felt that would be hypocritical in the face of my misgivings about the Patriot Act.
Most M's fans are fine, decent people -- that goes without saying. Of course, before 1995, you could only find diehard M's fans if you watched certain episodes In Search Of with Robert Stack. The last ten years we've had a lot more actual M's fans. But that's beyond the point.
Over a decade ago there was this sports radio show on KJR, hosted by Nanci Donnellan, aka The Fabulous Sports Babe. She used to call Seattle "Hooterville" because of its occasional tendency towards self-infatuation. "Hooterville" was the out-of-step burgh which featured prominently in CBS's trinity of 60's rural comedies, The Beverly Hillbillies, Petticoat Junction and Green Acres.
Seattle has come a long way -- mainly because it's now responsible for everybody's computers and coffee (and smack, ha). And in some ways Seattle's past self-awareness was at least a little justified: If not for the I-5, it would be the most geographically isolated major-league city in the lower 48.
But Donellan had a point. Seattle didn't know or care much about baseball until the M's started getting good. True M's fans between 1977 and 1993, the way I see it, had to be good and knowledgeable baseball fans, because one had to possess sheer love of the game for its own sake to endure watching the Mariners all those seasons. The club had little else to offer.
(In fact, the way I see it, Seattle never really even got behind pro basketball, not the way Knicks and Celtics and Lakers fans and defintely Kings and Jazz fans did, and the Sonics even won a championship in 1979. Out of all the NBA towns I've been to, the only one more lackadasical about its representative basketball team is San Francisco and/or Oakland.)
Now, granted -- because of the relatively young existence of the Mariners as a franchise, and their late mid-90's bloom, the learning curve on baseball history and strategy is a bit more difficult. However, knowing the difference between the best-yielding defense strategy and fan interference, versus being a retarded player, is a lesson quickly learnable. That is, unless you're retarded.
There was one hilarious incident on KJR in 1993, as I recall, during a show hosted by New York Vinnie and another guy. At the time Randy Johnson was having minor control issues, and was giving up a good number of walks. As we well know, Johnson has since solved that problem, in spades. But there was this one caller who had what he believed to be a brilliant idea on how to utilize Randy Johnson:
CALLER: We got some great arms in Tacoma -- so you call one of them up to take Randy's spot in the rotation --
ANNOYED TALK SHOW HOST: No, sir...
CALLER: -- listen to me! Turn Randy Johnson into a closer or as a middle reliever --
ANNOYED TALK SHOW HOST: Sir --
CALLER: We're missin' Randy's true calling here! He's a born closer! I guarantee you --
I believe they cut the gentleman off at that point and spent the rest of the show in a somewhat apologetic and head-scratching state.
Remember that great scene in Airplane!? Where the kid Joey comes into the cockpit and addresses Roger Murdock, played by NBA legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar?
JOEY: Wait a minute. I know you. You're Kareem Abdul-Jabar. You play basketball for the Los Angeles Lakers.
ROGER MURDOCK: I'm sorry son, but you must have me confused with someone else. My name is Roger Murdock. I'm the co-pilot.
JOEY: You are Kareem. I've seen you play. My dad's got season tickets.
ROGER MURDOCK: I think you should go back to your seat now Joey... just remember, my name is Roger Murdock. I'm an airline pilot.
JOEY: I think you're the greatest, but my dad says you don't work hard enough on defense. And he says that lots of times, you don't even run down court. And that you don't really try... except during the playoffs.
ROGER MURDOCK (loses it and grabs Joey): The hell I don't!... Listen, kid, I've been hearing that crap ever since I was at UCLA! I'm out there busting my buns every night! Tell your old man to drag Walton and Lanier up and down the court for 48 minutes!
Awright, given that we shouldn't be lionizing our sports heroes, especially in this post-steroid age where their morals are at question, but I will say this: They are trained how to play the game, and people who normally, unlike me, write sports columns about 'em usually defer to this. That's why Randy Winn plays off the left-field wall instead of killing himself to make a spectacular catch, which very likely might have gone wrong if he had, and one run would have scored. That is not "retarded." Plus, also, too, you WASPy blockhead, nothing Ichiro, the most analytical hitter in the game who, oh look at this, set the single-season record for hits last year, ever does on offense is "retarded." As far as defense is concerned, what would Ichiro have done with the fan today to prove he wasn't "retarded"? Smack him? Steal his garlic fries?
You're the one that's retarded, sir, and I know that partially from your lame analysis of the game this afternoon, and partially from eavesdropping in on your end of the cell phone conversation you were having during the seventh inning today. Not quite the embodiment of eloquence, are we, McScrooge?
Oh, and another thing -- chastising M's fans because they applauded what was, in your terminology, a "non-eventful, routine" caught fly -- God, how about you cancel your euchre tournament, fly to Boston next week, and see how Red Sox fans cherish every such "routine" play as it if were a gasp of relief?
Granted, Red Sox fans do sometimes call ballplayers "retarded," but in almost all instances they're referring to the opposing team. Plus I think they say "re-tah-ded."
