so i get back from camping (more on that later) to find out that the Mets have actually won two games, and today they go ahead and do the right thing by firing hothead shirtless bully vp tony bernazard. but they can’t even do that with class – omar has to throw longtime beat writer adam rubin under the bus for reasons i can’t even begin to imagine. but i am too amazed by the ineptitude of the front office that i don’t even want to comment right now, so more on that later.
instead, i choose to remind myself (and you) why i love the game of baseball. so that brings us to alyssa milano.
the following is a reprint of a “vic’s picks” (that’s my occasionally self-indulgent music column) that appeared in the westfield leader on april 16. you can see it with my picture on top here, or you can just keep reading for full text, minus capital letters:
q: what do vic’s picks and alyssa milano have in common?
a: baseball.
what do baseball and a music column have in common? admittedly, not much…but then again, picks is rarely your average music column.
next week, we’ll return to your sporadically scheduled music reviewing. but spring is here, no matter what the thermometer says, and spring brings opening day, which unfailingly brings a new crop of baseball books. yup, today we’re going literary, and that brings us back to this column’s titular question.
vic’s picks never really thought she and alyssa milano would have much in common, but it seems the intoxicating nature of america’s pastime spreads far and wide. fans have probably noticed the actress’s clothing line of women’s baseball fashions in stadium stores. women who like to rock their team colors without having to wear boxy shirts no doubt are grateful for her enterprise. but when this diehard Mets fan heard that milano would be joining tbs’s postseason baseball-reporting roster, she was rather suspicious. an actress makes a clothing line and gets clubhouse access? does she even understand the sanctity of the game?
apparently, i wasn’t the only one to ask that question. my daily scouring of mlb sites led me to something that made me regret my skepticism. milano has a blog on mlblogs.com, and she wrote a staunch defense of her love for baseball for the benefit of doubters like me. she had me at “i hate when the count is 0-2 and the pitcher throws that ball low and away [because] the batter knows just as well as we do that it’s coming…”
but i digress.
the actress released her first (clearly baseball-themed) book just before opening day. and this now-avid milano convert devoured it in a day and a half.
as its jacket says, the book is a love letter. not to carl pavano or barry zito (though we must note that her taste in baseball boyfriends tends to involve pitchers who can’t pitch), but to the world’s greatest game.
she finds a way to reconnect her father to his brooklyn past and to tether them both to a life in los angeles. she finds a way to (unintentionally) show up male costars in the baseball-statistics-dropping department. baseball keeps her grounded in a world of actors – she has full access to the stars of the hollywood scene, yet the person she name-drops most often is 81-year-old dodgers announcer vin scully.
she finds a kind of family in the other dodgers season-ticket holders in her section – watching the kids in seats around her grow up, bonding with other diehard fans, shouting creative insults with her brother (see: calling the light-hitting, out-of-shape outfield bust andruw jones “snacks”).
i don’t think she’s harsh enough on steroid users, but she tackles the subject with a sweeping review of cheating through the ages, asserting that the “pure” era of baseball we long for never really happened.
she peppers the book with sidebars recounting wacky, sobering and mammoth games or players. she shows that she knows her stuff in a relaxed, breezy manner, making drive-by references to past greats or moments of great implosion (see: rick ankiel’s infamous wild pitching performance). it’s the kind of discourse one might spout when digging into a baseball discussion with an old friend – knowledgeable, but not trying to impress.
but the real pleasure in this book is not about the stats or the history or the dodgers; it’s about the joy and the passion with which milano discusses them. it’s the literary opportunity any true fan would die for – the chance to just pour your heart out about the game that has captured it.
it’s not cheesy, but it is a love story. “if i were a less emotional person, i wouldn’t have booed and screamed at my television every time barry bonds stepped to the plate…i wouldn’t have [seen former drug addict josh hamilton’s home run derby performance as] the most astonishing act of redemption…the most vivid example of the human spirit’s resilience and beauty,” milano writes. without that emotional investment, that human connection, baseball is just a sea of stats, and she knows it.
“how can a sport save someone?” milano asks at one point. her book shows readers a pretty good answer.
