Thread by @OnKBHR

Rise and shine, Cicely!
Here's a heartfelt 'Thanks' to Holling for letting us watch the World Series last night at the Brick. We all know how much he hates sports & would rather we had watched that Jacques Pepin special on PBS instead. (thread on baseball) #NorthernExposure.

If Holling has taught me one thing, it's that 'male bonding' doesn't have to be over a beer and a game on the tube...it can be watching a nature special, or maybe trying to catch a photograph of an elusive Blackpoll warbler...

And yet, there is just something about baseball. As many of you know, my master's thesis was a deconstructionist / post-colonial reading of the Thayer classic 'Casey at the Bat' which I successfully defended on our very own snowy baseball diamond...so yeah, I'm invested.

I am reminded of what Walt Whitman said about baseball...

"Baseball is our game: the American game: I connect it with our national character. Sports take people out of doors, get them filled with oxygen generate some of the brutal customs...

"...We want to go out and howl, swear, run, jump, wrestle, even fight, if only by so doing we may improve the guts of the people.”

Well, last night's game was a vehicle for a different kind of fight-an existential one on a national level, perhaps. It was brief, but it felt real.

I've heard conflicting interpretations of what transpired...some say it was an embarrassment, others that it was justice. I don't know for sure. But to me, it felt like an American expression on that most American of canvases...the baseball diamond.

On this field, you stand at the plate, exposed, for all the world to see. The odds are against you being successful, so you are judged as much for how you take your swings and take your losses. It's as ancient as gladiatorial Rome, thumbs up or thumb's down...

Only instead of Caesar casting his vote last night, it was the collective American voice with the ultimate ruling. And instead of a batter being judged, it was a guy in the stands.

And that judgement was swift.

Walt continues, "America’s game: has the snap, go, fling, of the American atmosphere—belongs as much to our institutions, fits into them as significantly, as our constitutions, laws: is just as important in the sum total of our historic life.” It certainly felt so last night.

I'll wrap up this morning like I concluded my thesis, with a reading of Thayer about ol' Casey:

"Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright,
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light..."

"And somewhere men are laughing, & somewhere children shout,
But there is no joy in Mudville, mighty Casey has struck out."

Last night, Casey wasn't at bat, & he didn't even take a swing. He was standing there in the crowd with the bat on his shoulder, incredulous - strike 3.

Uncle Walt said, "...We want to go out and howl, swear, run, jump, wrestle, even fight, if only by so doing we may improve the guts of the people.”

"Improve the guts of the people," indeed.

Spinning this one is for you, big cheese.