The Baseball Hangover

The only good thing to come out of the movie “Meet Joe Black” was a scene portraying a quick one-two punch of cars slamming into Brad Pitt. Right in succession. The only good thing to come out of this weekend was that I now have a reason to gratuitously reference this scene. That’s just the kind of few days it’s been.I’m not sure what happened. It was all too surreal and nonsensical. It was like I was living in Narnia or something. Nothing followed logic. Every odd occurrence trumped the last one. And now I’m sitting in my office, looking at the 16 back pages of the NY Post that I’d collected throughout the season: “Hit, hit Jorge!: Posada blast caps Texas-sized 9-run rally,” “Melk Money: Yanks sink Mariners on Carbrera’s HR in 11th” “Twin Killing: Streaking Alex homers twice–again–vs Minn” etc etc. I’m trying to wrap my head around the work that’s sitting in front of me. Trying to muster my strength to write my routine morning to-do list.

All of which are nearly impossible with a hangover of this scope and intensity.

Not necessarily an alcohol-induced hangover, though I’m beginning to think that may be taking its toll, as well. But a baseball hangover. Five months of going out every night and getting hammered off nightly games. A two-week playoff binge. I’ve been mainlining baseball into my bloodstream, and at 7:26pm on Saturday, I started to feel like a groom-to-be waking up in Vegas the morning after his bachelor party, asking himself, “Do I really want to know or think about what happened?”

I watched the Yankees’ final game at one of New York City’s rare and inexplicable establishments: a Red Sox bar. I don’t know why. I guess all the tables were already booked in Hell. And I guess these are ideas that make sense at the time when you’re sporting a 4.0 BAC (Baseball Alcohol Content).

And so now, with my Outlook inbox practically begging me to return business emails, I’m reliving my Brad Pitt experience, the 48 hours that have rendered me useless in an office environment and generally depleted my abilities to be a normal functioning member of society.

Saturday, October 7

7:45pm: First car slams into me. I left the bar a shell of myself. Uncomfortable. Painfully aware that it was only a matter of time before I needed to play the post-Yankee-playoff-loss Whack-a-Mole game, where I’d have to push aside my own devastation in favor of fielding the influx of secondary problems to spring up from such a tragedy.

8:30pm: First sympathy phone call. I don’t answer. I send out mass text to people who I assume will not know better: “Not ready to talk yet.”

8:43pm: First hate text message. “Let’s go Yankees!” This is not friendly ribbing. Spiteful words, for certain. I wrote back, “I wonder how many people at your new job are going to find out about your psychological problems.”

8:44pm: What the HELL is wrong with me.

9:07pm: 2 sympathy texts. 4 jeering texts. After a loss, Yankee fans have more enemies than friends. Or maybe just in general.

10:00pm: My sister comes over. We sit in silence doing scratch-off cards. Neither of us is ready to talk about things. At least not without getting lumps in our throats.

10:35pm: My sister and I venture out. She usually hates how I always wear my hat out because it’s like a conversation piece, and a successful night for us means a clear view of the tv with as little human interaction as possible. She threw her own Yankee hat on, and we were thereby dispatched into the battle grounds.

10:45pm: The blitzkrieg of verbal assaults ensues. I start to categorize the types of taunts for lack of better things to do.
a.) Passive-aggressive, quickly uttered, walk-by taunt that doesn’t involve direct address.
Example: “Yanks suck.”
b.) Aggressive, face-on, nose-to-nose attack.
Example: “Hey, how’d the Yankees do today?!”
c.) Calculated delivery from someone who stands in the corner in amateurish wait, scripting his line and timing his move.
Example: “Hey, what’s going on. I just had one question for you, did the Yankees win today or not?” This is the only type of taunt that warrants a retort, in my book. And the response must render them speechless/make them question their own self-worth, lifestyle choices, and/or psychological orientation. Suffice to say I don’t hold back any [linguistic] punches. We’re playing prison rules now.

11:30pm: I’m fielding attackers as well as I can, and it was brutal, but it could have been worse. And then it did get worse, when a new breed of abuse jumps into the picture: physical. I’m not making this up. I’m walking through the bar when a guy grabs my wrist and tells me the Yankees suck. Great! Brand new information. (Six years without a WS title, and in all that time haters still can’t think of anything more creative or cutting than “Yankees suck.”) I try to shake free of his grip, he grabs the other wrist. I try to shake free again, I get pushed up against the bar so that Charming Suitor #8,237 has a captive audience to drive the whole Yankees sucking point home. This incident is just the opening act for Bloodstock 2006. Another winner tried to (unsuccessfully, thank God) trip me, and a few others just engaged in walk-by shoving, hat slapping, and body picks. I felt like the victim of a hate crime.

Sunday, October 8

12:06am: A Yankee fan shuffles up to me. “I’m so glad you’re here.” I was in one of those movies where the misfits have to band together to stand up to the bullies. “Did you hear about Torre?” He pointed to the television set. Torre expected to be fired. Lou Piniella expected replacement.

The second car plows into me.

I beg the guy to not leave my side, but he’s had enough. Traitor.

12:20am: The hardest walk-by body slam of the night. I march up to the asswipe and begin to lay into him, until he interrupts: “Oh my God, I’m SO SORRY. I didn’t even see you, I swear, I’ve just been so out of it ever since the Yankees lost. I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry. I’m just a mess right now, my little brother was supposed to come in to see me for Game 5, and now he’s not. The Yankees have ruined everything for me.”

Of course. Of course, I’d manage to find the one other Yankee fan in the bar to make feel even worse.

1:40am: I had completely stopped drinking, having realized that I need all my faculties about me to fend for my life. I tried standing close to the ever-protective bouncer figure who’s about twice the size of the entire Dallas defensive line. I may as well have been sitting in the corner curled up into a fetal position, rocking back and forth

For a few hours, I just walked around the bar like it was that computer game Minesweeper. I tried to carefully plan where I would position myself, but it’s remarkably futile. I’m bound to step on the wrong square. And I did. More than once. And I have the bruises to prove it.

3:00am-ish? Sleep. I tried to implement my old college system of staying awake straight through bad nights because that way, the next day would come less quickly. I just didn’t want that feeling of waking up on Sunday, having that brief hope for the day, and then having it soon morph into the realization that I was waking up with all the same problems I had the night before.

6:08am/pm?: I wake up disoriented. When I see the time on my alarm clock, my first thought, naturally: “McDonald’s is still serving breakfast!” Then I saw missed calls and realized not too many people call me before 6:00am on a Sunday.

6:09pm: It registers I’m in post meridian hours. Seriously, what the hell is wrong with me.

6:10pm: I realize I slept through a date. Yeah, read that sentence again. I’m not certain, but I know A-Rod is probably to blame.

Monday, October 9

2:30am: In an effort to erase the weekend, I did pretty much everything I never do–drank on a Sunday night, ventured all the way downtown, and went to a karaoke bar. It didn’t help. And despite good company, I just felt awkward. Like the feeling of blowing off studying in favor of going out. No matter how much fun it is, you know what’s waiting for you when the night’s finally over. That’s about the time I knew that I was not going to put the 2006 season behind me any time soon.

I bought the NY Post on Sunday, thinking it would help if I confronted my issues head-on. “Nothing left in the Yank Tank,” the headline read. I saved it, and I’m still not entirely sure why. I had no plans to hang it amidst the other Post headlines on my office wall. And it certainly wasn’t uplifting to any dejected Yankee fan. But when I saw it, I remember thinking, “That’s not true. I’m left!”

The Yankees broke my heart again. But they’re the Yankees. They gave me contented summer afternoons on my rooftop, listening to games on the radio where the outcome was never as satisfying as just the game itself. They give me the beating anticipation every year that only happens when the countdown to opening day has governed my winter. The comfort of putting my hat on every single morning. The jolting goosebumps every time Enter Sandman comes on. Game 7 of the 2003 ALCS. 1998. 9th-inning comebacks. And the ache of another losing season doesn’t come close to erasing any of that–the dynamic and powerful landscape of pinstriped loyalty.

And so maybe in the last few days, the Yankees have indirectly compromised my moral integrity, jeopardized my social life, and earmarked me for early admission to the cuckoo nest that one flew over. Maybe they’ve put me in the line of fire, categorized me as one of the worst fans in baseball, and subjected me to physical abuse. And even though I say after yet another intoxicating season, “Ugh, I’m NEVER drinking again,” it’s comforting to know that in about 4 months, I’ll pull up a barstool and start an MLB tab once again.

Frank Sinatra once said, “I feel bad for people who don’t drink. When they wake up, that’s as good as they’re going to feel all day.” He’s right. And that’s what makes sports fans different than other people– the painful pathos of loving baseball is what makes us tick. And there isn’t a baseball fan in the world who would say it isn’t unequivocally worth it.

Cheers, and here’s to 2007…