It’s a distant sound in the back of my mind, hibernating, but still resonating. My focus lies with Baseball, as it always has and always will during these scorching summer months, playing out as poetry in motion over the course of it’s 162 game climb to the play offs and beyond. But still, that itch persists. And as I begin to scratch, the memories come fast and furious comparable to a high -speed collision near the sideline during the fourth quarter of a tie game. My mind travels to the Leon Johnson half back pass and stills asks Why Bill Why? It looks mournfully at the Richie Anderson fumble and bemoans a lost Super Bowl dream. It surveys Vinny Testaverde’s Achilles injury on week one like a rubber necking motorist trapped in an endless traffic jam. It tours past Raiders and Ravens ending Jets’ seasons of the past, wrapped together in one dark collage. And then there’s Doug Brien. He owns a wing of torment all his own. Finally, escaping the past, my mind turns to the future, and one question stills continues to be asked, even in the heat of the most unpredictable Yankee season since 1995. Is this the year the Jets finally get it right? The punctuation is not usually a question mark, but rather a twisting football careening through the air off the foot of Doug Brien, destined to go laughably wide.
Author: mw2828
Matt Waters is a screenwriter currently living in New York. He has been writing about sports since age seventeen, about the time when it became painfully apparent that his athletic dreams would go unfulfilled, due to terrible luck and an obscene lack of talent. His favorite movie is “The Thin Red Line”. His favorite band is “Modest Mouse”. His favorite sport is baseball! With an exclamation point.
Defending my Generation – Matt Waters
One has to admire Bob Costas. Not only is he one of the foremost recognizable personalities from the world of sports journalism, he is without a doubt the most technically sound and proficient studio host to ever lay eyes on a teleprompter.
Never 4 Get – Matt Waters
sub·lime- verb
to elevate or exalt especially in dignity or honor (2) : to render finer (as in purity or excellence) b : to convert (something inferior) into something of higher worth
As the dogs days of August began to grudgingly give way to the promise of September, nary a thought of foreign politics or agendas swirled through my mind as I happily clutched the tickets to Cal Ripken’s final home game at Camden Yards. In just a few weeks, I’d be sitting in the beautiful ballpark right off the Maryland Board Walk giving my appreciation to Baseball history. I counted down the days as they dropped off the calendar with routine ease. September 9… September 10…
Depths of a Season – Matt Waters
” The river has many depths…. Let it wash over you.”
An insightful tagline from a great movie [Mystic River] actually holds some credence for baseball fans nation wide. For if you substitute the word “season” in place of river in this particular quote, one gets a perfect summation for what is the grind of a 162 game marathon. Baseball needs to be watched as it is played, with a cool head and balanced intensity. In other more precise words, baseball can’t be viewed in a football frame of mind. After one game in the NFL season, a fan could get a decent idea about where his team is heading. After one game in the Major League epic, a fan could get a decent idea about well…. Absolutely nothing.
It shouldn’t be that easy. A leap over the top of a flat outfield fence is not meant to look like poetry in motion. Home run swings aren’t supposed to have a natural rhythm. Speed should not have equality with instincts. One is supposed to cover for the other. No one is supposed to be perfect. But yet, the images of a player who was more like a masterpiece still flow through the minds of Baseball fans everywhere.