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Unlike the
other sixty million young kids growing up in the sixties I was
not one of those who wanted to be a famous baseball player. I
figured if every kid I knew already aspired to be discovered
by the Yankees, Dodgers and such, then what chance would there
be for me?
Being skinny and uncoordinated certainly helped me make that
decision. You got to know your assets and liabilities. Walking
and chewing gum at the same time does tend to overwhelm me
from time to time. Trying to bat a 90 plus mile per hour
fastball while doing the aforementioned was out of the
question.
No, I figured that if every kid in the country was trying to
emulate the likes of Stan Musial, Roger Maris and Don Drysdale
then what kind of a chance did I have?
Besides I can’t spit.
Oh sure, batting, fielding the ball and everything in between
is of vital importance to any good old American baseball team
that expects to make it to the World Series, it also looks as
if spitting plays a major part as well.
Case in point.
I have currently been married for over thirty two years and
never in all of those years have we ever sat down together and
watched the playoffs and then stayed tuned for the series. In
fact I can’t say I’ve ever watched an entire series from start
to finish in my life. This year we did.
Now, I suppose it’s because we were rooting for the Cubs to
win since they had been the underdog for so many years.
Americans love to support the underdogs. Must be something in
our nature that evokes that kind of a response.
Anyway, here we are glued to the tube night after night hoping
and praying for a Cubs victory which never came.
So, in the series who do we pick to support?
The Marlins, of course.
We haven’t missed a game since the series started and were
rewarded last night when they won in the sixth game. Truly an
amazing series.
So, for those of you who might have seen every series since
you can remember, this might not be of any interest to you.
Aside from the athletic abilities each player on both teams
had to possess, I found that they all had one thing in common.
They spit. They chew. They are drinking something constantly.
Their mouths never seem to stop. They are masticating motion
machines.
The coach of the Cubs chewed on a toothpick the entire time of
the play offs. Made me a nervous wreck watching him move this
piece of wood in and out of his mouth with his tongue. I
wanted to tell him he was going to poke his eye out or mess up
his gum line if he wasn’t careful. I’ll bet his dentist was
trying to call him as well. You know his Mother didn’t like
what she saw.
In the series it seemed both teams had expert spitters.
Some were more subdued than others and were aware that they
were under constant scrutiny by the television cameras. To me,
a novice in the world of baseball series, it seemed to be a
requirement that each and every player as well as the
management spit every twenty or thirty seconds. Makes me
wonder if they do this when the Series isn’t being played?
Being an observer of human nature, this was somewhat
fascinating to me and horrible to my wife. I wanted to keep a
total of the number of spits per team so we could see who had
the highest number at the end of the series. I’m surprised the
announcers didn’t have statistics on that number already.
Perhaps they did, but just choose not to announce it. They
have enough statistics on everything else. For example:
“The right handed, brief wearing catchers throw to a left
handed, boxer wearing, second baseman in the bottom of the
third inning with a 35% chance of rain in the forecast while
having a twice divorced runner on third with a middle name
having more than six letters of the fourth game of the series
of a day starting with the letter “T” has only happened twice
in series history.”
I cannot imagine who keeps up with all of that stuff.
Anyway, since I haven’t watched many games and certainly none
of the teams in the minor leagues I cannot say for certain if
there were more or less spits per player in this series. I did
notice a distinct different in the various styles.
The most common seemed to be a through the teeth technique.
Others favored the front of the teeth method. Some failed in
their attempts which resulted in an unpleasant dribble effect.
Most seemed to just drink things and then spit whatever it was
out onto the floor of the dugout. Incidentally, this place was
a pig pen. Instead of having several bat boys, they needed
someone’s mother in there to keep that place tidy. Haven’t
those guys ever heard of a trash can? I’d be afraid to walk in
there with all of that garbage on the floor.
Well anyway, over the objections of my beloved, I did keep a
mental score on the spits per inning.
The Yankees definitely won, hands down. Must be due to their
long years of experience. |
