Parade

Clark the Cub waves the dub.

Baseball is my great leveller of things, including this constant need to wonder what side of sporting justice I reside on. There are inescapable truths even a deserter like me can’t escape, when all of the teams I secretly and no-so-secretly adore take to the field at very often the same times. A subscription to MLB TV has cost a lot more money than I should be ceding to yet another streaming service, oy vey, but it has at least informed me that I am hopelessly in love with the Chicago Cubs. 

I have spoken a lot these past few months — to homies, to workmates, to strangers, to you — about the sheer revelation of recognising what one does for aesthetic and for moral reasons. I have watched your New York Yankees, on an off, since vaguely 2009 but also baseball, on and off, in that same time period. I had visions, as you know, of being a published man that purchased and then lived in a room at the Waldorf Astoria; had casual friendships with a doorman, maybe a newsstand seller, and a doctor whose complete disinterest in the Knicks I would surely find appalling. As you pointed out on one of our phone calls, this New York may not exist anymore. I thought we’d get there and frequent the falafel shops, quickly get on first-name basis with concierges at all the Italian spots, and bounce between the stadia, yelling at all the bewildered draft picks; and we may yet still, my boy. But the more I have asked myself both ethical and aesthetic questions — am I prepared to root for a petro-dollared football club — how many more years of my life can I hate-watch the Yankees — would I commit heinous crimes, cardinal sins, for the sometimes cavalier Knicks? — the closer I have got to the conclusion that sometimes the heart wants (ugh) what the heart wants. 

It will all sound paltry to you, I have no doubt. But when the Cubs are on, butterflies float out of my ears and nostrils, and for simple things like the colour of their uniform, the Ivy at Wrigley Field, the rooftop seats, the old-timey fonts on all their paraphernalia. I know both aesthetically and ethically that I am not adequately captivated by watching the Yanks claim 3-game series when they visit Cleveland, Oakland, Baltimore, and eventually force the locals to cheer their at-bats because an upset has been rendered impossible by the 6th or 7th inning. It turns out I got into this racket for the jeopardy, the curses, and the chance to wear merch I believe in. But what about New York, I’ve wondered, because I will always have these Knicks — because I am nevertheless scheduled to pen a bestseller and show you and Otto where the Bleacher Creatures roar at Yankee stadium. Is there a way to be (gulp) both?

And yes: there is, Mr. Commissioner.

Maybe I got you guys those Yankee threads for Christmas not just because you opined that their jerseys were “wicked fresh” — but because I was handing over affections I’ve never been able to fully afford the organisation. It is more likely that the Yanks will win a World Series sometime than that they will meet the Cubs in one, and I know what this alone will do to me. I know the FOMO will cause more nausea than the heartburn, and that New York will twinkle for a time like it used to, when Roth and Marty and Spike documented a place whose only spiritual and/or civic equivalent was Lewis Carroll’s Wonderland. There is a world where you know exactly what a ‘bunt’ is, a ‘sacrificed fly’, and where I call to congratulate you on Aaron Judge winning a third and fourth World Series ring — and I am as happy for you as I would have been for me. 

So, if I may, I want to tell you everything I know. That Michael Kay is the voice you will hear calling “Seeeee ya!” as the ball sails over the short porch, and that John Sterling is the classical radio announcer who will sprinkle in a Biggie Smalls reference, or a whole ass dime, just to remind you kids he’s pretty hip too. The Bleacher Creatures are the fans who will boo Aaron Judge even after he wins a third and fourth World Series ring, and sometimes throw trash onto the field to express their displeasure with lesser gods. The Mr. (Hal) Steinbrenner that family-owns and runs the Yankees now is nowhere near as intimidating as the Mr. (George) Steinbrenner whose ghost no doubt roams the locker room in-season, making sure everybody’s clean-shaven on Opening Day. (This is also as close as the Yankees are prepared to get, by the way, to having a mascot …) I think you should be a Yankee, for whatever amount of time it feels great, because Yankeedom makes a tolerable romance of capitalism: how you can be a kid from ‘nowhere’, but aspire, and grind, and eventually arrive. 

I’ll be rooting for you, if you ever find the particular willpower it takes to sit through nine innings of baseball, and in that way I’ll be rooting for them. The biggest flaw I’ve seen in all this useless contemplation, as to whom sports loyalty is best afforded, is that nobody but childish convention makes up the rules. Wrigley Field, Yankee Stadium, heck, Fenway Park — we can do whatever the hell we want.