Open letter to the librarian.

Dear Eric,

It is only because of things like Facebook that I have any idea that this was even said. And anytime that two of my close friends have any sort of exchange it can be kind of fun. Especially when, as in this case, I was responsible for their introduction to each other. I noticed that you recently posted a response to our friend Abby's status on Facebook. Her post, I believe, was the name of a tennis player that she was cheering for. Your response was, and I quote:

Abby-you know how much I love baseball-but tennis might be THE perfect sport.

Believe it or not, I am not about to go haywire on you. Just the opposite, really.

Golf is great. I have really come to enjoy the sport. I enjoy the completely baffling notions behind it. The ball isn't moving but I only know where it's going 1 out of every 3 times I hit it. I still don't understand how people can be good enough to make the ball spin backwards etc etc. I love the outdoors in the spring, summer and fall. Spending 4 or 5 hours with just a good friend (or 2 or 3) in the green, green sun. I love the fact that you can be competitive but never really piss anyone off with it. Because you should truly only be competitive with yourself in that sport. I love stark white shoes with brown stripes. I like visors. Yes. Visors. I even enjoy watching it on TV from time to time. I hold professional golfers in the highest regard. Do you have to be an athlete to be a golfer? Not really. Athletically inclined? I suppose. But it still takes an incredible amount of dedication and practice to reach their level of expertise.

Tennis is cool. In fact, I could totally learn to love playing that game. I dig the raw elements of it. Dirt. Sweat. It's a primal workout in alot of ways. And it does take a massive amount of stamina, coordination and serious athletic ability. It's competitiveness can also be self contained more than some other sports. Most days I am sure that your biggest enemy in tennis isn't the person on the other side of the net, but more the little person in your head. And, like golf, it has stupid outfits that are fun. Headbands. All white at Wimbledon. I admittedly don't 'get' tennis like you do. But that's completely fine. I definitely give you tennis all day long. No sarcasm there. I would hope that you would give me golf for the same reason.

However. There is one reason and one reason alone that baseball is the only perfect sport. Just one reason. Hold on to your racket here.

Comedy.

Yes, there are funny moments in tennis and golf. John McEnroe's courtside fits. John Daley's smoke dangling from his mouth while he putts. And sometimes these guys/gals even say funny things. And in the NFL you have the brilliant comedy of people like Plaxico shooting himself in the leg and Leon Lett storing half of Cuba in his ass. The NBA, as we both know, lends itself to more funny moments than any of these aforementioned sports. Stephen Jackson and Ron Artest are the best examples. But it's truly more Porky's than it is Royal Tennenbaums. I am sure that you could tell me quite a few funny stories about the NHL (a sport that I very admittedly know next to nothing about). But there is nothing like the humor in baseball.

Sure, we all have these stories. Stories of legend and emotion and histrionics. I wept in my Father's arms when the Sox won it all in '04. And you wept in his arms the day the trophy made its way into our very own Brass Cat backyard. We have shared all of the rage, blinding anger and fury that only the Yankees can bring. We have experienced the nearly excruciating excitement when one of us stops and says The wolves are gathering...the wolves are gathering. We've endured soul pummeling losses and the simple and quick elation of the walk off home run. And of course, there's the game itself. So simple. So complex. So painfully slow. So explosively fast. Like a stand off at gun point. Serene, vast and peaceful. Loud, small and devastating. And we all know that it's the most difficult thing to do in all of sport. Having a bat, that small in circumference, hit a ball that small at a rate of speed between 65 and 100 miles an hour without knowing which speed or which way the ball will break. Being able to stab that ball without any more than a fraction of a second to react. Being able to throw that ball by one of the most skilled hitters on earth. Running the bases quickly and well. We all know that it is, quite literally, the most complicated sport there is from a mental stand point. Mickey Mantle once said "It's unbelievable how much you don't know about the game you've been playing all your life." And it's pitch perfect. It's the grandest of theater. Ever morphing and bizarre. Even when the teams are as boring as the '09 Red Sox, it is still the most entertaining drama on TV.

But...

Given all of those things, the one thing that still makes baseball the perfect sport is comedy. As aforementioned, there are funny moments in other sports. But in baseball?



Chapter One
On the field.

Milton Bradley catching a routine flyball and then striking a pose for the crowd before he threw the ball into the stands with only two outs. Or the pitcher who just last week rolled a ball to the dugout expecting a new one from the ump who never gave him one, allowing a run to score. Who can ever forget Manny Ramirez (and if there's a comedic bible of baseball to be written, Manny would get his own section) diving to cut off a ball thrown from center? Or listening to his Ipod during an inning. Or not being able to zip his pants fast enough and barely make it out of the monster in time for the first pitch of the inning. Back to back walk off home runs by Jeff Frye and Darren Lewis. Did that really just happen? Izzy Alcantra's best Bruce Lee imitation to that AAA catcher's chest (and then what's truly lost in that footage is Izzy charging the mound and then turning to take swings at literally anyone near him. Including his own teammates). Pedro Martinez swinging a bat or flinging a Zimmer. Mark Grace, pitching relief in a blowout doing his best, hilarious imitation of the Diamondbacks then closer, Mike Fetters. Mariano Rivera at the opening day ring ceremony in 2005 received a standing ovation at Fenway and thereby solidifying himself as one of my favorite people ever when he couldn't stop laughing like a 12 year old.

Chapter Two
Off the field.

Where to start?
Ozzie Guillen saying that the Little League World Series teams are better than his White Sox.
Tommy Lasorda's take on catcher Mike Scioscia's wheels "If he raced his pregnant wife he'd come in 3rd."
Or Leo Durocher's classic "God watches over drunks and third baseman."
One of the masters, Casey Stengal saying "The trouble is not that players have sex the night before a game. It's that they stay out all night looking for it."
Harry Caray and his glasses once said "What does a mama bear on the pill have in common with the World Series? No cubs."
The legendary Vin Scully on Andre Dawson "He has a bruised knee and is listed as day-to-day. Aren't we all?"
Dizzy Dean speaking about his head injury "The doctors x-rayed my head and found nothing."
Or reliever Lefty Gomez' worries "A lot of things run through your head when you're going in to relieve in a tight spot. One of them was, 'Should I spike myself?'"
Of all the Bill Lee gems, this one best sums him up "I think about the cosmic snowball theory. A few million years from now the sun will burn out and lose its gravitational pull. The earth will turn into a giant snowball and be hurled through space. When that happens it won't matter if I get this guy out."
Roger Craig on catcher Choo Choo Coleman's smarts "He would give you the sign, then look down to see what it was."
And my all time favorite, when Yogi Berra once failed a high school science test with the score of 23 his teacher asked him "Yogi, don't you know anything?" His response? "Sir, I don't even suspect anything."

Chapter Three
Amongst friends.

In America, and I suspect that New England is the hub of this, there is no sport that will continually make a set of friends gathered at the local watering hole, or in a living room, laugh as continually and as hard as baseball does. Just think of the times where you and I have almost had to have stomach surgery because of this game. Just last week, King Hewsie yelling "Can't throw a curveball from your knees, bitch!" at Pena's kid warming in the bullpen. Or my Dad turning to one of several hundred people and saying "I've forgotten more about baseball than you'll ever know." Or Toonz once pontificating on Craig Grbek's DL status "I'm pretty sure that he's not hurt, I think El Guapo ate him." Levels needing an oxygen tank after laughing himself to the floor with the thought of "that old Sox reliever that looked like he had cancer every time he took the mound." Jimy (one m) Williams? Good Lord. That guy made us all laugh for 24 hours a day. Andy Sheets, Morgan Burkhart, Creighton Gubanich, Enrique Iglesias or whatever. I could write about this for 8 hours a day for a month straight and still have tons of moments that I have forgotten about.

Tennis is funny. As is golf, basketball, football, hockey and soccer. No doubt about that. And they are all really fascinating and exciting games in their uniqueness.

But baseball is fucking hilarious. And THAT is what makes it perfect.

Funniest movie ever? No question about it.

The Bad News Bears.

Nuff said.

Love you like a brother.

Yours,

Butch Huskey