‘October Classic’ remains an American tradition

No matter how irrational it sounds, a part of me will always believe that deep down, every American truly understands that baseball is beautiful. They might not admit it, but if you were born on this continent, it’s there. Somewhere. I swear.

And I’m not just saying that because I’m high on the fact that my beloved Boston Red Sox are in the World Series. I’ve long thought this, and every time I sit in the Fenway stands or watch a playoff game on a chilly October night, I can’t help but think that this sport symbolizes all that we often refer to as "Americana."

If professional football — which is a great game slowly being ruined by commercial breaks, money, and rule changes in the name of "safety" — is what we are today, than baseball is what we were yesterday: methodical, individualistic, and maybe even a little obstinate.

Its modern incarnation was invented in 1845, and one look at any game in progress will show you that this pastime certainly comes from the era before electricity and advertising. The contests take far too long and mess up countless TV and commercial schedules as a result, but the players won’t take the field in the rain, so whomever is airing the game has to have a few old episodes of "Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" on deck to eat up time, just in case.

It doesn’t often use instant replay, and most of the calls stand as they are, for better or worse. And even though some modern amenities like LED scoreboards or overhead lights have been added to the parks, and the players are bigger and stronger and maybe more sober than they once were, the best parts of baseball haven’t changed much since the New York Knickerbockers dropped a lopsided 23-1 decision to the "New York Nine" in 1846.

It’s tough to see this when the cameras are focused on the players’ faces, as they often are, or only showing that thin stretch of no man’s land that runs from the pitchers’ mound to the batters’ box.

But when they draw back and take the panoramic view, it’s there in all its New World glory: stands swarming with a great mass of fans, all hoping and praying and concentrating their energy on the two men in the middle of the field who face off like street-fighters in a back alley.

Then the hitter turns on a slider and the ball sails and a roar erupts as the runners spring ahead and the outfielders do their solemn work, and in seconds the ball is back in the pitcher’s hands once more.

It’s one of the few sports that, if you could somehow turn off the sound and watch from the top of the stadium, it would look very much the same in 2013 as it did in 1913. In our complicated digital age, there’s something to be said for that kind of simplicity.

So when the 2013 World Series begins tonight, and two teams that have a combined 243 years of history between them take to that lovely grass of the Fenway Park field, you know I’ll be watching.

Because even though baseball, as one Twitter user said the other day, is like "the old lady who still writes checks at the grocery store," that doesn’t mean that every pitch doesn’t give us a gorgeous glimpse into days gone by.

Email: janoski@northjersey.com

http://www.northjersey.com/sports/229042391__October_Classic__remains_an_American_tradition.html?page=all


Tags: Baseball Boston Red Sox Sports St. Louis Cardinals World Series

Bradley vs Marquez: Remember to pay attention tomorrow night

The Boston Red Sox, as Jimmy Fallon so eloquently put it in the movie "Fever Pitch," never let you down. They may not win every game, but there's no question that on most days during the summer, that team will take to the Fenway Park field - just like they have for the past 113 years - and play ball.

Boxers though....boxers will let you down. Boxers will break your goddamned heart. Why? Because no matter how good they are in their prime, no matter how talented or special, they've all got to get old. And when they do, and all you see is some timeworn, cement-legged relic lumbering around a ring that he used to dance around on winged feet years before, it's nearly impossible to recall what he looked like when he was that raw maelstrom of violence that once descended on the sport like a Plains tornado.

It's the same cruel trick the fates play on us all, it's true, but for a boxer, it's a much more public and painful decline, one that can arrive with cliff-like abruptness

At the same time, though, that's the reason boxing is so special. Once that champion is gone, he's gone forever, and while others will follow, some better and some worse, there will never be another just like him. It's why we have to make a conscious effort to appreciate the great fighters while they're still young - while they're still dancing.

Juan Manuel Marquez is one of those fighters.

It's been a long, long career for the old warhorse, one that's seen him take on a who's-who of boxing's finest and beat most of them in spectacular fashion - hell, even his losses were thrilling. Marquez has never shied from the clash of spears, never ducked or dodged any man who wanted a shot, and his 20-year run should be considered the handbook of how a boxer should conduct himself.

Now that it's well-known that he is in the final movements of his grand symphony, I must admit that I was sort of surprised that he didn't retire following his climactic knockout of his arch-nemesis Manny Pacquaio.

After all, what more could he possibly achieve? What crescendo would ever match the grandeur of the one that saw him standing on the ring ropes, fists raised in triumph, while an unconscious Pacquaio lay utterly broken in the corner?

As the saying goes, though, fighters fight, and Marquez is that above all else - a fact he proved once again by picking Tim Bradley as his next opponent.

It's no secret that Bradley doesn't have much power, and the only way he'll be able to hurt Marquez is if his corner throws a bat into the ring. But his style of constant punching and his tremendous heart makes him an easy mark for no one, and he is, after all, (allegedly) still undefeated. In some ways, he reminds me of Juan Diaz, who was once an up-and-coming volume puncher when Marquez faced off with him in 2009.

This bout, I suspect, will unfold much the same way that one did, with Bradley seizing an early advantage only to be sunk later on by Marquez's shotgun-shell right hand and his beautiful chains of uppercuts and hooks. I'm not sure what manner the Mexican will win in, but I am certain that this man, who may be the finest combination puncher in the history of the sport, will collapse yet another thick-skulled opponent on his way to victory.

So be careful on Saturday night. Don't drink too much, and pay attention to the TV even though others aren't - be "that guy" who's absorbed in the fight. Why? Because you're watching history, and Marquez the Warrior will not be around forever.

And when he's gone, others will follow... but you will never see another that does what he can do.

This is boxing's great curse - but also its most precious gift.

http://www.badlefthook.com/2013/10/11/4829708/marquez-vs-bradley-


Boxing, Juan Manuel Marquez, Sports, Timothy Bradley,

'Turning off' on Mount Marcy's slopes

The world is too much with us; late and soon / Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers / Little we see in Nature that is ours." - Wordsworth

For the first few thousand years of humanity’s existence, life was really all about living long enough to live some more.

It wasn’t about "finding one’s calling," or searching the self-help aisle in the local brick-and-mortar bookstore in search of some book that will finally, finally be able to tell us what’s "missing."

No. It was simpler. Gather food. Build a fire. Make a shelter. Have a family, and hope they live long enough to help you gather more food. They’re modest goals by today’s standards — so modest, in fact, that many of us feel we’re now entitled to them just because we’re alive.

It wasn’t always so, hard as that may be to believe in this world of blazing rapid-fire advertisements and pinging push notifications that bombard the iPhones, tablets, and televisions that haunt us every waking moment.

But it’s remarkable how fast that all melts away the second you strap a pack to your back and step out onto a trailhead. Within hours, you’re back to the basics — build a fire, find some water, set up a shelter — and most of your thoughts revolve around your next step.

You don’t quite sleep through the night when you’re out there, either. It’s as if your subconscious opens that long-shut eye, the one we all closed years ago after barricading ourselves behind high gates and sheetrock walls, and you become aware of every rustling leaf in the darkness. The water you filter from the stream tastes different, also — not quite so "pure." Or maybe it’s more pure, because it doesn’t have all of the chlorine we load into it, and its flavor is that of the rocks it glides over, the moss it flows through, and the fish that swim in it. You taste the earth, instead of the chemicals we’ve created from the elements we’ve found.

You realize that fire is actually pretty important. We don’t pay much attention to that, even though figuring out the cheapest, easiest way to boil water has been civilization’s primary goal since the Industrial Revolution. Nah. We ignore the groan of the baseboard or the hushed whisper of the stove’s burners until they stop working, at which point we panic.

But when it’s actually cold out, and you’re missing that aforementioned sheetrock shell, doing something as simple as pulling wood out of the ground and dragging it somewhere to burn becomes a matter of utmost consequence.

And then there’s the hike up the mountain itself, the one whose summit sits, quite literally, a mile higher than home. Taken as one gigantic mass, it’s intimidating as hell, but if you never look past the next headlamp-lit step, it becomes beatable… although you won’t ever concentrate harder on each and every footfall as you will when you’re on a slanted rock face in the alpine zone of New York’s highest precipice.

You might think this is all just some hippie-ish Romantic treatise about turning away from the modern world to "get in touch with the earth." Maybe it is. But I cannot help but feel that totally disconnecting from this information-overloaded system is necessary every so often, and I would be lying if I said I didn’t find strange comfort in seeing "Searching for Service" pasted across my cell phone screen for three straight days. (The Adirondacks, it appears, are one of the few remaining white spots on Verizon’s red invasion map.)

And that’s fine with me. Especially because after gazing out at the expansive views offered by the craggy 5,343-foot dome of Mount Marcy, coming back down to sea level to sit in a house and look at Facebook is more than a little bit of a letdown.

Email: janoski@northjersey.com

http://www.northjersey.com/recreation/227173421__Turning_off__on_Mount_Marcy_s_slopes.html?page=all

Adirondacks, Backpacking, Camping, Hiking, Mount Marcy, New York State

From the summit of Mount Marcy

Technorati Tags: Mount Marcy, New York, Adirondacks, Nature, Hiking, Camping