10.15.2020 | The Future Forest

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Murph

So.

I have a letter on fathers and fatherhood in the works, but the effort is taking more of a toll on me than I expected. I’m not gonna rush it. Fatherhood will still be in play in a week or two.

I figured, as such, that I’d instead pop in to eulogize the Dodgers season, which is almost certainly over after tonight’s loss. I’ll admit that I had visions of Kershaw finally putting the demons to rest this postseason, hoisting high the commissioner’s trophy with tears in his eyes—not only during these challenging times but in the midst of our letter writing, perhaps as a culminating moment. That, alas, is not meant to be. More of the same is what we got: another unfathomably cruel exercise in frustration, another unmerited chapter in Kershaw’s postseason narrative.

It all makes a guy think, “Why am I doing this to myself?”

Can the fleeting joys of such a pastime ever outweigh the actual melancholy and bitterness I felt when Kiké whipped that ball into the opposing dugout, when that Freeman double rolled past an inexplicably stumbling Muncy, when no hero appeared to vanquish Ozuna, when the bullpen gave up inherited runner after inherited runner? These are emotions, mind you, I will feel whenever I’m surprised by these moments in a tweet or on a highlight reel forever and ever.

This is where my pragmatic mind goes in these moments—as it did for the first time during Game Five of the 2017 World Series—amassing a nearly airtight case for signing off forever, quitting this obsession cold turkey, as it were, in the name of my emotional health and physiological well-being.

But then it happens: Chris Martin, coming in to relieve a struggling Will Smith, says a little prayer behind the mound, and Tom pipes up: “What the fuck was that? A prayer!?”

And someone else goes, “Yeah.”

And Tom goes, “<quote-01>Get that shit outta here! I have no time for religion in my sports!<quote-01>”

And we chuckle a bit and move on.

But then the inning rolls along, and Martin finds himself in a bit of trouble. And as the Braves pitching coach strolls to the mound for a chat, Tom exclaims, fucking perfectly, mind you, “Where’s your god now!?”

And we all just lose it, myself included—real, unavoidable, cleansing laughter.

And when this same Martin loses a clear first-pitch strike to the ump’s zone, and Grapey shouts, “This ump’s got money on the game; we’re back in this!” the laughter swells once more—<quote-02>impossibly<quote-02>—good vibrations in the midst of the misery.

And I think, “Ah, yes. My friends! I love these guys!”

And so, I guess what I’m saying is, we’ll get ‘em next year.

October 15th

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<pull-quote>Get that shit outta here! I have no time for religion in my sports!<pull-quote>
<avatar-wuck><avatar-wuck><author-name>Wuck<author-name>
<p-comment>i’m with tom here, enough of the performative piety.<p-comment>
<p-comment>i like how we refer to the baseball gods, plural. they are temperamental and unpredictable; like the greek gods, they are not unlike man—meant to be faced and challenged. fidelity to them might pay off as readily as faithlessness.<p-comment>
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<avatar-hoke><avatar-hoke><author-name>Hoke<author-name>
<p-comment>Tom's comment is funny, considering what an immense religion baseball is, anthropologically. Look at you guys gathering in Murph's driveway for these games, just like churches doing the same in parking lots during COVID. <p-comment>
<p-comment>There are high holy days on the ceremonial calendar each year. We are in the equivalent of Advent/Christmas or Lent/Easter right now in baseball religion: October/World Series. Baseball's the longest running "tradition" in our land of sports, and it's by far the most liturgical, with millions of midrashing scribes and statisticians to reinterpret the law and history for their followers on Twitter.<p-comment>
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<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>I think his issue has something to do with bothering the singular and almighty deity for something as petty as sports entertainment. Maintain some perspective, puny human.<p-comment>
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<pull-quote>impossibly<pull-quote>
<avatar-wuck><avatar-wuck><author-name>Wuck<author-name>
<p-comment>lovely<p-comment>
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<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>I often think about how Vin has informed what has become my go-to vocabulary, and never more impactfully than with his call of Gibby's dinger: "In a year that has been so improbable, the impossible has happened!"<p-comment>
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<avatar-hoke><avatar-hoke><author-name>Hoke<author-name>
<p-comment>I'm surprised the recent, made-up word "impactful" has reached Professor Murphy's discerning use. Must be real now.<p-comment>
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<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>I'm fine with it in general—it came to be rather sensibly as did many words with the "ful" suffix (meaning not just "full of" but also "having" or "characterized by")—but I particularly like it in and around a sports context, where we so often use the phrase "impact player."<p-comment>
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<avatar-hoke><avatar-hoke><author-name>Hoke<author-name>
<p-comment>Nicely fielded.<p-comment>
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<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
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<avatar-hoke><avatar-hoke><author-name>Hoke<author-name>
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<avatar-wuck><avatar-wuck><author-name>Wuck<author-name>
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