Hundreds of years before I became an essayist, there was a grand summit meeting held on the grounds of what would eventually become the Buckingham Palace in London. It was attended by all of the reigning gods, kings, archangels, head rabbis and prophets, as well as by the leading preachers and politicians of the day. The grand summit conference also included the ancestors of Vice-President Dan Quayle, Yasser Arafat and O.J. Simpson. Basically the outcome of the grand summit conference was that it was decreed that henceforth November would always automatically follow October. There would be no April or May late in the year because November presaged the onset of winter.
For many Americans, the arrival of November is bad news indeed. It brings on a miasma that causes dropsy, sleepiness and nervousness. Within my experience, when October slides silently and seamlessly into November, the illness of miasma always arrives. Fortunately, it lasts only for perhaps five months. In any case, the debilitating illness starts as the final out is made in the current World Series. Once that final out is accomplished, every baseball fan knows that there will be no Major League Baseball on a regularly scheduled basis until five months hence. Baseball games are not played in November, December, January, and February. There are exhibition games in March, but that counts for very little. So there is a long period of unhappiness that must be endured until the first balls are thrown at the beginning of the new baseball season starting on or about April 1 of the succeeding year.
I have endured this terrible ailment for about 80 years. In 1926, the St. Louis Cardinals defeated the New York Yankees in the World Series that provided me with my very first memories. As a four-year-old St. Louis boy, I was wondering why my older brothers were dancing around the house and yelling. It turns out that in the seventh game of the World Series played in New York, Jess Haines was the Cardinal pitcher. His special pitch was a knuckle ball which is not thrown with the knuckles but with the finger tips. By the seventh inning of that seventh game, Jess Haines’s fingertips were worn to nothing but bloodiness. With the bases loaded with Yankees, Rogers Hornsby, the St. Louis second baseman and manager, summoned Grover Cleveland Alexander from the St. Louis bullpen. Alexander was known as a man who seldom passed up a drink, and he had pitched the sixth game, which was a victory for the Cardinals. He had no idea whatsoever that he would be called upon to relieve in the seventh game. Nonetheless, Alexander was summoned to the mound, and was facing the feared Yankee slugger, Tony Lazzeri. It is widely believed that Alexander, when he entered the game, was suffering from a delicious hangover. Be that as it may, Alexander struck out Lazzeri and then went on to pitch the eighth and ninth innings, which cemented the first World Series victory for the St. Louis Cardinals.
Now if you come from St. Louis, as I do, or surrounding territories, you will realize that baseball is a religion to most Midwesterners. In subsequent years when the Cardinals appeared in the World Series in 1928, 1930, 1931, and 1934, the students in the Clayton Public Schools were summoned to the gymnasium to hear radio broadcasts of the games that were then being played. In those days, of course, the games were played in the afternoon and the whole World Series was completed shortly after the first week of October. Today, with the intrusion of television, the games are played at night, often in frigid weather, and are rarely completed before the end of October. But for the students around St. Louis, learning could be postponed until they heard the broadcasts of the contests or the World Series involving the Cardinals. By doing so, a religious obligation was observed.
Now we come to the 2007 World Series. The contestants were clubs from Boston and Denver, in which I have no everlasting interest. But the World Series is an influence in my life. I can still remember the jubilation that took place in the 1926 World Series, when the Cardinals defeated the vaunted Yankees.
But when the final out was recorded in the World Series of 2007, it occurred in only the fourth game of that series. The World Series could have continued at least three games longer, but the Boston club made a sweep of it and took their trophy and went home. Perhaps that was a blessing because the players might well have suffered from frostbite had the games continued. All of this meant that the last outs were recorded earlier than expected and that the miasma that accompanies me in my winter solstice would arrive earlier. Now when nighttime comes, there are no baseball games to listen to. I make an attempt to listen to basketball and hockey games, but I find myself going to bed early because my interest is sliding.
These last two years, my New York grandchildren have subscribed for me to a satellite radio which sits on the table next to my chair in the living room. On that radio I am able to listen to out-of-town baseball broadcasts that are of great interest. For example, the Philadelphia commentator is Larry Andersen, an old relief pitcher. Andersen comments upon the strategy of the games and he gives you an unvarnished view of not only his home team but also the visiting teams. When the New York Mets played in Pittsburgh, the Pirates were in last place and it was reflected in the comments of their announcers who seemed bored and wanted the game to end as soon as possible.
In Houston, when the Mets visit there, there are endless comments about which church group is attending the game that night. Apparently the Houston Astros make an attempt to sell their tickets to Christian groups. As far as I can determine, the attendees at the games are limited to groups of the Protestant faith. There are no representatives from the Catholic Church or from the Jewish faith. The Houston Astros are a sad team and by not subscribing to attendance at the games, the Roman Catholics and the Jewish worshipers are showing excellent taste.
In any case, my satellite radio has provided me with many memories. In addition to being able to follow the game, it brings back my younger days when there was no such thing as television. In St. Louis, there was only Johnny O’Hara on radio station WIL, and France Laux on KMOX, who provided the broadcasts. I believe I join with many others who contend that radio reports are superior to those that are offered on television. And so I am indebted to those future Major League grandsons for their contribution to my summertime enjoyment.
This is being written during the first week of November, which is when my case of miasma has me in its grips. This comes about from the fact that I know it will be five months before the St. Louis Cardinals or the Mets or the New York Yankees begin their regularly-scheduled games. This agony has gone on now for 80 years, since 1926. There is no relief for the pain it causes. But I try to reason with myself that come next April the agony will be over. And so we make it from one winter to the next.
The fans of the Chicago Cubs give me hope. They have not celebrated a World Series victory of any kind since 1908. If my mathematics are correct, that will provide the fans of the Chicago Cubs with 100 years of shut-outs. If the Chicago Cub fans can hang on for 100 years, the least I can do is wait until next April. At that time, an umpire will yell, “Play ball!” and the first pitch of the new season will begin. At that moment, my agony will be lifted and there will be seven months of joy that will surround me. I suppose that five months of agony to be followed by seven months of joy is a pretty fair trade-off. In any case, I will mark off the days on the calendar until spring arrives in these parts.
Finally, a word or two about the title which is, of course, “The Hot Stove League Blues.” That term comes from people sitting around places such as hardware stores in the winter time with their feet up on a railing around the wood stove, trading stories about possible baseball trades and firings. It has been a long time since we have heated our stores with wood-burning stoves, but nonetheless the term remains in constant use today. So when somebody tells you about the Hot Stove League blues, you will always know that he is referring to a wood-burning stove around which people are trading stories and living in the hope that the cold weather will soon go away, that spring will arrive, and that there will soon be an umpire saying, “Play ball!”
E. E. CARR
November 7, 2007
Essay 268
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Kevin’s commentary: Pop should be thankful for the onset of TV, if televising the games has made the baseball season several weeks longer! Also, he should investigate the possibility of a southern-hemisphere baseball league; maybe they have one with a season that runs on an opposite schedule.