BASEBALL AND THE DRUNKEN GODS

Sports rivalries permit giddy war-like rhetoric.  After a playoff ended in victory, a woman turned to me and asked, “Whom do we hate now?”  American sports are a mock Peloponnesian War. People enjoy the kidding. It enlivens the spirit.

Late in the Twentieth Century I took a 5:00pm Staten Island ferry into Manhattan. Both the Mets and Yankees were in town, and fans of both clubs were crossing for the games and many were decked out in their regalia. A [Jeter] 2 sat across from a Wright 5. Around 11:00pm I returned to Staten Island but found only subdued and listless Mets fans. Wright 5 was drinking a beer. It was plainly not his first. I concluded the Mets had lost, tragically, to the Phillies. However, checking the Internet (that transient fad; oh when will it pass?), I discovered the Yankees game had gone in fact into extra innings. I then listened on the radio as the Yanks beat the Red Sox on a wild pitch in the bottom of the 14th.

And what does all this mean? 

drawing by Rachel Pfeffer

Back in 1999 just before the Millennium, God and Allah were in a bar up in heaven. God has always been a
Yankee fan. Allah favors the Mets. “Jeez, God,” said Allah, “for like a thousand years the Yankees always win.
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