I love the film Moneyball for a lot of reasons, but one part of the film really resonates now.
If you recall, Billy Beane’s life was baseball — once as a player and, as the movie starts, as the general manager for the Athletics.
But he doesn’t watch the games. At first pitch, he might be working out in the gym. He might go for a drive. But sit in the stadium and watch every excruciating pitch? No way.
Well, I never played baseball and nothing in my personal life depends on the outcome of the Rays postseason
and yet….when the postseason starts I feel so stressed that I can barely watch.
When it’s a series against a rival like the Yankees I’m nearly comatose with anxiety. The pain of losing to THOSE guys – with their air of entitlement, the sense that the world begins and ends with them. Their stupid minor league stadium dimensions (and then their fans griping if an opponent actually beats them shooting “home runs” to the short porch); their acting like they are better than the rest of us but then using a b-tier electronics store jingle ad to signify a strikeout. The thousands of New Yorkers who flee their region to enjoy OUR weather and OUR low taxes while continuing to root for the Yankees, and who then boast that they outnumber the Rays fans (which they don’t by the way, they are just very loud and obnoxious) when in fact they have priced long time Floridians out of the region.
Oh and by the way did I mention, I’m from New York City? So I really am entitled to call these folks out.
Anyway!
I thought baseball was the thing I did to escape the difficult parts of life. Work can be stressful, family can be complicated, there are fires and floods everywhere, so of course we turn to baseball, that traditional, pastoral sport for escape.
When we get to the postseason, however, it’s the baseball part that seems stressful.
In 2023 I decided to address this by going all in on participation. I bought tickets for all the Wild Card games (of which just two were played), got a new postseason shirt, cleared my work schedule and immersed myself in the game. And I was rewarded with the two worst Rays games I’ve ever seen, and I was around for the Devil Rays.
This year I’ve decided to stay home (clearly I was the bad luck charm) and I’m looking for ways to get into the right mindset to actually, you know, enjoy baseball. Ice cream? Meditation, with my new mantra: “Any October baseball is good. Any October baseball is good.”
Or maybe alcohol. I’ve created a drinking game where I take a shot every time someone — baseball folks, random fans on social media — says some variation of “who are these guys?” Double shots if a ball hits a catwalk. I invite you to join me, or if you aren’t a drinker substitute your substance of choice.
I also line up all my Rays swag and bobbleheads around my TV and light a few candles. That should surely help.
And if things get tense, well, I’ll go to the store.
Where are you on the anxiety-to-joy continuum? What is your strategy for dealing with the many Yankee fans certain to cast a dark shadow over the Trop this week?
