The Red Sox won 5-4 on Monday night after two-time reigning Cy Young Award winner Tarik Skubal was scratched for surgery (boo), the game time was moved up to 6:10 (yay?) and the Justin Bieber to all of my Detroit friend fans (a sizeable faction, randomly), Kevin McGonigle did not play. So things were going well and all but I still cannot not think of the Simpsons at every turn when I hear that dude’s name. And so:
I’m working through it.
Anyhow, back to our sense of hope. This goes a coupla directions
for me tonight. One, Peyton Tolle was so good that the opposing team’s announcers were in awe. He’s a dude. Relatedly, two, I listened to the home team’s announcers. That’s Jason Benetti’s crew. This is like winning the lottery on a night like tonight, for reasons explained below. It was like a revival, or like living in an alternate universe. The joy for the game exploded off the screen, and the fact that the game lived to the environment to them is a testament to how good baseball can be. Which is much easier to say because the Sox won. But they did. Which means overthinking things feels good.
I’m not gonna tick-tock what happened in this space any more because you can get that anywhere else. Here is what it felt like: Very fucking cool! A potentially dangerous thunderstorm was bearing down so they started early to avoid it and neither avoided it nor were in danger. It’s weather, so them’s the breaks. And while Skubes was out, Tolle wasn’t, and he was so good that Benetti and co — the opposing announcers — were or just sounded believably in awe. Maybe they’re just good at it, or maybe you just realize how effective the “maybe it’s Maybelline” ads were, or maybe they were telling the truth.
The game was scoreless until the Tigers got 2 runs in the bottom of the 6th, which visibly bothered Tolle, who was neither at fault nor ultimately had anything to for which to apologize anyway. In the top of the 7th the Sox plated 5 runs, 3 of them on a home run by Jarren Duran, apparently unshaken by being traded twice in my dynasty league in 2 hours, the first time from me. He really can hit it when he’s right tho. Masa and Wilmer also came up big. The Tigers cut it to 5-4 but that was as close as they got.
To me, that wasn’t the story. The game was delayed 28 minutes by rain, and I got to watch the Benetti feed. They fielded questions like favorite board game, food, etc, so I just happened to be watching as all this happened, below. It’s lovely. You can enjoy it as well:
Maybe I wouldn’t care if this wasn’t on the night John Sterling, the Yankees’ singularly bombastic passed away, probably the last true performer in the booth, literally by decades. But as everything got corporatized (derogatory) he became corporatized (complimentary.) When I told Yankees fans, like the most dyed-in-the-w0ol types, that I said he seemed happiest reading ads they all agreed. A friend who loved him more than about anyone texted today that “His hearse will be driven…by jeep,” and I think he’d have loved that.
He’d been a welcome anachronism and eventually wiped away all traces of cynicism for anyone without hate in their hearts and finished the indoctrination. Yes, it took time: I’ve had him for more than 25 years on local radio and all I can tell you sisters and brothers he is ultimately more fun to laugh both at and with than hate. He loved something about baseball, and pomp, and the use of time. Benetti understands it better than anyone right now, and that he does it in a way that’s 180 degrees away from Sterling is why we love this sport. It takes all kinds. The only common thread is how much we know they love it. We know when it’s real.
