Pump It Up

Can’t fib, sometimes I crack myself up. It was early-evening last Saturday and I was watching a tense Red Sox/Reds game, 4-3 Boston in the bottom of the eighth. Sox reliever Chris Martin, just back from the IL, was in a jam, two men on and two out. Then he whiffs Nick Martini to end the inning and I instinctively pumped my fist in the air. That’s when I cracked up, thinking how crazy it was for a man who’s 69 to get so jazzed about one out (though crucial!) in a baseball game, with no one else in the room. (Don’t know how long it’ll last but Sox are surprisingly competitive this season, despite ownership’s ridiculous frugality, and it’s thrilling to watch a fast team, with Jarren Duran, David Hamilton, Romy Gonzales, Conor Wong and Ceddanne Rafaela disrupting opponents when they’re on base.) Upon reflection, however, a self-pardon was issued, since this particular moment of jubilation was not only proof of life, but also the continuation of a habit formed in the early-1960s when I first rooted for the Sox.

A devoted sports fan, over the decades, traverses numerous life cycles—not to go Charles Reich, Seals & Crofts, Richard Brautigan or G.I. Gurdjieff on you—such as adolescence (pimples!), high school and maybe college, waiting on a dealer to deliver a dime bag, relationships, work careers that flourish (or not), family, pop culture evolution and the onset of age-related aches and pains (or worse), but that allegiance to one team, and one team only, remains a constant. It’s not, unless you really are a nut, life-defining, but it ain’t beans.

I remember watching the—to me—spectacular sixth game of the Red Sox-Red World Series in 1975, in the Johns Hopkins campus bar The Rathskeller (the drinking age was 18 for several years) and when Carlton Fisk hit that foul-pole homer, most eyes in the joint were glued to the tube, with a roar when the ball was declared fair. The Sox lost the seventh game, but it was a hell of a series. Not so, obviously in 1986, when the cursed Bosox blew a chance to end The Curse, and I watched, alone, in disbelief, at my apartment on Preston St. in Baltimore. The yearly suffering came to an end—still have to pinch myself—in 2004, when Boston overcame the Yankees in the ALCS (talk about impossible dreams!) and then swept the Cards. When that happened, I smiled broadly, heaved a sigh of relief, shared high-fives with my young sons, watched the interviews and called it a night.

Pumping my fist! I did it as a teenager as well (the photo above was an experimental, far-out-man “selfie” in Huntington) although given that era the smile or frown wasn’t instantaneous. I’d listen to the radio in the morning for the previous night’s baseball scores, or go through one of the several daily newspapers we had delivered, and rip open the sports pages for the results. Say what you will about the internet, but the immediate (“in real time!”) access to the action, which young fans, when they’re not on phones placing a bet, take for granted, is a quality-of-life upgrade, however fleeting.

Take a look at the clues to figure out when this snap of Young Mr. Smith was taken: Utah Stars win the ABA Finals; Charles Coody (who?) wins the Masters Tournament; Irish Ball takes the Irish Derby Stakes; the USSR wins the Men’s European Volleyball Championship; Evonne Goolagong is the Associated Press’ Female Athlete of the Year; Ewan McGregor is born and Bebe Daniels dies; Davy Jones leaves the Monkees; Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax and Charles Bukowski’s Post Office are published; and Fairport Convention is on the bill at the first Glastonbury Festival.

—Follow Russ Smith on Twitter: @MUGGER2023