This is a short story about baseball, but it doesn’t start with baseball. It starts with Squash, one of my favorite ways to get exercise. It’s a fun, aristocratic sport, good for the mind and body, and the San Francisco Bay Club has the best courts on the West Coast.
I played squash Thursday night, the same night as game 7 of the American League championships between the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox. Of course, the whole nation, just about, was rooting for Boston. The Cubs had lost the night before so we wanted to see Boston go to the World Series and break their super long dry spell, that curse or whatever. I’m not a sports fan, unless it’s squash.
So anyway. I’m just about to get on the court … I can hear people upstairs in the club’s restaurant, they’re watching the game, making noise, rooting for Boston … and I notice something.
“Google,” I say, pointing to the tee-shirt my opponent is wearing. It’s a ratty, gray thing, with small circles on the front connected by a loopy line. I assume he’s wearing a shirt from google.com.
“No,” says my friend. He speaks with an Indian accent. “It’s not google.”
I look more closely. “Boondoggle!” I think this is great. He’s got a tee-shirt that says “I’m gonna boondoggle you. Watch out.” To me, being able to boondoggle others (get the best of them) sounds very appealing. It would verify that I’m smarter than they, a hustler, a winner, not a victim or a loser. So I want that tee-shirt.
“No,” he says again, this time tugging at the threadworm fabric so that I might read it better. “It’s bondoggle. A board game my company invented.”
“Interesting,” I said, and stopped wanting the tee-shirt and started playing squash. I didn’t play very well; an injury had kept me from the sport for three weeks, long enough to lose much of my technique and strategy. To win a game, you need 9 points. Three times, I was up 7-2 or 8-4, only to watch my opponent climb back to 7-7 or 8-7. My killer instincts had deserting me. Not only was I physically awkward, my mental game was adrift. Still, I managed to squeak a narrow victory, thanks to some lucky, fluke shots.
Later that night, at home, I wanted to listen to the game. NPR, the only radio station I ever listen to (it feeds me smart factoids to drop into office conversation) certainly wouldn’t be carrying the game, so I switched over to AM, and found a station claiming to be the “Bay Area’s Sports Leader.”
I listened to the game, tied going into the ninth.
Between innings, I jumped in the shower, to wash off that squash sweat. Then I’m toweling myself, on leg number two, when an ad catches my ear. It’s a man’s voice, very high energy. He says, “Hey there! Know that feeling when you think life just can’t get any better?”
No. But my interest is piqued.
“Well, it just did,” he says. “Now announcing zero percent financing on all new and used 2003 and 2004 models in our run up to Halloween floor model GIVEAWAY!”
I laugh at this. Life would be so easy, if buying a car were that pleasureable, bur for me, it’s not.
A minute later, while I’m getting dressed, a commercial comes on for a home electronics store. “Stop by one of our five area locations NOW for your choice of a FREE 19-inch television or a FREE 3-disc CD player, with minimum purchase of over $699 on select items currently in stock.” The talking is so fast, the music so exciting, and FREE’s so plentiful, it’s hard to process. Then, as the announcer’s wrapping up his sales pitch, he reminds us that the offer is “mostly free, after $50 mail-in rebate. Taxes and service fees not included.”
Contrast this with my normal diet of vegetarian NPR, left-leaning commentary, socially aware and artistically quirky, addressing issues affecting minorities and the poor, unearthing injusting, promoting the needs of our COMMUNITY, where the only advertisements are even-toned thank-you’s to the Bill and Milinda Gates Foundation and the Kresgy Foundation, working to eradicate hunger and the promote research to find a malaria vaccine.
“Do you need Focus Foctor?”
What? This next ad is for an herbal supplement that promises to sharpen your mental acuity and heighten intelligence, available NOW for just four easy payments of $12.95, plus $4.95 for shipping and handling. Limit one bottle per household.
I begin to crave silence. The game is still tied going into the 11th inning, and I can’t decide who I want to win, and listening through these ads is exhausting. Yes, a Boston victory would be great, historic, something special. We don’t need another Yankee world series. Let’s spread the wealth instead. On the other hand, I love New York, and I love watching the Yankees win when it counts, when they’re down 5-2 in the 8th, when the whole season is on the line in one at-bat. The pressure makes the Yankees play their best.
But first, here’s a word from our sponsor.
“Call 1-800-79BETUS or visit betUS.com. We’ve been in business for over eleven years. You can’t lose.”
Enough. I turn off the radio and take a moment to feel smart. I don’t need Focus Foctor and I probably will lose at betUS.com. But they ain’t gonna boondoggle me. No.
And I’ll be happy with either Boston or New York in the World Series. Let the best team win.
So I strap on my Stick and scroll through iTunes to find a Grateful Dead concert from amongst the dozens on my hard drive. It’s more fun to play along with them than to play by myself, for my cats. I chose the band’s New Years show, 1971, which was broadcast live on radio. As you may know, the Dead improvised their music, long jams, extended drum solos, and so forth. But to do that for a live, paying audience, and on the radio, back in 1971, when their future was still uncertain? That’s pressure. (See? I’m tying this all back to baseball). The band played really well that night.
Unfortunately, I’m not that talented. My sluggish fingers have difficulty following the instrumentals, and the squash games wore me out, so after fifteen minutes I stop.
But now I want to hear whether the Red Sox won. The radio station with the screwball ads is airing some pathetic, call-in show for fantasy football, which means the game is over, so I go to news.google.com, a news source agglomeration page which updates every two minutes; they’ll have the headline.
No headline. No mention of baseball at Google news. This is a job for the professionals, the people who do sports 24/7. ESPN.com. They’ll have it. And yes, they do. And what’s the first thing I see as the page loads? What’s the headline? What’s in ALL BOLD sans-serif font, right above a picture of a Yankees player, his steroid enhanced triceps wrapped around his torso; he’s just connected with the ball and is watching it soar towards the bleachers?
Boone-doggle!
Aaron Boone led off the 11th inning with a home run as the Yankees beat the Red Sox 6-5.
Boone-doogle, the pun.
Boondoggle, the verb.
Bondogle, the board game
Google, the web site.
Ogle, to look at somebody for sexual enjoyment or as a way of showing sexual interest.