I just got back from the Pirates’ game. It was a real good one. I got to see a 2-6 double play, and one of the rare proper uses of the intentional walk. With the Pirates down by one in the bottom of the 11th, tied at four and a runner on second with two outs, the Cubs intentionally walked the Pirates’ hitter, Nate McClouth, putting a force on every base and by happenstance letting the right handed pitcher avoid pitching to the lefty, McClouth and getting Jason Bay instead.
Jason Bay promptly smacked the ball into left field to win the game.
We got to the 11th inning because with two outs in the bottom of the ninth, after an incorrect intentional walk, the Pirates Luis Rivas hit an lazy fly ball to left field. I stood up to see Alphonso Soriano make the easy catch and end the game. I watched the ball go right into his glove, and then right out again. Maybe the Yankees were correct to get rid of him after all. He always was kind of a klutz.
The seventh inning stretch was of course accompanied by a girl singing God Bless America while standing beside a U.S. Marine and a Naval officer. God Bless America is sung at every sporting event ever nowadays, usually conflated with symbols of the military, which proves that our little war isn’t a holy war at all!
The announcer asked everybody to stand. I declined. God Bless America is not the national anthem yet. It’s a cantankerous ditty from a bad musical. Do we stand up and put our hands over our hearts when somebody sings Anything Goes too?
He also asked us, on this Memorial Day weekend, to remember all those who died on September the 11th. Now, Memoral Day was created as a holiday to remember those who died in the Civil War, and then later extended to all those who died in any military service of the U.S. I was unaware that you can use Memoral Day to memorialize any old thing that’s both historically significant and bad. Guess so! Therefore, this Memorial Day I’ll be memorializing the botched U.S. Presidential election of 2000, the suicide of Hunter S. Thompson, the defeat of the Spanish Armada, and the Bubonic Plague. Doesn’t that just make you want to roast some weenies? Play ball!
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