World Cup Fever

(Photo by Trey Ratcliff)

Have you caught it yet, #WorldCupFever? I’m all in. Each Cup, I get pulled in deeper. It probably has something to do with the fact that I ditched soccer for baseball as a kid. Believe me I’ve made up for the lost time. I don’t just get gaga every four years. I watch Copa Mundial, English Premier League, MLS, and friendlies at Citi Field when the Mets are out of town.

As much as I enjoy the matches themselves, and witnessing a #DempseyGoal or a #Messigoal, I am completely enamored with the fans and the pageantry. As a recovering anthropologist, I cannot get enough of the fans and the flavor they add to an already spicy game. I’m quite fortunate to live in Astoria Queens, which is one of the most diverse neighborhoods in the universe. Spiciness off-the-charts. Flags of competing nations (past and present) can be found, dangling off car windshields, hookah bar awnings, stapled to takeout menus. Astoria is jackpot for the consummate Futbol fan, a movable feast for the feverish. You can catch a game in any number of bars, diners, pizza joints, chicken shacks, social clubs (if you’re member). I prefer the Studio Square Beer Garden while soaking in the Cup during the 30-day binge.

Wherever you go you’ll be elbow to cramped elbow with checkered-ball zealots. It’s contiguous, unbridled euphoria, sans Budweiser or Audi commercials. No trips to the john or you’ll lose your seat or standing post or, more likely, the cherished goal. Swill in the range of emotions, jouncing with the pitch as the plumber, the landscaper, and the mortgage banker crane their necks toward the zipping ball on the giant plasma screen. The neighborhood dentist, who has cancelled a day’s worth of root canals, gobbles beer nuts. The mailman almost leaps out of his wrinkle-free shirt as Tim Howard deflects the impossible. Who needs another L.L Bean catalog anyway? The laser beam focus on that screen is both marvelous and disconcerting something we 3rd generation gamers know oh so well. If you aren’t fortunate enough to have tickets to the extravaganza in Brazil then an over-sized beer garden will do. The writhing amplification from the speakers and the fans blowing into their vuvuzelas suggests tsunami or some other seismic treat.

I see the Cup as a way for grownups to relive their “Spider-man” or “The Lion King” dreams. And why not? There’s enough electric joy in the game to pry Buddhist monks away from their prayers, to allow warring nations to extend an olive branch for 90 minutes of bliss. As the striker lines up for his penalty kick, there’s that brief (inertia-stifling) moment as if Superman or Zeus has stopped the globe from spinning. Then the striker zips to the ball and, once the ball has been struck, your heart leaps.

On the surface, it’s about trophies. Yeah, it’s about pride, but really it’s about connecting. It’s about connecting to something deeper than wins and losses and bicycle-kick goals. The true pulse of WorldCupFever is reconnecting to one’s childhood, tying shared cultural experiences of kicking cans in the street on the way to school, blocking balled-up socks from whisking into your open locker. When you watch a game, myriad memories fuse together and you chase the ball of nostalgia. There’s electricity not because of the glowing lights, glinting on the grass or because you feel a glimmer of excitement being among the crowd, but because wherever you are there’s a crowd and another crowd and another crowd of crowds. The exponential charge dwarfs DC and rips into AC.

It’s more than a game. It’s about feeling that electric charge and reeling in the indescribable.

'86 World Series with My Dad

Since it’s that time of year I feel it is fitting to write about the Fall Baseball Classic. This is not a scoop on whether the Yankees or the Phillies will take this year’s World Series nor do I wish to rehash the playoffs. Instead, I would like to share an incredible memory from childhood, the time my dad brought me to Game 6 of the 1986 World Series.

If you’re a baseball fan you can recall the drama of that particular game. Redsox fans were sure they had it in the bag with their Rocket on the mound, and quite frankly, the Mets were floundering on the field and at the plate.

The whole complexion of the game changed on a routine-hit-grounder, through the legs of Bill Buckner, (a lifetime .300 hitter) who would unfortunately be known as a goat for the rest of his ballplaying life.

As unbelievable a game as it was there’s a part of my memory that trumps the whole game and the 56,000 crazy Mets’ fans waving foam thumbs, blaring horns, screaming their voice boxes into laryngitis. The most amazing thing about that night was that my dad and I rebuilt a bond that was slowing slipping away.

We didn’t have a ticket for the game. Okay, so you’ve probably bought a scalped ticket at some point in your life: rock concert, charity ball, maybe a football game. This is not that story. We didn’t have tickets and we didn’t buy any. Got me so far? We didn’t sneak in either. My dad simply flashed an usher his fireman’s badge, and the old timer let us pass the gate. It was the greatest magic trick I had ever witnessed, and my dad’s full hazel eyes gleamed with triumph. When I think of it now it’s like a gateway to the past, his beaming joy that moment we made our way in the stadium must have been the same joy he’d experienced going to a ballgame with his dad. But, maybe that’s even a lame comparison because he set a new spark for us, kept us from drifting apart, at least for the magical night.

I think it’s worth mentioning that I was a 12-year-old twerp, who’d been passed the solipsist’s gene from some distant relation. On the twerp-scale, I ranked in the highest percentiles for complaining, whining, nagging, and demanding. “Get me popcorn, get me a soda, get me another hotdog.” I’ve never been a true fan. I love the game of baseball, but I’m the consummate analyst and sometimes prefer reviewing scorecards then actually watching games. I’m not sure what that says about me, but it is what it is.

My dad had to slap the scorecard shut just so I wouldn’t miss a homerun. He must have felt the lost grip he’d had on me. I had already drifted into a pre-teen haze replete with non-stop gaga over pop music, girls, and the mother of all pipedreams that I’d trod the wet dirt of Shea Stadium’s infield, as their future star third baseman. This last point, this hope was one he shared with me, but that too was slowly ebbing as I found less time to take practice swings.

None of this was going to ruin the night. Dad held his badge in high esteem. He was a member of a grand brotherhood, men from a bygone generation willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for their country, their community, their sons. When I saw my dad pull out the last of his bills from his wallet, to get me another dog and Coke, I caught glimpse of his badge, shining in the moonlight. I noticed the right side was dented. It reminded me of his helmet which was partially melted from the excruciating heat of the fires he fought.

His badge poked out of his wallet like a Crackerjack prize. I asked him if I could hold it, and the expression on my dad’s face was pure pride. He put it in my hand. It was surprisingly warm and it made my fingers smell like a thousand nickels. It was unvarnished, plenty of nicks by the ladder company number, but when a bit of moonlight kissed the brass it glowed like a piece of King Tut’s tomb.

We watched the game, huddled in our pullovers, hands stuffed in pockets with a gentle whisk of wind blowing the wisps of hair behind our caps. For a brief moment we were invincible.