Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Bums

Thinking about fathers and sons and daughters and passionate fandom reminds me of one of the great baseball memoirs, by historian Doris Kearns Goodwin. She grew up in Brooklyn in the '40s and '50s following Jackie Robinson and 'dem Bums, before they moved to southern California and broke her heart.

There were no vuvuzellas in Flatbush back then, just the Sym-PHONY and Red Barber and lots of good-natured partisan wordplay in the stands. It's a game whose meaning takes explicit and constant symbolic form, until something unspeakably amazing (Jackie stole home!) transcends all notation. The lesson: write stuff down when you can, but don't let that interfere with your experience.

Our girls know how to keep score too, of course.

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