Part II
I know I transitioned to baseball from football. During the 2001 NFL season I was a devotee of the Greatest Show on Turf, a team dedicated to delivering pure fucking spectacle in an already unreal environment. I didn’t really follow football when the Rams won in 1999* so I never really knew the harshness of those primary blue and yellow uniforms or the improbability of the rise of Kurt Warner from functionally retarded grocery stock boy to functionally retarded quarterback star. And who the fuck is Dick Vermeil? The football I enjoyed when I was 11 sprung from the twisted mind of Mike Martz, a person who is crazy in the same way that Karl Rove is crazy. The team I followed had the best fucking uniforms in the league - slick navy and gold with silver accents that went perfectly with Astroturf green and made every other team look beyond embarrassing. The Rams that year represented the pinnacle of American spirit and ingenuity – that is, they fucking scored a lot, didn’t really care about defense (emphasis on defense is for communists and besides it’s boring to watch), and hid behind a humble, conservative attitude that meant no one could give them shit. My family has always made a sport out of “stupid American” jokes but for that season we ordered Pizza Hut on a semi-regular basis and even wore Rams sweatshirts.
Of course then the fucking Patriots actually come away with the Super Bowl title, red silver and blue motherfuckers who win the first Super Bowl after 9/11. Jesus. I remember very clearly writing an angry journal entry for my Language Arts class about the fact that the Patriots shouldn’t have even been in the Super Bowl, like in that game against the Raiders that incomplete should have really been called a fumble, and it was all so unfair…I got my journal entry back the next week with my teacher’s comments in red, “Yes, but that is how it works in sports…and in life.” I remember very clearly thinking this was a bullshit statement or at least really boring. I stopped watching football after that. What was the point if the Rams – a team that carried out the artificial aesthetics of the game to its most brutal extreme – had to lose to some dumb motherfucker named Tom Brady? It would take me a few more years before I really started questioning narratives of American progress, but it’s not difficult to see when the seeds of my resentment were planted.
* - I of course, still knew THE image of Mike Jones detaining a Tennessee Titan at the 1 yard line, mostly because it was prominently displayed in my orthodontist’s office.
How I May Have Gotten Here, Part I
I never liked Mark McGwire. I realize this is an easy thing to say now, but back in 1998 my contrary ass self supported Sammy Sosa at a time when my entire hometown was painted red. When I think of that record chase and what life was like at that time I can literally only see red - seas of people in cheap grocery store t-shirts, the bright roof of a McDonalds. St. Louis summer in the suburbs is awash with red in many ways that irritated me even then. One particularly vivid image I have is of a fat redhaired boy with freckles and sunburned skin wearing an oversized Mark McGwire t-shirt. I was still in public school then, where I saw boys wearing Stone Cold Steve Austin shirts on a regular basis. I don’t think he is anyone in particular to me, just an emblem of what Mark McGwire fans looked like. I think I remember hating this image or at least feeling that I was not included in it. Personally I never turned pink in the summer, just brown. Amidst all the ruddy faces the color of Sammy Sosa’s skin had a cooling effect. His jersey was blue, like water.
I don’t really remember how or why I started following the Cardinals. This is obviously a thing you do in St. Louis - when I think of home I think of making small talk with affable middle-aged white grocery store cashiers about the latest game. (St. Louis has got to be one of the few places left in the country where there are still a lot of white people working at grocery stores.) Everybody owns at least some Cardinals gear - if not a cheap red t-shirt from Wal-Mart with a number 5 then at least an oversized freebie shirt sponsored by the Pasta House. (Immigrant families need not be included in the “everybody” here.) And Fredbird, whose parents’ names provide this blog’s namesake, is present at all the important stages in a young St. Louisans life - from elementary school pizza party to middle school field day to high school fundraiser. But even though baseball culture is everywhere in St. Louis, it still seems strange to me that I became so absorbed by it at one time, that I still feel passionate about a culture defined by the same white Midwestern genteel values that my very existence runs counter to.
Maybe in another city I’d have grown up a basketball fan, which seems to me the ideal professional sport for overanalytical Asian Americans obsessed with race and fitteds, but without a home team I am totally unsympathetic. Basketball games are like thought experiments to me, theoretically interesting but without the force of material reality. I feel like I will have many future partners who are super into basketball, while I play the role of dumb, disinterested girlfriend. Whatever, it’s the dumb, disinterested girlfriends who always win NCAA bracket pools, right? (This is another thing. I don’t understand college sports. As a college student myself I feel obliged to ask, why would you want to watch college students do something you know grown people can do better?)
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