Pennant-Race Memories: Handle with Care

                It’s likely that the New York Yankees won’t make the playoffs this year, giving them two straight seasons without a playoff berth since 1992 and ‘93. If the Yankees are your favorite team, as they are for the residents of the Hynes household, this is disappointing. But if you’re paying attention to the full baseball season, you know that several groups of long-suffering fans are getting the chance to see their teams in a pennant race this summer. That is the story of baseball in 2014, and it’s a great one.

You’ve got the Kansas City Royals, absent from the playoffs for 29 years, standing in first place in their division. The Baltimore Orioles, out of the playoffs for 28 of the last 31 years, also in first place. The Milwaukee Brewers, who have made the playoffs just four times in their 45-year existence, holding onto first place. The Pittsburgh Pirates, who last year made the playoffs for the first time in 20 years, in the Wild Card chase. And the Toronto Blue Jays, absent from the playoffs for 21 years, also in the Wild Card hunt. Even the Washington Nationals, trying to bring playoff baseball to the nation’s capital for just the second time in 81 years, in first place.

When you look at this season from the vantage point of long-awaited hope, it gives you reason to worry little about whether usual playoff suspects such as the Yankees, Philadelphia Phillies, Detroit Tigers, St. Louis Cardinals, Atlanta Braves and Boston Red Sox will make the postseason this year. These teams and their fans certainly will survive. But the Royals! How can you not root for the kids in Kansas City? Even baseball’s two most consistent teams this year, the first-place Oakland Athletics and Los Angeles Dodgers, have not won a World Series since Rick Astley, Richard Marx and Gloria Estefan were ruling Billboard’s Top 40.

A few weeks ago, I took a weekend trip with my brother and our friend Neil, to spend some time together and celebrate Eric and Neil both turning 40 this year. When we go away together, the three of us usually travel to baseball stadiums. This time, it was an Orioles game one night, followed by a Nationals game the next. We watched the home teams win their games, and the stadiums were loud and full. We were impressed by how many fans dressed in the colors of their teams – Orioles orange and Nationals red. It also was impressive to see the teams enjoying their own traditions – Orioles fans belting out John Denver’s “Thank God I’m a Country Boy” during the seventh-inning stretch, and Nationals fans cheering wildly for Teddy Roosevelt as he won the nightly race of mascot presidents, beating out Lincoln, Washington, Jefferson and Taft.

There was a lot of late-summer hope in the voices and eyes of these Mid-Atlantic baseball fans. The same can be heard and seen in Kansas City, Pittsburgh, Milwaukee and other mid-size cities around the country, where the local teams are giving their fans reason to avoid thinking about football quite yet. In the end, though, these pennant-race ballgames always mean more than wins and losses. If you’re traveling to a game with your friends or family, you’re going to have time to sit together in the stands and talk, perhaps even about stuff more important than balls and strikes.

I can tell you about a lot of the Yankee games I’ve seen with Eric and Neil, but I also can tell you about many good talks and laughs we’ve had at the ballpark in the Bronx. During our Maryland weekend, we talked a lot of baseball but also caught up on one another’s lives, sharing stories of recent trips, photos of kids, and songs we’ve been enjoying. We took in the games, but also searched for tasty ballpark food together, with Eric raving over the jerk chicken in Nationals Park and Neil savoring his chili dog. I’m sure I can dig up some details of the games from my memory, but none of them come to mind as clearly as the three of us munching on late-night nachos in a pub in Alexandria, Va., or discovering the historic Maine Avenue Fish Market on our walk to the Nationals game, or singing the Traveling Wilburys’ Handle with Care together as Neil drove north on I-295, heading home.

So in this late summer of 2014, those of us in New York will never be Royals. We’re Yankees fans, so we’ll take what we can get. But as the people in Kansas City and Pittsburgh and Baltimore and D.C. get together for an energizing pennant race, we know that their fans will love the baseball. But Eric, Neil and I can tell you that in the end, a great game is really just an invitation to deepen a friendship. Put on those orange or red T-shirts, grab some jerk chicken, and create some memories together.

Everybody’s got somebody to lean on.

Dreaming in Diamond

            One day a few weeks ago, I had a rough morning’s sleep due to early-‘80s pop music. I don’t know why, but every time I closed my eyes I kept hearing the chorus of Neil Diamond’s song America. Just when I would settle comfortably back to sleep, it would hit me …

            They’re comin’ to America / Today!

            Then the synthesizers, then his voice again, filled with gusto: Today!

            And again, with feeling: Today!

            Once more, to complete the cycle: Today!

            I lay there and wondered, just what was this song doing in my brain? Was it a stray leftover from a Fourth of July fireworks show? Was it my subconscious voicing support for President Obama’s recent immigration policies? Was it a longing for that mediocre Jazz Singer remake from which the song came? Or was it an “undigested bit of beef,” to borrow from Scrooge’s sleepy tirade toward Marley’s ghost in A Christmas Carol?

            Eventually, I stumbled out of bed, conceding defeat. By now, the song had progressed beyond chorus and moved into full symphonic form. I could see Diamond in his sequined top, left hand oustretched, reciting “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee” toward the end of the song. I could hear the roar of middle-aged women as they cheered on the pyrotechnic-fueled performance and screamed for the middle-aged man singing for them. I could hear that one word, over and over: Today.

And, somewhere in this image, I saw my mother.

            I’m 41 years old, which means that it’s been more than 41 years since I began listening to Neil Diamond. To me, his voice is kind of like the sound of a microwave oven beeping or a car door slamming. Which is to say it’s intimately familiar, yet rather annoying.

            Now I know there is no use in criticizing the greatness of Neil Diamond. I am well aware that his popularity is beyond reproach. No one this side of Bruce Springsteen can fill an arena so quickly – and to think that he still does it after 30 years without a hit single. The columnist Dave Barry got such a rise out of readers when he criticized Diamond’s song “I Am … I Said,” that he was able to churn out a book inspired by the experience, titled Dave Barry’s Book of Bad Songs. I have been to a Neil Diamond concert, one of the more than 20 that my mother has attended with her fellow Diamond disciples, and I have seen the passion. I know what it looks, and sounds, like.

            I respect anyone who has a passion for something, and I know that those passions vary wildly from person to person. I love baseball, for instance, but I know there are many who find plenty to dislike about it. So I don’t feel an obligation to make others’ passions my own. I simply try to understand and appreciate them. For my mom, Neil Diamond has been the epitome of the dedicated singer/songwriter, whose words and music touched a nerve inside of her and brought about an emotional connection similar to the one I have with Springsteen. She also has felt the energy of this man on stage, and has followed the blinding glitter of his sequins. I don’t know how many times he sings Sweet Caroline these days, but she has sung along with every line. She’s stood and clapped for Cracklin’ Rosie, Forever in Blue Jeans, and Kentucky Woman. She’s bought all the retrospective box sets, and the live albums, and the Christmas CDs.

When it comes to my own playlists and my own concert choices, I tend to shy away from Neil Diamond. But apparently his recordings are still so deeply embedded in my psyche that I dream in Diamond. And having heard the live albums just as much as the recordings, I actually hear the live version of America in my sleep. So to clarify, the lyrics I really woke up to were this: “They’re comin’ to America / Today, yeaaaaahhhhh / Today, yeaaaaahhhhh.” The man waves that hand out to the crowd, shouts out a big yeah, and gets the women to fall at his feet.

Sigh.

So that brings us to this week. I was on the Garden State Parkway on Sunday afternoon, driving down to the Jersey Shore at the end of a weekend. I was making this trip at such an unusual time because of my mother. She was in a hospital down the Shore, and that wasn’t supposed to happen. It’s been a tough summer for her health-wise, and there was an emergency surgery being planned. She was in pain, and I needed to be with her. The surgery, which would happen the next day, went just fine, mind you; after a long week, my mom is doing much better.

But back to that car ride. As I was driving down the Parkway, I needed something to lift my spirits and keep me focused. I remembered that recently, my friend Cullen had given me a ton of great music for my iPod. Among the albums he had given me were several years’ worth of Billboard Hot 100 hits. I’m a sucker for the 1980s. So for this particular car trip, I scrolled down the album list and punched in “1988.”

Two hours never went so fast. There was the obvious George Michael, INXS, Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, and Guns N’ Roses. But that was only the beginning. There was Rick Astley. Terence Trent D’Arby. Taylor Dayne. Robert Palmer. Debbie Gibson. Breathe. Belinda Carlisle. Def Leppard.

By the time Billy Ocean’s “Get Outta My Dreams, Get Into My Car” flowed from my speakers, I was singing and swaying, my hands patting the steering wheel as if I were a member of Mr. Ocean’s percussion section. When The Escape Club’s “Wild, Wild West” followed shortly afterward, I was truly 17 again.

When I had reached the hospital, I paused whatever Richard Marx song was playing at the time, turned off the iPod, and went inside to see my mother. She was glad to see me, and we sat together and watched the Olympics’ closing ceremonies. George Michael was there singing. So were a bunch of other ‘80s pop stars. My mom said they didn’t sound so good. I couldn’t really argue with that.

And then it all came to me. It had taken several weeks, but I’d finally unlocked the secret to my unfortunate Neil Diamond dream. I had figured out the moral – that  whether it’s our friends, our children or our mother, there are always going to be passions we don’t fully understand. But before we knock those passions, we might want to check out the man in the mirror first. In my case, I chose the mirror on the driver’s side.

Now if you’ll excuse me, Steve Winwood is calling my name. Just roll with it, baby. Today.