5.25.00 BIG SKY LUMBER vs. VALLEY ELECTRIC
I was in Montana with my old Exit House cronies Jon and Marty Davis to celebrate Jon's graduation from law school, and after an afternoon of fraternal squabbling the likes of which I hadn't witnessed since, oh, about the last time I spent more than twelve hours with the brothers Davis, it was something of a relief when we repaired to the local park to take our frustrations out on a baseball instead of one another. About an hour of shagging flies at Missoula's 3000-foot elevation was more than enough to thoroughly tucker out the two sea-level-dwellers in our party, but by that time a number of Little League games had started up on adjacent fields, and I was curious to take in some local ball.
The game we settled upon was played by kids that looked to be in the 12-to-15 age bracket, the level known in my Little League days as “the majors,” the level at which my baseball career stopped, for upon reaching the majors I could no longer hit the baseball, at all, ever, period. Once I saw these kids start throwing, though, I didn't feel quite so bad about it. Both tall, both skinny (the green-and-yellow uniformed Valley Electric pitcher more so than the silver-red-and-black Big Sky Lumber kid), each was armed with a savagely quick fastball and a damned convincing change. These were just kids, though, and the Valley boy struggled early with his control, somehow managing to pitch his way out of a bases-loaded jam in the first inning. The next time around he wasn't so lucky, as the boys from Big Sky touched him up for four runs, only one or two of which were earned.
As is often the case with ballgames, though (for me, anyway), the setting played as much a role in the experience as the game itself, for this setting was a magnificent one. A town of 50,000, Missoula ain't exactly the sticks, but it is small enough, and the nearby mountains looming enough, and the wind blowing off them desolate enough, and the spectators braving said wind few and avid enough to together foster on this Thursday evening an atmosphere of genuinely, wonderfully godforsaken small-town baseball. We were forced to ponder just what it is about baseball that makes it so damn compelling, regardless of whether it's the Majors or “the majors.” I mean, when you're done with an afternoon of HORSE with your buddies, you don't put off a beer for an hour and a half just so you can watch a bunch of high school freshmen play basketball, do you? Something about the ritual of it... (and I'll stop there before this turns into one more baseball-as-religion tract).
SCORE AFTER FIVE INNINGS: BIG SKY LUMBER 4, VALLEY ELECTRIC 0
MEMORABLE HECKLE: After looking at a called strike three, Valley Electric's catcher turned to the umpire and, with the casual insolence of any fifteen-year-old worthy of the name, muttered “Whatever....”
