Saturday, January 15, 2011

 David joins Tristan, Andrew and his brother Patrick Shaw-Kitch in a walk through the rain to the Pioneer Square courts downtown.

3:15 PM, Occidental Park, Seattle, WA

Tristan Kadish & David

14

Patrick & Andrew Shaw-Kitch

15

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Bruce Bochy Ball

My brother and I grew up loving the San Francisco Giants.  They had just robbed the Pirates of the best player in the league—Barry Bonds—and the neighbors across the street had season tickets fifteen rows back from first base, all of which they did not need.  This love, however, dissipated with the strike, the steroids, the move from Candlestick Park, and was replaced with the '90s sitcom renaissance, punk rock and adolescence.  We replaced the inflated egos of Major League Baseball by inflating our own.  

Something happened, however, during my time in college, besides no longer watching sitcoms—I studied for a semester in the Dominican Republic.  I saw baseball as I remembered it—with passion, dedication, and community—the players and the fans forgetting money, fame, and selfishness, letting it hold dominion in the United States.  I saw my former obsession with new eyes and felt it with a new love—the symmetries, patterns, and surprises reignited a part of my brain dormant for a decade. 

And when I came back I followed the Giants. I got to know the young team; I grew to admire the long-haired skinny freak Tim Lincecum, Pablo Sandoval the agile chubby Venezuelan Barry Zito nicknamed Kung Fu Panda.  And one afternoon building a bocce ball court in my parents' front yard I heard the out-of-rotation Jonathan Sanchez pitch a no-hitter and I turned on the TV to see his father on the field, his first time out of Puerto Rico seeing his son pitch in the major leagues say, "Diós es grande."  They were something and not due to money—their worst pitcher made more than anybody else—and not for individuals—a player that only pitches every five games can't really be a star—they were a fucking team.  And when I started to talk to my brother in Seattle about it he got excited about them, too.  And when they made it into the playoffs in 2010 he got to watch them on TV in Seattle; and when they made it to the National League Championship Series we got to talk shit about the east coast media ruling them out; and when they made it to the World Series we got to gloat that the Phillies and the Yankees got nothing on a ragtag crew of bearded and pot-smoking outcasts; and when they won the World Series it was like a part of our innocence was returned to us.  The underdogs shut up the non-believers.  The satisfaction in that is indescribable.  And one man led them to that moment—and his name was basically bocce.  Though it is just as interesting to note, considering my brother's profession (baker), that the infamous manager's name when we were kids was Dusty Baker. 

We took this unity into the a singular bocce purpose and, in the Seattle rain, brought the bocce game in historic Pioneer Square to a torturous one point win against Tristan and David.  All that was missing was the broadcasted commentary of Mike Krukow and Duane Kuiper.  We relived the next phase of our childhood by going to a metal concert in an abandoned warehouse where my jacket was torn to threads and where, between sets, we shouted our favorite moments of the season to each other in the bar next door.