Baseball in Seattle: Give us a hug

I'll preface these comments by noting that some may be offended by my cynicism.

One activity exists in our great, vast land which has become widely accepted as America's pastime. Its tradition is as rich a meandering family tree, and its heritage spans two-thirds of our nation's history. I'm speaking of baseball.

I love the game. I love its pastoral setting, its relaxed pace, its appeal to young and old, male and female. I grew up playing the game, staining my jeans on the outfield grass, grinding the infield dust between my molars, getting drilled in the elbow by an eleven-year-old's errant pitch. Baseball is a kids' game.

Which is why Major League Baseball, an assembly of the world's elite players, play the game with the same exuberance and joy that they did as children. Certainly, they've developed their bodies to gargantuan proportions and traded in their Double Bubble for massive wads of Beechnut or Red Man. When they win, they roll around on the ground in a muscly mass; when they're mad, they throw tantrums and helmets and dirt.

They're constantly expectorating. At the end of every game, each side's dugout has the appearance of a daycare around four o'clock, after the kids have had all the Gatorade and sunflower seeds they can consume. The floor is a slick mixture of tobacco juice, seed shells and paper cups.

The players never seem comfortable. They're constantly adjusting their hats, their lucky neck chains, their jerseys, and of course, their protective cups. Those things seem to slide around so much that these guys must be constantly checking to make sure their naughty bits haven't just shriveled up and fallen off from all that human growth hormone. But, hey that's baseball. We take the good with the illegal.

I live in Seattle. We have our own Major League team here, the Mariners, but things are different. Since the franchise's inception in 1977 (back when the players didn't need to check their cups because their pants were tighter than Batman's), I've maintained a steady loyalty. Nobody around these parts cared much about the team, especially since they played the summertime games inside a gloomy dome.

Everything changed in 1995, when the Mariners, against all odds, defeated the New York Yankees to reach the American League Championship Series. A new breed of Seattle baseball fan was born during that season, a fan who didn't care as much about the team winning as they did feeling good about the guys who played. Over the ensuing years, and with the construction of a sparkling new ballpark, these folks seemed more concerned with having every Ichiro bobblehead given away at the gate. Once inside, they cheered louder for the dancing grounds crew or the digital hydroplane races on the big screen than for an inning-ending double play.

Here in Seattle, its all about feeling good. Rather than adopting slogans like "Go to Hell, Angels," they go with "You've gotta love these guys." A few years ago, a large group of fans attempted to enter the park with "Yankees Suck" signs. They were politely confiscated by smiling ushers. Few fans heckle opposing players at Safeco Field; it just wouldn't be polite. Since I work in the fashion industry, I thought it might be witty to shout, "Hey, A-Rod, that black lace camisole shows through your pinstripes!" I'll be taking that one off my list.

Seattle's a great place to live, with lots of entertainment options, and I'm tired of attending hug fests. I want a World Series.

Testosterone: you're soaking in it

For whatever reason, in this small world I inhabit, today will forever be known as "Testosterone Tuesday." A couple of things happened overnight in the arena of sporting news, which have contributed to this aura of intense, male energy.

First of all, in the world of football, which is already dripping with machismo, our local Seattle Seahawks fired their coach, and in the span of a few hours, replaced him with the former head of the highly successful Trojans of the University of Southern California, Pete Carroll.

I listened to a bit of his introductory press conference. According to Mr. Carroll, "If you know anything about me, you know I can't pass up this challenge. If someone challenged me to something, even right now, I'd probably take it on." Okay, here's a guy who will be collecting roughly $6 million per year, and he sounds like he's ready to choose up dodgeball teams at recess. I was expecting the his next utterance to be something like, "Who wants a piece of me?"

The other overnight development concerned Mark McGwire, former all-star baseball slugger and one of the all-time home run leaders. He's been retired for a few years, but back during his playing days, he resembled The Incredible Hulk. His body was so ribboned with muscle that his biceps had their own triceps; his forearms were five-arms.

Mr. McGwire had always been rumored to indulge in anabolic steroids, an allegation which he either steadfastly denied, or simply refused to comment upon. Well, he finally decided to fess up yesterday, that yes, he had, in fact, dabbled with performance-enhancing drugs during his tenure with the Oakland Athletics and St. Louis Cardinals. To me, this admission was similar to Burt Reynolds or Bill Shatner admitting that they've been wearing toupees all these years. Seriously, all a person needed to do was look at the guy. It would have been a difficult choice between El Capitan or Mark McGwire's chin as the most difficult sheer surface to scale without the aid of safety lines.

I understand that the public, especially the male public, yearns for all which is exceedingly manly. Why else would products exist like Speedstick, Powerade, or the Five-Dollar Footlong? Why else would we spend so much money on suped-up cars and stereos and super-caffeinated beverages?

One of my favorite movie lines was uttered by Uncle Rico in Napoleon Dynamite. He constantly pined for his former high school athletic grandeur, and as his eyes focused off in the distance, he blurted out, "See those mountains over there. I'll bet I could throw a football over them."

I seriously doubt that he could. But I totally could.