Back on my Mind

My roommate cracks a joke about Scooter the talking baseball. On an airplane, I finally read Roger Angell’s annual post-World Series essay in the New Yorker, thankfully short on the Cardinals and longer on the Tigers. On the HD movie channel Willie Mays Hayes scores from second on Jake’s bunt single as the Indians defeat the Yankees in the single game playoff. This is how baseball returns to my mind.

Of course, it doesn’t hurt that on a 60 degree Austin afternoon cloudless sky meets hills and lake as I sit here drinking coffee. I may even get a little sunburn. I’m not trying to rub it in, those of you living up north, just trying to soak it in again. I haven’t sat outside enough lately, and now that I am, the fresh air conjures all sorts of meditations. The people at the next table think the wind is chilly. I think they’re crazy.

Normalcy and vigor return this weekend in the form of another coolest-corner-of-the-world moment, the Flametrick Subs playing last night at Beerland for their monthly first-Saturday residency, once again ending the show with a Velvet Underground cover. There are just so few bands that get it -- soul -- the way they do, even here, even as they play in a sinister style as far away from soul (as a style) as it gets. And vigor returns again as the guy-girl duo playing at brunch, calling themselves "The Old Man and the Sea," covers “If I Needed You,” a perfectly and simply written Townes Van Zandt song brought to new life with their harmony. Stevie Ray Vaughn may have cemented the foundation and may be the music godfather around here, but Townes’s songs have their own unique echo in this city and if you’re attuned enough to notice they add a little extra vividness sometimes. At least they do for me.

Yeah, it’s hard to be in a bad mood these days. My first round of exams are behind me and I was not the guy having a freakout attack in the bathroom, panicking and splashing cold water on his face trying to regain his breath a week before exams began. My friend, a Chicago attorney, told me that he wouldn’t go back and re-do that first round for all the tea in China, and I agree, but there’s also some satisfaction in having completed it, and returning to the world at large free from blinders.

And the Cubs have continued to make moves. As hard as it is to fathom, they have too much pitching, and it is almost certain that there will be someone on the hill every game that will give them a chance to win. This was not the case last season. They have filled in a solid lineup, especially if Soriano and DeRosa get their strikeout numbers down a bit. They have a very good defensive infield, and a solid bench. I read rumbles about a closer question, but with so many bullpen arms I have a feeling it will work itself out. Barring catastrophe -- something the Cubs know about a little too well -- they’re going to be good with a chance at great. Our lingering despondency is all but evaporated, it seems to me. I’m downright excited: If nothing else, it will be a fresh attitude, and they can’t possibly be worse than last year, and this counts for something. 2007, and a new era begins.

Of course, there’s still almost two months to go before pitchers and catchers report. Drat. I’d rather not be patient.

But there are things to do in the meantime. A half-finished essay, for example, thinking back on life and last season. Books to read, and art to see. Soon, a new set of classes that I expect I will like as much as the ones I had last semester. And the Resentments are playing tonight at the Saxon.

Still, that corner of my mind that obsesses over baseball narratives and especially the Cubs is poking its head up. It won’t be too long, I know. I’m just anxious, even more than the normal Cubs-fan optimism for every new season. I heard the boos at Rex Grossman last weekend and I know the attitude of Chicago fans has hardened towards their sports teams -- “lately” continues to shrink when people ask: What have you done for me... ? -- but I’m still a holdout for measured and sometimes unqualified hope for the Cubs. The story is waiting to unfold the right way. It may not happen in a single season, although it might, but at least there will be a new momentum.

Or should I say, there is new momentum, even as it slowly hibernates this winter.

Dig it.