20 & me

Jorge Posada is my favorite Yankee.

Wait. Let me back up. Let me lay some groundwork. Let the groundwork be laid.

I am not a sports fan. I don’t care about sports. I find them, in general, mildly interesting in a detached cultural anthropology kind of way. I think there are three main reasons why I don’t understand the hoop-la about organized sports and they are these: I grew up in Vermont where there aren’t any professional teams—we have to attach ourselves to other city’s teams like the Boston Red Sox or the New England Patriots; I was raised by hippies who didn’t have enough money to actually pay for my participation in solo sports like skiing; and I have no hand/eye coordination, thereby limiting my participation in sports to things that one generally plays by one’s self. Like extreme masturbation.

But I really rather enjoy going to a Yankee’s game. I realize that the Yankees are the evil empire, but they are in a good way. Like Starbucks. I cannot avoid Starbucks, no matter how often I endeavor to patronize the independently owned coffee purveyor, and I do, and I cannot avoid the Yankees.

Forgive me, but the Mets just don’t do it for me. I don’t like orange and blue, for one thing.

I have now been to two Yankees baseball games. I enjoyed them quite a bit. I like the green of the diamond. I like the ascending tiers of spectators. I like the fact that grown adults walk around in shirts emblazoned with the names of their heroes with absolutely no irony. I like the hawkers who roam the crowds shouting and selling.

I like how they play “Enter Sandman” when Mariano Rivera takes the field.

I like the way the crowd yells at the players, as if they can hear them, and how they yell at each other, as if it mattered, and I guess it does.

Mostly, though, I like Jorge Posada.

I know he is not the Yankee star. I know that A-Rod and Jeter have more spectacular and interesting records; they flash. They get cool numbers like 13 and 2, while my Posada’s jersey has a rather pedestrian 20. I know that the pitchers—and I understand the Yankees’ pitching staff to be rather woeful at this point in time, though I’m a bit fuzzy as to the particulars of why—get all the glory, with their upended legs, their intent stares and their 90 m.p.h. flights of baseball fancy.

I know all this, and it is Jorge Posada who has my heart.

He is not a particularly good-looking man, Jorge Posada. He does not have the marquee good looks of Jeter, or the date-rape handsomeness of Jason Giambi. He definitely does not possess the do-me-now charisma of Johnny Damon. I don’t like Jorge Posada for his looks.

I like him because he catches.

I can’t catch. Throw something at me, and I will be bound to fumble, to freeze and to drop like the rightfielder at last night’s game who let this pop fly just tumble down his body like he liked the way it felt.

I can’t see things flying at me; I can’t catch; and I admire anyone whose job it is to do just that.

I like my number 20 because he has to squat the entire game and it looks very uncomfortable. I imagine his big thighs cramping there, as Jorge Posada hovers with his large and firm Jorge Posada ass a few inches above the red dust of home plate. I imagine his knees must hurt, his thighs must quiver, that he cannot be comfortable for those long, long innings and I feel for him.

I like Posada because the pitcher gets all the glory; to the pitcher go the spoils, and yet the pitching is a decision made between the pitcher and his partner, the catcher. Without a catcher, there is no one to pitch to.

And, of course, I cannot escape the metaphor. I am a linguistic slut and I am a buttslut and in my linguistic and butt sluttery, I find the catcher appealing.

But mostly I like Jorge Posada because in the two games I have seen at Yankee stadium, two games within eleven days of each other, he has hit three home runs. Apparently, this is not something he does on a regular basis.

Which I find weird, because, gosh, isn’t this what they are paid to do? Hit the ball?

The first time I saw the Yankees, it was as if we’d entered a magical Jorge Posada universe. He played very, very well, getting a single, a home run, and a single at bat. Apparently, this record is quite good. I felt very proud of him.

Last night, he struck out the first time at bat, and I was saddened. I was afraid the magic had worn off. I was tempted to put on the Posada t-shirt I held in my bag, but it was hot, so I didn’t (the clothes you wear affect the team, I have learned. There’s no guide to how or why—you just have to know). And the next time at bat, he hit a home run.

And then another. With two men on base. Which was quite lovely and made everyone cheer, “Hip! Hip! Jorge!” and made me rather pleased.

For clearly, he and I have a special love. A magical, enchanted Love.

My Yankee: I think I’ll keep him.

Comments

[Autumn]

I'm glad you enjoyed the game.

[S.C.]

I can honestly say that's the first time I've seen someone link baseball and buttsex. ;)

[leigh]

Wonderful essay.

I live in Maine now, but I am a New Yorker. I had a childhood born into Yankee phase and then a get stoned, sit way up high, and look at the green field on a hot summer night phase (during the heyday of the late 1970s) with my boyfriend, a rabid born-again fan.

Seems like you brought some luck to Mr. Posada just by wishing him well, and then loving him. The Catcher.

[leigh]

Looking up to my left and I see Angela Carter and Jayne Anne Philips. Then I go up the row, bottom-up. It is a biblio profile.

[Edgy Mama]

Can you write about anything?

[Quanzer]

Man as a former catcher, it just warms my groin to hear such vivid detail of how I looked for so long ;-)

[O]

You fabulous linguistic slut. Yes, you can write about anything. But we all knew that.

[becky sue]

Oh, honey, I didn't know! Never realized! I, too, love going to Yankees games! I really wanted to go to the Yankees/ Red Sox Sept 9th but had no one to go with. Let's go sometime, ok?

And Holybejeezums on a cracker, you can write about anything.

[tom paine]

Don't forget a heartthrob from an earlier era (except in Boston) wore that number: Bucky Dent, who likely used Mickey Rivers's corked bat to launch a 3-run homer over the Green Monster in Fenway during that famous playoff game in 1978.