The Enlightenment Philosophy of a Left Fielder

Last night the three of us went to a Major League Baseball Game at AT&T Park (Lauren’s San Franciscan Aunt had generously bought us tickets many months ago).

The game pitted the home San Francisco Giants against the visiting Chicago Cubs. Generally I would consider any specifics of this outing rather meaningless, however, due to one variable in particular, this August regular season game had the potential to momentarily hold some semi-historical significance, which leads me to ponder the general human psyche of spectator sport.

The variable in question is a man named Barry Bonds.

Barry Bonds gets paid money to play a game—baseball. He plays this game for the San Francisco Giants franchise, who seemingly benefit commercially from his professional services. These services include hitting small white balls with a bat, and catching small white balls with a glove in the left field area.

It’s the former that defines him as a baseball player.

Barry Bonds is actually pretty good at hitting small white balls. Sometimes he can even hit them all the way out of the field of play. This is quite helpful to his San Francisco Giants team, as it results in a home run. Baseball teams like home runs a lot, because they greatly increase their chances of winning the game.

As of this morning, Barry Bonds has hit 760 home runs in Major League Baseball. Prior to two weeks ago, the all-time total home run record by a Major League Baseball player was 756.

Chinatown. San Francisco, California.

So, in my roundabout way, I’m saying that Barry Bonds is now the all-time home run record holder in Major League Baseball, and this is a pretty big deal to even the most part-time American sports fans.

Lauren, James and myself missed this record-breaking accomplishment by a handful of games, but that’s okay, because every home run that Barry Bonds hits from now on is an all-time record, so we had the chance to be a small part of an isolated moment in trivial sports history. (And if Bonds was to be arrested the following morning on charges of practising illegal Organised Alpaca Fighting and suspended from Major League Baseball forever, then we may have got to witness the final record home run.)

First things first: Barry Bonds didn’t hit any home runs last night. The Giants crapped out in the top of the ninth inning and wound up losing 5-1.

Second things second: Does this matter?

The game was a sellout, and the fans seemed happy and generally proud of their team. Which I found interesting, as according to the sports section of a local newspaper, the Giants seem to suck. They’re last in their division.

But most people don’t care about the team any more; they’re here to see Barry Bonds. Maybe they want to celebrate his achievements, maybe they just want to feel a part of something. Maybe they just want to direct their attention away from a losing franchise. I’m not sure.

Every time Bonds came up to bat, the announcer put extra kick into her calling. The crowd went bananas. James made me take photos of him each time he headed to our corner of the stadium.

We couldn’t help but be reminded of the great riff in Scrubs where J.D. is trying to impress Turk’s sports loving friends during a televised baseball game. After a Bonds home run and subsequent celebration, sports ignorant J.D. excitedly blurts out: “I love it when Bonds wins at the sport that he plays!”

We were a little like J.D.

Downtown. San Francisco, California. Where’s the Full House house?

Now I enjoy team sports. But what I fail to grapple with is the logic that goes into specator support. It seems that most people attach themselves to a particular team—usually because of some sort of geographical pseudo-significance—and then support them exclusively. I’m more interested in the way that teams and players reflect real people and the politics of life. And thats why I think of sport as art.

I tend to pick my favourite teams and players based around personality and endearing attitudes. I try to make them some sort of metaphor for the good in humankind. And I think that this is why I struggle to enjoy rugby and why I find the popularity of the Olympics completely perplexing. (Yeah, I still watch the men’s and women’s basketball, but I can assure you that I don’t really enjoy it.)

I support the New Zealand Warriors, but geographical commonality is merely the reason that I consider them first. I like the Warriors because there’s something romantic about the underdog tag they always carry in the National Rugby League competition of Australia. Plus they’re a fun team to watch—they throw the ball around and generally only win on comeback victories. Steve Price seems like a noble leader and Ruben Wiki’s as decent as they come. And if they were embroiled in some sort of Sydney sex scandel, I’d be the first to poo-hoo them.

But I still have a hard time justifying my like for sports. At a Wellington rock bar I once had a frosty discussion with a new friend who was thoroughly disappointed that I had spent the afternoon watching televised basketball. He claimed that “the whole psychology of team sports is to beat your opponent down and take away their dignity—you’re a winner or you’re a loser, and what does that say about humans?”. He felt that only competitionless individual sport had positive ramifications, as it allows the sportsperson the chance to set personal goals and better themselves. Like skateboarding. Or unsanctioned, nonprofessional caber tossing.

He’s kind of right. But mostly not. At the ugliest end, professional sports are businesses, and the perversion of money is everywhere to be seen, with far-reaching sociological impacts. Sports does also place a patriotic obsession on winning and losing. People do use it to create a power divide between the weak and the strong, and draw important conclusions from it. It also often rewards individual achievement over team success. But it doesn’t have to, and it doesn’t always. And much like existence, this is both beautiful and entertaining.

Artistic Downtown. San Francisco, California.

I used to try to defend my sporting enjoyment with a few throwaway comments. Usually something like “sports is a good alternative to war for man’s natural desire to beat and compete”, or an allusion to the benefits of physical and mental activity.

But I really like to think about sports as a metaphor for life; in many ways, it’s no different to a game. You play to win, but ultimately it’s not about winning or losing. In White Men Can’t Jump Rosie Perez tries to explain this to Woody Harrelson, right after he just got hustled by Wesley Snipes in street basketball. In her thick Puerto Rican accent, she points out:

“Sometimes when you win, you really lose. And sometimes when you lose, you really win. And sometimes when you win or lose, you actually tie. Winning or losing is all one organic mechanism, from which one extracts what one needs”.

When I was ten years old I assumed that Perez was just being wacky for comedic effect, but I later understood that her speech was actually integral to understand the ending of the movie (Harrelson’s character ends up losing her as his girlfriend). In life, you can’t win every game and you can’t hit every shot. Playing the right way is what’s important (assuming you’re not a nihilist). Having fun, respecting the system, involving your teammates and giving it your all. Learning from your mistakes. Suppressing your ego for the good of your teammates and the game. (And not gambling money on your own pickup basketball games when Rosie Perez repeatedly asks you not to.)

In the words of Chuck D: “don’t let a win get to you head, or a loss to your heart”.

James chatting to the Department of Homeland Security.

I’ve decided that the reason I like basketball so much is because it’s the best way at viewing this metaphor; it pretty much sums up human existence in 48 minutes of sneaker squeaking and mandatory media time outs. It’s such a personal spectator sport. The court is relatively small, the spectators are up close, there’s only ten players and they’re not wearing any equipment that obscures their interaction and body language. If observing the way a player plays the game isn’t enough, every emotion and gesticulation is on display, and this allows the specator to understand so much of what that person is. It’s like reality television that doesn’t suck.

So I suppose this leads me back to the art of Mr Barry Bonds? Is he a worthy cultural god or just another celebrified ego? Should I join the masses in celebrating his home run legacy? I don’t know. I do know that Bonds is a key figure in the BALCO steroids scandal (although he’s never actually failed a steroid test). He’s also under investigation for perjury by a federal grand jury regarding his testimony in said case, but has not been indicted.

I’ve been told that he treats the game as a means to make money; nothing else. And even if that’s true, it’s hard to argue that that’s wrong. But it does say something about capitalism and modernity.

I also don’t know Bonds or his game from a bar of soap, but really wanted to use him as a bridge for a blog about how great basketball is. (This blog provides some reasons for hatin’ on the Bonds, if you’re so inclined.)

And for reasons only partly explained in the above rambling, I decided to go against the grain last night and cheer on the Chicago Cubs. As it turns out, the sensibility of player-hating was the winner on the night.

Posted by Jonathan

Tags: Barry Bonds, Baseball, Basketball, Media, MLB, NBA, New Zealand Warriors, NRL, Olympics, Philosophy, Politics, Rugby League, San Francisco, San Francisco Giants, Sociology, Sports