I've Got a Fever...

My dear and patient wife and I spent a (far too) considerable amount of our pre-marital courtship in a long-distance romance-type situation, separated, in fact, by an ocean. In addition to the obvious problems with this, another unforeseen ramification made itself known after the nuptials.

The Oakland A’s.

Specifically, my all-consuming obsession with them. Since the dear and patient wife had not lived in close quarters with me during a pennant race, my e-mails and phone calls were unable to fully drive home the insanity, the constant mood-altering hold the team has on me.

We were married in February of 2000. The previous baseball year, the A’s woke up and were in contention for the first time since ’92. They didn’t make the post-season, but the 2000 year was rife with promise. A young and supremely talented club, augmented by some shrewd Billy Beane trades, had most A’s fans legitimately thinking playoffs.

As such, I hung on every game from Opening Day on, more so than in previous years where a low finish was certain. And the dear and patient wife was shocked. How I’d be sullen and unresponsive after a loss. Ebullient and giddy after a win. She struggled to cope. Predictably, my behavior caused a confrontation.

We had planned to go out to dinner that night, as soon as the A’s-Yankees game had ended. Showered and prepared to head out, we watched the A’s take a one-run lead into the bottom of the 9th in Yankee Stadium. Jason Isringhausen came on to close it. He threw two pitches. To two batters. Both of which were hit for home runs.

I couldn’t go to dinner. I just couldn’t. I couldn’t summon the will to get off the couch. To pay the slightest attention to anything other than my own stupid misery.

This did not go over well. Nor could it continue. Even I recognized that.

To the undying credit of the dear and patient wife, she has come to understand my problem. She found in the A’s a team that she too could be interested in (though with the off-season trade of Mark Mulder, the club’s “hunk” factor has diminished in her eyes). She plays fantasy baseball. She sat attentively on Opening Day, wanting to know all the names of the club’s new faces. But above it all, she “gets” why I feel the way I do about the A’s. How they have been a constant in my life since I was in short pants. How the years of my life are measured and defined by the plot of the passing baseball seasons.

The biggest reason she can grasp this fanaticism is “Fever Pitch.” Nick Hornby’s largely autobiographical novel about an obsessed Arsenal fan is one of my favorites. The first line reads:

I fell in love with football as I was later to fall in love with women: suddenly, inexplicably, uncritically, giving no thought to the pain or disruption it would bring with it.

And they made a great movie out of it in 1997. I showed her that film and she understood, for the first time, what it means to be “tied” to a sports team. From adolescent worship to wrapping one’s self in their success to feeling their failures. It explained fandom better than I ever could.

I will be boycotting the new version of “Fever Pitch.” I can’t imagine Jimmy Fallon managing to convey the depth of the first film or the novel. The original’s protagonist, Paul, is tortured, his head held perpetually underwater by his “affliction.” He is not glib, he is not funny. He is a pariah, cast out by his more “adjusted” friends. The woman who lifts his spirits cannot truly reach him like Arsenal can. Not yet.

Hey, maybe the trailer doesn’t serve as an adequate representation of the film. Maybe Jimmy Fallon turns into a “Rushmore”-esque Bill Murray. Doesn’t matter. It will never measure up. It will never MEAN what “Fever Pitch” really means. To me. And the dear and patient wife.

As for me, I’ve significantly reduced my emotional stake in the A’s. Yes, they can—and do—cause me to feel like I’ve been kicked repeatedly in the groin by a coked-up mule (take September 2004, for example), but I now just put a little ice on it and rejoin family life.

Now, about this poker problem...

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Looks like an LA blogger mini-convention (I originally wrote that as a mini-blogger convention, which I guess would include only Iggy) is on tap at Commerce Casino this Saturday night. Look for the salacious details here on Monday, assuming I survive.