Notes from a Congregant

27 Winner of the Crazyhorse Nonfiction Prize JESSE DONALDSON Notes from a Congregant On September 21, 2012, Texas executed once-renowned wild west lawmen). Baseball’s Rodney Wayne Harris, a car wash employee postseason was on the horizon, and perhaps in who killed six co-workers after being fired for his last moments, Mr. Harris realized he wouldn’t exposing himself to female customers. If we can be around to see his Rangers play another game. put aside whatever debate might ensue about Perhaps he meant to say the more direct, “God capitol punishment, the violent nature of Mr. Bless the Texas Rangers” but this isn’t what he Harris’ crimes, the fact that prosecutors were said. He addressed his “God Bless” to the family, able to remove all potential black jurors from friends, Texas Corrections employees, and the trial, and the fact that Mr. Harris had an families of his victims who’d gathered to watch IQ of 68; if we can allow ourselves simply to him die. Then, all of a sudden, the thought came say the issue of taking another person’s life is an to him—a moment that isn’t rehearsed and incredibly complicated moral issue, then we can therefore gives a direct window into the mind— focus on Mr. Harris’s strange final words: “I’m “and the Texas Rangers.” What interests me about going home, I’m going home. I’ll be all right. this shift in his final words—beyond the initial, Don’t worry, I love ya’ll. God Bless and the Texas cynical recognition that we live in a world where Rangers, Texas Rangers.” men bless baseball teams the moment before they The beginning of Mr. Harris’s statement die—is that Harris repeats “Texas Rangers” to suggests his belief in an afterlife—a home. He give it added weight. I imagine that first “Texas instructs those gathered not to worry, as if he Rangers” came as a surprise, even to Harris is the person least affected by what is about to himself, but the second “Texas Rangers”—the occur. This rather open-handed sentiment is not repetition—this represents a moment of peace. dissimilar from those expressed by numerous You can almost hear it if you say it. “God bless death row prisoners before their execution; the and the Texas Rangers.” And then softer, like the most common phrase spoken by such men and amen at the end of a prayer, “Texas Rangers.” women is “I love you” or Mr. Harris’s “I love ya’ll.” The obvious curveball is this matter of Sociologist William Spinrad, in his 1981 essay the Texas Rangers (the baseball team, not the “The Function of Spectator Sports,” writes: Crazyhorse 28 . the trivial but engaging experiences 2010 when the Giants won their first World Series of fandom are, in the truest sense, an during my lifetime. My wife, Becca, thinks this escape from profound personal and a strange phenomenon. My normally dormant social problems. Unlike most popular phone suddenly comes to life—not because of culture involvements it is a viable escape, anything I have accomplished, but because I am partly because the experiences suggest a a fan. Without the Giants, I wouldn’t be back in caricature of so many unstated features touch with Serge or any number of people from of regular societal processes. The result is my past. I don’t have Facebook, I don’t Tweet, a respite, a small-scale catharsis. Since it and I am (admittedly) not the best at returning is not a genuine replica of the real world, calls. the direct impact on one’s serious behavior And so while I basked in the glory of the Giants is generally minimal. In this respect it 2012 comebacks and eventual World Series win, also differs from other involvements in I also tried to figure out when the Giants became popular cultures, for sports fandom does synonymous with me. The Giants. Jesse. Jesse. not produce any distortion of personal and The Giants. These are pretty direct cognitive social perspectives. leaps for anyone who knows me, and yet, outside of that circle of friends, those two things mean Before Game 7 of baseball’s 2012 National nothing put together. League Championship Series, my friend Serge, whom I hadn’t talked to since 2007, sent me the Surely my fandom has something to do with following e-mail: the years between 1987 and 1991. I was in Little League then and baseball obsessed. I spent my I’m excited for tonight’s game. I’ve been days hitting whiffle balls and pretending I was thinking of you through this series. I didn’t Will Clark. Will “The Thrill”—Giants’ first think they’d pull it off against the Reds, and baseman and owner of the prettiest left-handed I thought Game 5 was going to be their last swing in baseball. Whenever San Francisco high point of the season. Good luck. traveled to Cincinnati, an hour and a half from where I grew up, my father would drive us to “They” is the San Francisco Giants. During Riverfront Stadium to see a game. the Giants’ postseason run, I received countless In the blistering heat rising from Cincinnati’s “thinking of you” messages from friends and artificial turf field my fandom cemented because family. People I had fallen out of touch with we were outsiders. I had a Giants T-shirt and my texted, e-mailed, and called after months and dad an “SF” hat. In a sea of red, we wore orange years of silence. The same thing happened in and black. People booed and taunted us, which Notes from a Congregant 29 only strengthened my resolve. These were our This same sensation, this brief but fading Giants. satisfaction, occurred when the Giants won the My dad likes to tell one story in particular 2010 World Series. As the players celebrated and from that time. At a game the Giants were losing, sprayed one another in champagne and hugged Cincinnati’s star shortstop, Barry Larkin, started and cried tears of joy, I sat at a bar in Texas and walking toward first base after a borderline 3-2 watched. Surely I smiled widely after the final pitch. He made it a couple steps before the umpire out and was more pleasant than usual in the dramatically called strike three, and when Larkin hours that followed. I suspect I was more likely to turned to protest, I, a normally shy kid, stood up offer strangers compliments or buy them drinks and yelled, “You’re going the wrong way, Larkin!” or profess my love, but this was only a temporary All the Reds fans in our section turned and then grace. The next day, after I’d exhausted the started to laugh. Crazy fucking kid. internet discovering the tiniest details about the team’s first championship since they left New The word fan derives from fanatic. In its York, after I’d talked to my dad about the series, noun form the OED defines “Fanatic” as: A my life returned to normal. I had classes to teach mad person. In later use: A religious maniac. And and papers to grade. There were weeds in the what is sports’ fandom if not a replacement for garden that needed pulling. A few days later, as religion? My admittedly naïve understanding of the Giants paraded down the confetti-strewn faith is that it brings the believer some form of streets of San Francisco, I sat in Houston traffic solace, and following Giants baseball brings me on my way home from work. great comfort. I can recite lineups and pitching rotations like litanies. I analyze the team’s There are drawbacks to fandom that often statistics with the fervor of a theologian studying involve the people closest to you. First off, we the Bible. should understand that fandom, as William There have been times in my life when I Spinrad points out, is a form of escape. And sought comfort in a more traditional higher what one is escaping matters. In my twenties power. I prefer compline services where a choir I was escaping a stuttering relationship and a performs chants from the High Middle Ages and burgeoning problem with alcohol. These two there is no sermon. I leave these services carrying sides of the coin were, of course, related. My a measure of peace I didn’t before entering the drinking wasn’t the fall down stumble and slur church, but when I return home a desk littered variety, which made it all the worse when my with unpaid bills or a message from some person then-girlfriend noticed that I would reach for an I’ve disappointed or some other failure, that object—say a beer bottle—and miss it once before peace often wilts. getting my bearings, and taking another drink. Crazyhorse 30 She started counting bottles. I started hiding the ninth inning of Game 7, with two out and them. On the night she discovered this, there was runners on second and third, Willie McCovey a fight. Not a screaming and punching fight but drove a line-drive bullet into the glove of Yankees the sort of sad fight where you realize you are second baseman Bobby Richardson. “Nobody both hurting one another for no reason and that could hit a ball as hard as McCovey,” my dad even though it doesn’t have to be this way, it will says when I ask him about the game. His voice continue until it ends.

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