THE LOVE OF BASEBALL;

The stage is set, the 2019 Baseball World Series will be between the Houston Astros and the Washington Nationals.    It is time to remember a great man named Charles Krauthammer.   

From medical student to suffering a freak accident that left him paralyzed in body, but not in spirit, Charles completed his studies and specialized in Psychiatry.    Later on he became a noted journalist and writer.    His political views were conservative and his facile idioms made everyone, even ideological opponents, understand, enjoy and quote them.   

Dr. Krauthammer was also an avid baseball fan.    After suffering with the Montreal Expos, he vowed to renounce the sport when moving to Washington.    His abstinence did not last!    Who better to explain what happened that he. 

He wrote that he was “almost purged of all allegiance” and “watched with near-indifference” when the Expos relocated to his adopted hometown in 2005. Krauthammer’s indifference wouldn’t last, as he explained in an April 2005 column titled “Suffering a Relapse, and Loving It”

 

The Washington Nationals are born. I do not know a thing about them. I do not know a single player on the team. I have no residual allegiance to them — even though I grew up in Montreal and remember well their opening 1969 season at absurdly chintzy Jarry Park — because I never cared about the Expos.

But it is a new home team. And I am a bit curious. So I’m listening to their second game, a come-from-behind win in which no-name center fielder Brad Wilkerson hits for the cycle. Next day, a nifty comeback: Jose Vidro hits a game-winning homer in the 10th.

I’m beginning to ask the Butch Cassidy question: Who are those guys? Then another comeback, another game-winning dinger, this time by Jose Guillen, a refugee from the Anaheim Angels, shipped out after, let us say, an altercation with his manager. And then yet another surprise victory against the fearsome Atlanta Braves, a ridiculously impossible comeback with two outs in the ninth.

Presto. It is 1975 all over again. I begin to care. I want them to win. Why? I have no idea. I begin following day games on the Internet. I’ve punched not one but two preset Nationals stations onto my car radio. I’m aghast. I’m actually invested in the day-to-day fortunes of 25 lunkheads I never heard of until two weeks ago.

This is crazy. I’ve relapsed, and I like it so much I’ve forsworn all medication.

Go Nats.

 

Fernando J. Milanes, MD