It's Not a Steak, It's a Stew

It's Not a Steak, It's a Stew
Originally uploaded by thegreatplotnik.

Baseball is not a steak, it's a stew. You cook it for generations, eat it all Summer and into Fall, analyze every morsel in the Winter, add fresh ingredients and take away those aging, bitter pieces who have lost their taste in the Spring, and then live with what you've done for the next six months. Why bother? Because it's worth it when you get to swallow something sweet.

The regular season is over, and Plotnik's favorite team, the Stiletto City Plotzers, has made it into the playoffs. Plotnik has been rooting for them since April, and here it is October 1 -- that's a lot of time -- and, lo and behold, this year he gets to keep rooting a little longer.

He has had help putting things into perspective from his good friends Mizmush and Notthat and Blogmaid and GalSal, loyal fans of the local team, the Braindeads. They have agonized with their team every bit as much as Plot has with his (actually four times as much, since there are four of them). They, and he, have set up shrines, taken down shrines, reestablished shrines and blown up shrines. In the end, one wild pitch was what counted, not shrines. No one was more suprised than Plot to see the Plotzers, for once, actually play with fire when they had to.

But The Great Plotnik went back to Plotzer Stadium eight nights ago, and before the Seventh Inning Stretch he picked up three all-beef Plotzer Dogs, and before he went back to his seat he slathered them with mustard, onions, ketchup and pickle relish. He gave one to Punky and one to Chris, then sat down and prepared to devour what he used to call the best dog in the best ballpark. Guess what: it sucked.

No food in any stadium in the country can hold a candle to Orlando Cepeda's Cha Cha Bowl: Jerked Chicken, rice, beans and cole slaw, available only at BCS. The polish dogs at BCS are better than the dogs at Plotzer Stadium too. Maybe even better than the brats at Wrigley. That's just the way it is, boys and girls. Get used to it.

In 1955, the Brooklyn Dodgers won their first and only World Series Championship. Three years later they moved to Plotnik's home town, Stiletto City. As a boy, he knew the names, numbers and statistics of every player on the 1955 team, and then the 1959 team, and 1963, 1965, 1974, 1981 and 1988 (Of Blessed Memory) teams, that all won World Series Championships, and also of every team in between up to and including this year's 2006 team. That's a lot of names and numbers.

Other people count like this: 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9. Plotnik counts like this: 1: Pee Wee Reese. 2: Tom Lasorda. 3: Babe Ruth. 4: Lou Gehrig. 5: Joe DiMaggio. 6: Steve Garvey. 7: Mickey Mantle. 8: Yogi Berra. 9: Roger Maris. 24 is Willie Mays. 25 is Barry Bonds. 27 is Juan Marichal. 32 is Sandy Koufax. 42 is Jackie Robinson. 44 is Hank Aaron and also Willie McCovey. 53 is Don Drysdale.

Here's another way to count: If the Plotzers play 26 more games and win the last one, they'll be Champions of the World again. Now, that's too sweet to even imagine. It's Shrine time.