Say What?

Not to want to say, not to know what you want to say, and never to stop saying, or hardly ever, that is the thing to keep in mind…

–Samuel Beckett

Since I have almost nothing else to tell you right now, I’ll tell you who I both feel sorry for and envy at the moment: The beat writers for the Twins. Can you even imagine the lives of those poor wretches? That pack of glum bastards has to sit there in the press box every night and try to find fresh words to describe the fresh hell they are forced to witness.

For that, of course, I feel sorry for them. These are the same people, after all, who were so full of hope and blithely optimistic prognostications six months ago (as we all were, as were we all), and they have had to gut this thing out with a gun to their heads every night. Lord knows, that can’t be easy. And whatever they’re being paid, it almost certainly isn’t enough.

I’ve been in their uncomfortable seats far too many times at this point in seasons just like this one –in seasons far worse than this one, in fact, at least strictly in terms of won-loss records. There have been years where I sat there in the Dome in September when there was so little cause for optimism in the present or future prospects of the team that it wasn’t even really possible to call the Twins a disappointment.

Let us not forget those almost entirely hopeless years.

That there was so much hope this season is precisely what makes what has transpired such a keen disappointment, and I suppose if you have to pick your poison you’d take this one, however reluctantly.

That doesn’t make the routine kicks to your heart smart any less, certainly, but at least we had expectations, and can still find reason to harbor some expectation and hope for the future; which is more, I know, than fans can say in many Major League cities.

As I said, though, as much pity as I might feel for the beleaguered beat writers, I also envy them. At its worst, it’s still a decent job, a dream gig for all sorts of people who have absolutely no idea what a grind it can be day in and day out. I don’t think people can begin to understand the long hours these characters put in, or the relentless travel schedule and impossible demands –physical, psychological, and logistical– of the job. Look up there in the press box some night when a big lead has evaporated and a game is headed to extra innings with deadlines looming. What you’ll see is a collective nervous breakdown in progress, as the beat writers –with early deadlines looming– curse, wheedle, and scrap nearly completed game stories to start over wholly from scratch.

I also envy these people the enforced discipline of the job. Every day, come what may, these writers have to find something to say, something to write. They have to try to make sense of what has happened and what is happening, and put it in some larger context of expectations, disappointments, and pennant races. Some days, of course, they just need to find the quickest possible way to get from A to Z (or, if they’re really in a hurry, from A to B), to describe the game they have just watched, however brutal it might have been, in the clearest, cleanest possible manner. It’s certainly not easy, but it’s also nice to have vigilant witnesses for those times when even the most diehard fan’s natural inclination is to simply punch out.

I depend on the beat writers more than ever at times like this, those stretches when I find myself drifting away from the television or radio in the middle of the game, or tuning in late. I need them to keep me connected to the game and the dwindling season, however tenuously.

As Shakespeare, I think it was, once wrote, “Some must watch, while others sleep.”

I’m grateful for that, grateful for the watchers, still thankful that I know I’m going to get up every morning to game stories and box scores in the newspaper, even as I increasingly find myself thinking, “Better them than me.”