Green Fields of the Mind

The Talented Allen Ripley

holden
Lifetime Member
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Oct 2, 2003
12,723
MetroWest, MA
I will say... to a smaller extent that sense of community continues to exist and it will always exist. I have remained friendly on an "off-board" basis with a lot of the SoSHers you are alluding to above. However, just over the past 18 months, I saw some of that same communal spirit in our poker group. Except for Zomp and Denzera, these were all SoSHers I didn't know before we started. I don't think I would have survived the pandemic without those guys. We were playing poker over zoom sometimes 4-6 nights a week. Nobody was in an office, so the games would go late into the night and sometimes into the early hours of the morning. With the restrictions loosening these days and people getting back into offices, the games have become much less frequent. Thankfully, there is still a weekly codenames game and we still play poker on the second Friday of each month. This group has also evolved into real life meetups and friendships which has been pretty cool to see.
I must admit, I was fully prepared to see a response like, "Oh, new SoSHers are still making friends with other SoSHers, just not with you." :)

Can't say I blame anyone for that. Except myself, of course.
 
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InsideTheParker

persists in error
SoSH Member
Jul 15, 2005
40,371
Pioneer Valley
I always wanted to go to a bash, but the numerous posts with "I was so drunk that..." made me feel I wouldn't have fit in. But fellowship is good, and I believe I understand that. It's just that I find Facebook evil.
 

Earthbound64

Member
SoSH Member
I always wanted to go to a bash, but the numerous posts with "I was so drunk that..." made me feel I wouldn't have fit in. But fellowship is good, and I believe I understand that. It's just that I find Facebook evil.
Don't worry, you're not the only teetotaling Facebook-avoider here.
Unfortunately, while I used to be in western MA as well, I'm now in Minneapolis.

My life is full of "wish I went to, but didn't" events from the fun days of the 1990s/early 2000s internet.
 

InsideTheParker

persists in error
SoSH Member
Jul 15, 2005
40,371
Pioneer Valley
Not that it matters but I am not actually a teetotaler, although I have mostly stopped having anything but non-alcoholic beer now that my husband has to avoid alcohol. I just don't like excess, or reveling in drunkenness. If I got the wrong impression, it wouldn't surprise me, but those post-Bash posts are what decided me to stay away.

But returning to Sosh today: I may not physically hang out with Soshers, but I enjoy the heck out of so many of them virtually, and am actually fond of a few, though they don't know it!

And getting back to the lovely thoughts of Mr. Giamatti, it's been almost 24 hours since I have seen a baseball game and I am already more than sad about that.
 

KiltedFool

has a terminal case of creeping sharia
SoSH Member
Dec 22, 2005
2,400
Sixteen years, couple thousand posts, met one other SoSHer in person in that time. Generally don't post unless I have something to say. This is my 10th post this year, so yeah not much to say. Is what it is, I'm not local to many here and focus is elsewhere.

I do enjoy the Green Fields revisit each year, as well as the post mortems as teams are eliminated.
 
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TomBrunansky23

Member
SoSH Member
May 4, 2006
772
Crapchester, NY
I'll bump it. The sadness of the end of one season gives way to the excitement of what's to come over the offseason into the next.

Wherever BoSoxLady is, I hope she's doing well.
 

bankshot1

Member
SoSH Member
Feb 12, 2003
24,651
where I was last at
On September 1st this year I moved to Greenfield Ma from suburban NJ to (re)start the next phase of my life, including a new home and a new job. Its an interesting and diverse community. As the poet J.Garcia once noted, "what a long strange trip its been" And it was for me and the '22 Red Sox. Circumstances kept me further apart from the Sox this year than any other time of the past 60+ years. In some respect it wasn't a bad year to take a sabbatical. However I look forward to the spring of '23 being more settled and when the Greenfields again sprout and grow and fill us with hope joy and optimism. That is the Greenfield of my mind. Go Sox.
 

Bergs

funky and cold
SoSH Member
Jul 22, 2005
21,612
"There comes a time when every summer will have something of autumn about it." - that's a hidden line buried in the details between the epic beginning and iconic end.

Bart could have used an editor, but he was a beautiful writer.
 
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sezwho

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 20, 2005
1,950
Isle of Plum
Came here to see this, and will once again advocate reading the whole poem.
Seconded

‘These are the truly tough among us, the ones who can live without illusion, or without even the hope of illusion. I am not that grown-up or up-to-date. I am a simpler creature, tied to more primitive patterns and cycles. I need to think something lasts forever, and it might as well be that state of being that is a game; it might as well be that, in a green field, in the sun.’
 

Al Zarilla

Member
SoSH Member
Dec 8, 2005
58,867
San Andreas Fault
I liked it when one year, maybe it was last year, someone else posted Green Fields, not knowing it was a tradition that Cheri post it. What I liked was that she immediately jumped in and posted like "hey, that's my job, and reposted it." I like assertion.
 

jmcc5400

Member
SoSH Member
Sep 29, 2000
5,203
It’s really a lovely piece, about the last day of the 1977 season, but it sent me down a rabbit hole of regret about Bob Bailey and Bernie Carbo. I had always thought Bailey was acquired at the tail end of ‘78. Turns out he was a seldom-used member of the roster throughout ‘78, closing his thoroughly cooked career with a 1-24 skid (0 for September) before Zimmer send him up to face Gossage with a man on in the 7th on October 2nd. Utterly no chance.

And then there was Carbo, who could have handled Gossage’s heat, banished to Cleveland - not a trade, a “sale” - in June of ‘78 because Zim couldn’t stand him.

Designed to break your heart indeed.
 

TomBrunansky23

Member
SoSH Member
May 4, 2006
772
Crapchester, NY
I liked it when one year, maybe it was last year, someone else posted Green Fields, not knowing it was a tradition that Cheri post it. What I liked was that she immediately jumped in and posted like "hey, that's my job, and reposted it." I like assertion.
I think that was two or three years ago. Last year, many of us waited to see it from her but we didn't, so @BroodsSexton had to bump the thread she started. I did it this year. It is a tradition, after all.

I love listening to Giamatti read it himself. It's perfection. I tear up every single time. I consider myself blessed to have been able to listen to it four times after my team has won the World Series. Who would have ever thought?
 

Rusty Gate

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 15, 2005
292
It’s really a lovely piece, about the last day of the 1977 season, but it sent me down a rabbit hole of regret about Bob Bailey and Bernie Carbo. I had always thought Bailey was acquired at the tail end of ‘78. Turns out he was a seldom-used member of the roster throughout ‘78, closing his thoroughly cooked career with a 1-24 skid (0 for September) before Zimmer send him up to face Gossage with a man on in the 7th on October 2nd. Utterly no chance.

And then there was Carbo, who could have handled Gossage’s heat, banished to Cleveland - not a trade, a “sale” - in June of ‘78 because Zim couldn’t stand him.

Designed to break your heart indeed.
Appropriate intro to my User Name. Watching a spring '78 game against KC from behind first base with a bunch of law school friends. Late innings, several beers into a pleasant hazy feeling, I watched Bailey try to catch up with Hrabosky high heat. As he swung and missed at strike 3, I blurted out that now I understand where the phrase "swings like a rusty gate" comes from.

Breaks your heart, but does gives you pleasant memories.
 

Sin Duda

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 16, 2005
814
(B)Austin Texas
"There comes a time when every summer will have something of autumn about it." - that's a hidden line buried in the details between the epic beginning and iconic end.

Bart could have used an editor, but he was a beautiful writer.
Not so buried for some of us on the wrong side of 60. It, unfortunately, resonates as I contemplate the fact that there will not be an endless summer, nor an endless succession of seasons to enjoy.
 

Bergs

funky and cold
SoSH Member
Jul 22, 2005
21,612
I liked it when one year, maybe it was last year, someone else posted Green Fields, not knowing it was a tradition that Cheri post it. What I liked was that she immediately jumped in and posted like "hey, that's my job, and reposted it." I like assertion.
I think I might have been the offender on that one, though I can find no record of it.
 

Humphrey

Member
SoSH Member
Aug 3, 2010
3,163
I remember a couple things about the weekend Giamatti describes in his essay.

1. Saw that Saturday ending at the Model Cafe in Brighton, after watching Pittsburgh, defending national champs, annihilate BC*.

2. The next day's meaningless game was rained out; not sure if it even started, but the highlight for sure was Rick Dempsey's rain delay act https://www.mlb.com/news/funniest-moments-in-orioles-history.

*The QB was future Patriot Matt Cavanaugh. Jackie Sherrill was the head coach, taking over for Johnny Majors. Two of his assistants were Jimmy Johnson and Dave Wannstedt.
 

grepal

New Member
Jul 20, 2005
193
The tradition on this site is to read the poem after the final Sox game of the year. For me it is very poignant. I like other Sports, I really enjoy watching my Alma Mater Play basketball, however the Red Sox are different, they feel like a part of my soul. If you can love a thing, for me that thing is this team. As frustrating as our recent history has been I can not stay away.
 

Skiponzo

Member
SoSH Member
The end of the Red Sox season is always melancholy for me.....it basically just sucks.

People ask me what I do in winter when there's no baseball. I'll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring.”,
- Rogers Hornsby
 

BoSoxLady

Rules Red Sox Nation with an Iron Fist
Lifetime Member
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Apr 24, 2003
3,448
So sorry for the delay. My heart is broken after the passing of Tim Wakefield and the sadness of the end of the season paled in comparison to the loss of Wake. Tradition lives on…..

In the event you’re unaware, it’s been a longtime tradition (started by Ken Coleman) for Red Sox play by play man Joe Castiglione to recite a special poem at the sign off at the end of the season.

The poem is entitled “Green Fields of the Mind” written by noted Red Sox fan and former MLB Commissioner, A. Bartlett Giamati:

From A Great and Glorious Game: Baseball Writings of A. Bartlett Giamatti

The Green Fields of the Mind

“It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone. You count on it, rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops.”

Full version here: http://mason.gmu.edu/~rmatz/giamatti.html

It’s not only sad to see the season end, the loss of Tim Wakefield makes it worse.
 

canyoubelieveit

Member
SoSH Member
Apr 8, 2006
7,711
This thread is meaningful every year. I would just like to add that the famous poem is part of a longer (but not too long) essay, where the final line also moves me deeply each time I read it:

https://mason.gmu.edu/~rmatz/giamatti.html

Of course, there are those who learn after the first few times. They grow out of sports. And there are others who were born with the wisdom to know that nothing lasts. These are the truly tough among us, the ones who can live without illusion, or without even the hope of illusion. I am not that grown-up or up-to-date. I am a simpler creature, tied to more primitive patterns and cycles. I need to think something lasts forever, and it might as well be that state of being that is a game; it might as well be that, in a green field, in the sun.
 

Humphrey

Member
SoSH Member
Aug 3, 2010
3,163
Didn't realize Bob Bailey had a role in two consecutive elimination games. Always thought his take-three-down-the-middle at bat against Goose Gossage encapsulated the dysfunction of the 1978 Red Sox management team (Zimmer, Sullivan and others); opting to keep his over-the-hill carcass around versus what I'm sure were a number of more competent options.
 

Preacher

Member
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Jun 9, 2006
6,411
Pyeongtaek, South Korea
Why are we still calling it a poem? I don’t understand that. Where is the poem?

Anyways, it sucks that this time has been coming around prior to the playoffs the last couple years.
 
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Bergs

funky and cold
SoSH Member
Jul 22, 2005
21,612
This thread is meaningful every year. I would just like to add that the famous poem is part of a longer (but not too long) essay, where the final line also moves me deeply each time I read it:

https://mason.gmu.edu/~rmatz/giamatti.html

Of course, there are those who learn after the first few times. They grow out of sports. And there are others who were born with the wisdom to know that nothing lasts. These are the truly tough among us, the ones who can live without illusion, or without even the hope of illusion. I am not that grown-up or up-to-date. I am a simpler creature, tied to more primitive patterns and cycles. I need to think something lasts forever, and it might as well be that state of being that is a game; it might as well be that, in a green field, in the sun.
I love that ending.

Also, this:
There comes a time when every summer will have something of autumn about it.
 

wiffleballhero

Member
SoSH Member
Mar 28, 2009
4,528
In the simulacrum
Why are we still calling it a poem? I don’t understand that. Is Where is the poem?

Anyways, it sucks that this time has been coming around prior to the playoffs the last couple years.
Not all poems are elegantly written and not all elegant writing is, as such, therefore a poem.

None the less, the distinction seems to be confounding sometimes.

"The Green Fields of the Mind" is decidedly not a poem. It is an essay.

One of the things about listening to Giamatti read is that the audience finds the essay more funny than I really think it is. It is like they seem to lose track of the core framing idea around mutability and the tension between mutability and permanence that enables the melancholic depth of the essay.
 

InstaFace

The Ultimate One
SoSH Member
Sep 27, 2016
21,753
Pittsburgh, PA
Why are we still calling it a poem? I don’t understand that. Is Where is the poem?
Because the essay has a lyrical quality to it, a descriptive vividness and economy of words, that is only comparable, in my opinion, to poetry. Poetry need not have a rhyming scheme to merit the name. Because this work in particular has so many memorable parts that people can recite from memory, and crystallizes the essence of what baseball means to many of us emotionally - the way a brilliant and perfect turn of phrase in a poem can stick in our minds, and pops back up intermittently. Because it can be read aloud in a reasonable amount of time as a poem can, with a rhythm and momentum not dissimilar to poetic readings. And because the author had the soul of a poet (if that poet were obsessed with baseball), which is why he became commissioner and also why he was turfed out when he was insufficiently hardnosed in the eyes of the team owners. The arc of his career mirrors the arc of his essay here, in idealism giving way to disillusion as night follows day and winter follows summer - which is poetic enough in itself.

I won't argue with those who want to call it an essay, but I would say those who prefer to think of it as a poem aren't "wrong", either.
 

Preacher

Member
SoSH Member
Jun 9, 2006
6,411
Pyeongtaek, South Korea
Because the essay has a lyrical quality to it, a descriptive vividness and economy of words, that is only comparable, in my opinion, to poetry. Poetry need not have a rhyming scheme to merit the name. Because this work in particular has so many memorable parts that people can recite from memory, and crystallizes the essence of what baseball means to many of us emotionally - the way a brilliant and perfect turn of phrase in a poem can stick in our minds, and pops back up intermittently. Because it can be read aloud in a reasonable amount of time as a poem can, with a rhythm and momentum not dissimilar to poetic readings. And because the author had the soul of a poet (if that poet were obsessed with baseball), which is why he became commissioner and also why he was turfed out when he was insufficiently hardnosed in the eyes of the team owners. The arc of his career mirrors the arc of his essay here, in idealism giving way to disillusion as night follows day and winter follows summer - which is poetic enough in itself.

I won't argue with those who want to call it an essay, but I would say those who prefer to think of it as a poem aren't "wrong", either.
Jeter Anusface
Jeter Jeter Anusface
Jeter Anusface

Now that’s a poem!
 

wiffleballhero

Member
SoSH Member
Mar 28, 2009
4,528
In the simulacrum
comparable
It does not denigrate the writing to note the distinctions between genres.

In this case, what you are tuning into illustrates Giamatti's skill as an essayist and it is at least plausible that a 'full' appreciation of the grace of the essay is at least a little bit wrapped up in grappling with how it is an essay?

Jeter Anusface
Jeter Jeter Anusface
Jeter Anusface

Now that’s a poem!
Right.

So doggerel is -- as the game threads all season illustrated -- poetry (sort of).

As many middle school romantics discover, just because you can enjamb a line, it doesn't make you profound.
 

InstaFace

The Ultimate One
SoSH Member
Sep 27, 2016
21,753
Pittsburgh, PA
It does not denigrate the writing to note the distinctions between genres.
I didn't say it did. I said I didn't begrudge anyone who preferred to think of it either way, because it is prose that has so many of the affective characteristics of poetry.

In this case, what you are tuning into illustrates Giamatti's skill as an essayist and it is at least plausible that a 'full' appreciation of the grace of the essay is at least a little bit wrapped up in grappling with how it is an essay?
Plausible, sure. But to me an essay is first and foremost a form in which the author seeks to persuade. Giamatti is not doing so - he is communing with the listener, speaking on an emotional level whose understanding he takes for granted on all our parts. A universal. It is a mode of communication far more associated with verse - so, again, I think it's entirely fitting if some people prefer to regard it as a (non-rhyming) poem.
 

wiffleballhero

Member
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Mar 28, 2009
4,528
In the simulacrum
But to me an essay is first and foremost a form in which the author seeks to persuade.
I understand.

But the essay form, especially as it exists in American schooling, is a pretty vitiated version of the genre.

And Giamatti (as a Renaissance scholar and working within an essay that brings us back to the early modern period as it makes explicit reference to Spencer's Mutabilitie) is rather aware of the flexibility of the form as a kind of thought piece -- be it from Montaigne or Bacon -- where the goal is to sort of try out some ideas more than, debate club style, force an argument.

Indeed, back to my original point, I think if you look at Giamatti as thinking about the history of the form and sort of flexing on the idea of what an essay can be, it becomes all the more rich.

Edit: I am not saying that 'The Green Fields of the Mind' is all meta or what have you. I'm just saying that Giamatti is working with a pretty big toolbox for thinking about how to construct an essay and that, therefore, there is richness in reading the essay and thinking about what he is up to with the essay as an essay.
 
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