Ale and baseball

Rob Hardy, who recently returned from an extended stay in England, says he likes real ale. I've never been to England, but have come to enjoy ale and have been exploring some domestic brands. The eight ales listed below have all been sampled (read: consumed in sufficient quantities as to provide a more than adequate basis of comparison for someone who is not a connoisseur) in the past twelve weeks or so.

Sierra Nevada, Chico, CA (especially with Chico's favorite son Matt Garza on the mound)
Full Sail, Hood River, OR (first encountered in a waterfront bar not far from Giants stadium)
Summit Pale Ale, St. Paul, MN (all over)
Summit India Pale Ale, St. Paul, MN (ditto, especially at the Contented Cow pub)
Avalanche Amber-style Ale, Breckenridge Brewing, Denver, CO (during the Rockies' remarkable late-season winning streak, of course)
Schell's Pale Ale, New Ulm, MN (why is this hard to find when we live within spittin' distance?)
James Page Burly Brown Ale, Stevens Point, WI (a feature at The James Gang Hideaway)
Goose Island Hex Nut Brown Ale, Chicago (the father of a friend of my daughter is the CFO of Goose Island brewing, so we bought some just because we thought we should)

According to the kind folks at Cryptobrewology, an ale is a lager beer, except --

The main difference between yeasts used for lagers and ales is that ale yeast is a top-fermenting yeast, which means the yeast floats to the top and hangs around up there during most of the fermentation process. Lager yeast is a bottom-fermenting yeast, which means it hangs around the bottom of the fermenter. During both types of fermentation the active yeast does permeate the brew and eventually settles out on the bottom of the fermenter when it is done.

The other main difference in producing a lager or ale is in the temperature during fermentation. Most ales are fermented at a controlled temperature around 70 degrees Fahrenheit, although Sierra Nevada's Celebration Ale is said to be fermented at 65 degrees. Lagers, on the other hand, are fermented about 15 degrees lower, around 55 degrees.

I'll take their word for it. Baseball and beer are, of course, intimately intertwined: Miller Park, Coors Field, Busch Stadium. I remember going to a game at old Comiskey Park in about 1958 and being fascinated by the beer vendors hawking Hamm's. My uncle George worked for a time at the old Drewery's brewery (no kidding) in South Bend and would bring home a case a week, which he and my dad and my other uncles would consume in the back yard on a Sunday afternoon with a White Sox or Tigers game on the radio.

Right now, my vote goes to Sierra Nevada, with Schell's a very close second. Full Sail seems a little weak to me. Summit Pale Ale is very crisp -- good with pizza (B & L, anyone?) The Burly Brown and the Hex Nut Brown are, for me, just novelty brews. Good, though.

What say thee?

Life list

Bird watchers keep detailed field notes and are very proud of their 'life lists', accounting for every unique bird species they've ever seen. I am not a bird watcher (or 'birder' as they are sometimes called). I do have an old Peterson's field guide that has been used perhaps a half dozen times in 25 years. Instead, I collect ballparks.

In approximate chronological order (major league teams, including spring training and exhibition games):

1. Memorial Stadium, Baltimore
2. Comiskey Park (old Comiskey), Chicago
3. Wrigley Field, Chicago
4. Candlestick Park, San Francisco
5. County Stadium, Milwaukee
6. Metropolitan Stadium, Bloomington, Minnesota
7. Tinker Field, Orlando, FL (Twins spring training)
8. Oakland Coliseum, California
9. Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome, Minneapolis
10. Comiskey Park (a.k.a US Cellular), Chicago
11. Doubleday Field, Cooperstown, NY
12. Miller Park, Milwaukee
13. Camden Yards, Baltimore
14. Fenway Park, Boston
15. Yankee Stadium, New York
16. Citizens Bank Park, Philadelphia
17. Angels Stadium, Anaheim
---- updated Sept. 2009 ---
18. That new ballpark named for some insurance conglomerate in Cincinnati (nice park, bad name)
19. Dodger Stadium, Los Angeles
20. Kauffman Stadium, Kansas City
---- updated April 2010 ----
21. Target Field, Minneapolis

There have also been dozens of minor league, independent league, high school, college, and amatuer games in various places. Each comes with a story. Cape Cod league games in the little resort town of Orleans were extremely pleasant. Stumbling upon an alumni versus student game in Hilo, Hawaii was fun. Going to the annual Labor Day weekend Minnesota amatuer (a.k.a. town ball) tournament was a slice of Americana. Meeting Wally the Beer Man at a Miesville Mudhens game -- priceless.

My grandmother would listen with great intensity and joy to White Sox radio broadcasts, so baseball was a big part of the soundtrack of my life as a kid, and it is reassuring to have the game, essentially unchanged (except for the damnable DH rule and artficial turf), to enjoy as an old dude.

My father will be 90 in a few months. His two most enjoyable outings recently have been to a vintage air show (he was a pilot in WWII) and to a minor league game in Indianapolis. He and I and many others use these memories to keep us warm in the winter.

Fenway

Tonight's elimination game at Fenway Park, starting at an absurdly late hour, should be good. In 2004, my youngest son and I took a little baseball trip to the east coast, visiting Fenway, Yankee Stadium, Oriole Park at Camden Yards, and the new stadium in Philadelphia (I don't even remember what it's called but it's named for a bank). Fenway was probably the most fun because:

1. Pedro Martinez pitched. He wasn't very sharp that day, but we sat near a man who lead cheers for Pedro that consisted of chanting "PayDRO, PayDRO, PayDRO; Ah HOO ah" and waving the Dominican flag.

2. The Italian sausage and pepper sandwiches at the ballpark.

3. The pizza at the ballpark.

4. The ballpark. We got to explore the place inside and out, wandering around during batting practice. I like it because it's old and cannot be anything else.

Camden Yard was also fun. We saw Justin Morneau hit a towering homer to right-center field, onto the brick plaza in front of the famous warehouse. The sound of bat on ball was unmistakable and brought an immediate hush to the crowd. There are lots of brass markers on that plaza commemorating home runs. I wonder if one now has Morneau's name on it. And Lew Ford (bye, Leeewww) gunned down a runner at home with an outstanding throw from deep left field. A Baltimore fan sitting in front of us screamed at the ump that the runner was safe, then turned to us, smiled, and said "Helluva throw."

Yankee Stadium was disappointing because it is kind of a dump. It looked like it had been deliberately neglected to bolster the case for a new stadium. Sad. It was a great game, though, because Toronto and New York took a scoreless tie into the ninth and Ruben Sierra (who would briefly become a Twin) hit a solo homer in the bottom of the ninth to win it for the Yankees.

And the park in Philadelphia was nice, although it has a soulless name and is stuck out on the edge of town like an unwanted relative.

I want to be at Fenway tonight, eating and drinking and cheering. I guess I can do all those things at home, but...definitely not the same.

The Wind Howls Like a Hammer

That's a line from a Bob Dylan song, which has little if anything to do with this poem.

Spotlight

I want to go back in time and be interviewed by Dick Cavett or David Frost. They would be their charming and impish selves and I would expound upon the pressing need for weed control in southeast Colorado or the plight of the blue whale or the mid-term elections. I would be sincere, compassionate, handsome.

I want to be interviewed on public television. Charlayne Hunter-Gault could look me in the eye and ask pointed questions about the middle east peace process or good restaurants in Sao Paulo or the state of Italian opera. I will be smooth, clever, confident.

I want to be the sole eyewitness when the local TV reporter runs breathlessly up and asks for my first-hand account. I’ll tell her about the getaway car and rain and sirens or about the daring rooftop rescue or the tense hostage negotiations. I will be accurate, erudite, unruffled.

I want to testify at a high-profile trial and be questioned by high-powered attorneys. I’ll awe the courtroom with riveting details about my boss’s indiscretions. I’ll single-handedly expose the corporate corruption, intrigue, and greed. I will be steely-eyed and relentless.

America will not be able to get enough of me.

And then I will disappear like Butch Cassidy into the Andes or the south Pacific or the Georgia swamps.

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Thanks for reading and commenting.

Team Mascots

If I could find a picture of William Carlos Williams on horseback, carrying a pen like a sabre, he could be this blog's mascot. Or even better, the illustration that Mikhail Horowitz used in his book "Big League Poets" that showed Richard Brautigan in a vintage baseball uniform.

Joe Posnanski has been mentioned several times here and you'll find a link to his blog on the right. He's an award-winning sports columnist for the Kansas City Star, but his blog is entirely his own.

He's written a few entries about growing up near Cleveland and being a life-long fan of Cleveland sports teams. His recollection of the crazy first owner of the Cavaliers is hilarious.

Then he went and got all serious about the embarrassment that is Chief Wahoo, the cartoon logo of the Cleveland Indians. He got a lot of support for the idea that it's time to retire the logo, and he also got a lot of crap.

My mother -- Maria Salvatrice Regina Vigneri -- grew up in Baltimore, in a section that was then mostly Italian immigrants. The neighborhood is still known as Baltimore's 'little Italy' (Albemarle Street and Normal Avenue). She told us stories of being spit at and called names like wop and dago. After reading Mr. Posnanski's take on the Chief Wahoo question, I wondered how my mother might have felt if there had been a team called the Baltimore Italianos, with a grinning mobster for a logo. The Italiano name wouldn't be so bad (it could even be interpreted as an honor), but the cartoon logo -- I don't think so.

Chief Wahoo is demeaning. At least Chief Illiniwek (at the University of Illinois, where I used to work) was not so much of a caricature, and the logo of the Fighting Sioux seems respectful (at least compared to Chief Wahoo).

Symbols matter, even on something as superficially trivial as a sports team.

A poem for the week

Cold Rain

The rain is about to turn to snow
or sleet
or freezing rain
or maybe stop altogether while it makes up its mind
what it will become
where it will go next

We are between the mountains and the sea
between cloud and fog
between seasons

Somewhere kids are playing stickball
in a noisy street
or soccer
on a dry and dusty field

Somewhere men cut cane in the heat;
women lie on a sun-splashed beach

We, perched on the edge of the continent,
look out on the misty uncertainty
and wait


-----

Jim Haas

Brautigan again

Many of my friends are captivated by the WWII documentary airing on PBS. I asked my dad, who was a pilot in the war, what he thinks so far. He said "Well, they make it seem worse than it was in some ways and better than it was in other ways." That's quintessential Dadspeak -- he has always had the ability to see many sides and the equanimity to reserve judgement. He reminds me of that Bob Dylan line: "He knows too much to argue or to judge." I guess I got my opnoinatedness from my mother (also a veteran of WWII).

Watching parts of the documentary, I thought of this poem from Brautigan:

The Sister Cities of Los Alamos, New Mexico, and Hiroshima, Japan

It was snowing hard when we drove
into Los Alamos. There was a clinical feeling
to the town as if every man, woman, and child
were a doctor. We shopped at the Safeway
and got a bag of groceries. A toddler
looked like a brain surgeon. He carefully
watched us shop at the exact place where he would
make his first incision.

Then two things occurred recently to make me think of a Brautigan poem about Pompeii. (Well, it's not really about Pompeii, but it uses Pompeii as a metaphor.) The Science Museum of Minnesota is hosting a traveling exhibit of Pompeiian artifacts and, coincidentally, a coworker of mine just got back from a month-long dig in Pompeii. Ruins are still being unearthed there and my co-worker spoke of the striking immediacy of the things they found -- as if the eruption had just happened. That's also in the background of this poem:

Mouths That Kissed in the Hot Ashes of Pompeii

Mouths that kissed
in the hot ashes of Pompeii
are returning
and eyes that could adore their beloved only
in the fires of Pompeii
are returning
and bodies that squirmed in ecstasy
in the lava of Pompeii
are returning
and lovers who found their perfect passion
in the death of Pompeii
are returning,
and they’re letting themselves in
again with the names of your sons and your daughters.

Something about the tone in these pieces makes me shiver.
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NB: As an amateur geologist, I would point out that Pompeii was buried in hot ashes (as in line 2) not lava (as in line 8). Nearby Ercolano (aka Herculaneum) was buried in lava. Parts of Ercolano have also been unearthed and preserved. Not as famous as Pompeii, it is fascinating to visit, though I have to confess that my most vivid memory of a day in Ercolano is drinking cold Peroni beer on the porch of a little tavern on a hot October afternoon, the Bay of Naples in the distance. That was refreshing!