Rockies rally, so we must blog...

In the tradition of all great superstitions, we have noticed a correlation between the Rockies' unlikely presence in the postseason and our own attention to blogging.  No, it's not a scientifically verifiable correlation, but we won't mess with it.  So let's pause here to consider what we can all do to help the cause of our fledgling team

Not a literary post, you think?  Well, thanks to our pals the Sawyers, LH staff (and sibling) got to attend the 13-inning playoff-to-playoff game on Monday, and our writerly productivity skyrocketed on Tuesday. Also, never forget the great literature written about this sport. Of course, Tobias Wolff's graceful ending to "Bullet in the Brain" (hear it read by the author in the Tobias Tapes, Part I) is one. Consider this following bit (reviled Yankees references notwithstanding), sent to me by DU's Sheila Wright, who's a great writer in her own right (how often can you use four "rites" in one sentence?):

That is why it breaks my heart, that game---not because in New York they could win because Boston lost; in that, there is a rough justice, and a reminder to the Yankees of how slight and fragile are the circumstances that exalt one group of human beings over another. It breaks my heart because it was meant to, because it was meant to foster in me again the illusion that there was something abiding, some pattern and some impulse that could come together to make a reality that would resist the corrosion; and because, after it had fostered again that most hungered-for illusion, the game was meant to stop, and betray precisely what it promised.

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."
-- from A. Bartlett Giamatti's "The Green Fields of the Mind," which can be read in full here.

Plus, there's the ever quotable Phillies' coach (I'm not actually sure who he is, but I heard him quoted on the radio), who said something that applies equally to writing as to baseball: "Talent is important, but more important is mental toughness, passion, and the desire to win games." Or something like that.  Not to mention baseball players and writers are the two most superstitious types in the bunch. You see where we're going with this...  And good news for those attending Gary's shindig Saturday (and please do!): It conflicts not with the Rox schedule, but serves instead as a perfect pre-stop to the game).

Go Rox! If this works, they need to help me finish some stories...

--AD