Monday, October 18, 2004
The Wisdom of Tom Boyle
I think it's OK to start talking about baseball again.
I stopped by Yesterday on my way home the other day (that yellow shack on Addison just down the street from my house that's painted as bright as the optimism Cub fans in Wrigleyville hold for most of the year). I really popped in to check out an interesting looking James Dean bumper sticker, but stayed to chat baseball, another bastion of American nostalgia, and walked out with a new friend.
Yesterday is the kind of place you'd go to to buy a Dodgers World Series pennant from 1988, a Mark Grace headshot from 1982 or that Chicago Tribune paper from 1955. You could also pick up an advanced issue Spider-Man 2 poster or a "Curly for President" placard. Tom Boyle owns the yellow shack, which is how Yesterday is better known, particularly and affectionately recalled by the many fans who troop by on their way to a ball game. He's an old guy who's been around the block and back the other way by half a step, not much white hair left, nails chewed off. I guess you can call him a lifelong Cubs fan. He took the Jimmy D bumper sticker from the window and showed it to me, a souvenir from the James Dean Museum in Fairmont, Indiana. Five dollars -- out of my budget for a piece of kitsch. So Tom starts to tell me what a finn can buy me these days. If I threw in another dollar, I could own a Kerry Wood rookie card.
Just six dollars?
Yep, dropped to about a third of its value in the last 10 days of the regular season, just as soon as Woody sunk under the pressure of regular Joe-ness. (To put it in perspective, a talking bottle opener with Chippy Caray calling a home run doubled in value one day after the season ended.) In the picture on the card, Woody was slender, a kid, brimming with optimism. He looked like he could strike out 20 batters in a game.
Tom pulls out a photocopy from a Sun-Times page, so old he could maybe put it up for sale with the rest of his wares. He tells me to read it out loud. It's a letter he wrote in 1991, and in it, he talks about how the Cubs are always playing catch-up, how they always let the other guys score first and never quite get the runs back or can't hold on to the lead. How they always carry so much promise but like a sherpa whose union card expired, just drop the load to stare blankly into space at what to do next. How they can't play fundamental baseball, unlike the Cincinnati Reds, who showed from 13 games back how you can actually win a game with some bunting and a couple of pokes.
Tom points out again that he wrote the letter in 1991. His point being, it's 2004 and not much has changed. Other things that haven't changed in Chicago since 1991 -- they're still rude when serving you your red hot at the Wiener Circle. Stuffed pizza still makes you sick when you try to eat too much of it. You still find room for a Margie's Candies sundae no matter what. And everyone is sad again in October.
I stopped by Yesterday on my way home the other day (that yellow shack on Addison just down the street from my house that's painted as bright as the optimism Cub fans in Wrigleyville hold for most of the year). I really popped in to check out an interesting looking James Dean bumper sticker, but stayed to chat baseball, another bastion of American nostalgia, and walked out with a new friend.
Yesterday is the kind of place you'd go to to buy a Dodgers World Series pennant from 1988, a Mark Grace headshot from 1982 or that Chicago Tribune paper from 1955. You could also pick up an advanced issue Spider-Man 2 poster or a "Curly for President" placard. Tom Boyle owns the yellow shack, which is how Yesterday is better known, particularly and affectionately recalled by the many fans who troop by on their way to a ball game. He's an old guy who's been around the block and back the other way by half a step, not much white hair left, nails chewed off. I guess you can call him a lifelong Cubs fan. He took the Jimmy D bumper sticker from the window and showed it to me, a souvenir from the James Dean Museum in Fairmont, Indiana. Five dollars -- out of my budget for a piece of kitsch. So Tom starts to tell me what a finn can buy me these days. If I threw in another dollar, I could own a Kerry Wood rookie card.
Just six dollars?
Yep, dropped to about a third of its value in the last 10 days of the regular season, just as soon as Woody sunk under the pressure of regular Joe-ness. (To put it in perspective, a talking bottle opener with Chippy Caray calling a home run doubled in value one day after the season ended.) In the picture on the card, Woody was slender, a kid, brimming with optimism. He looked like he could strike out 20 batters in a game.
Tom pulls out a photocopy from a Sun-Times page, so old he could maybe put it up for sale with the rest of his wares. He tells me to read it out loud. It's a letter he wrote in 1991, and in it, he talks about how the Cubs are always playing catch-up, how they always let the other guys score first and never quite get the runs back or can't hold on to the lead. How they always carry so much promise but like a sherpa whose union card expired, just drop the load to stare blankly into space at what to do next. How they can't play fundamental baseball, unlike the Cincinnati Reds, who showed from 13 games back how you can actually win a game with some bunting and a couple of pokes.
Tom points out again that he wrote the letter in 1991. His point being, it's 2004 and not much has changed. Other things that haven't changed in Chicago since 1991 -- they're still rude when serving you your red hot at the Wiener Circle. Stuffed pizza still makes you sick when you try to eat too much of it. You still find room for a Margie's Candies sundae no matter what. And everyone is sad again in October.
// posted by Desiree @ 11:41 PM 
