The World Series

Doug is rooting for Philly, I think, though not strongly. But I have to root for Tampa Bay. The team is full of former Twins--Grant Balfour, Jason Bartlett, and Matt Garza, who pitched such an amazing Game Seven against the Red Sox.

But I'm also rooting for the Rays because I have an affection for the St. Pete-Tampa Bay area. I was there about seven or eight years ago for a week in November, attending a seminar in longform editing at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies. I remember it being a rather magical week, though solitary; whenever I do these events I find myself detaching from the group and thinking more than interacting. All of the intense togetherness is wearying for me, and I like to get off by myself at noon and in the evenings. Consequently, I remember nobody who was in my class.

(I even hauled the photo album out of the basement before writing this and studied the class picture; the only familiar faces were the faculty.)

But I do have strong memories of the environment.

We stayed in a big hotel near the beach, about eight blocks from Poynter and very near the Pier. Every morning I walked to a nearby deli and bought a bagel and an orange juice, and then walked over to Poynter. It's right on the water, across the street from the Salvadore Dali museum, and I'd sit out on the dock and watch the cormorants and the pelicans while I ate my breakfast.

At noon, I walked briskly, briskly, briskly around and around the neighborhood, through a dicey flowery park where the bums were sleeping on benches, past the guy selling hot dogs from a cart, to a little goofy diner where I could get a cheeseburger, fast.

One day I walked right past Tropicana Field, where the Tampa Bay Rays play baseball, and I poked my head inside and looked around. That, and Matt Garza, is my connection to the World Series.

In the evenings, after working in the computer lab on my writing assignment, I'd walk fast and purposefully back to the hotel, or take the Poynter shuttle bus. (It was November, and dark early, and the neighborhood wasn't completely safe.)

But the nights were balmy and the air was silky and smelled of the ocean.

One night I went out to dinner with my friend Wayne, who worked for the St. Pete paper. We went to a beachy little restaurant and sat upstairs and ate grouper sandwiches and caught up on old times; downstairs, all of my classmates sat at a table, drinking beer and bonding. I wasn't sorry to not be with them. They all seemed very nice and very smart, but give me one old friend over a dozen new ones any day of the week.

Other nights I walked down to the restaurants along the Pier and had fresh shrimp for dinner; nothing better. I ate my fill. It was somehow both busy and sleepy, and brightly lit, and felt very safe, and I loved being out in the dark and the warm; it felt like summer, just weeks before Christmas.

On our last night, one of our instructors had us all to his house for dinner. He and his wife live in St. Pete Beach, right on the sand and the ocean, and we stood outside drinking beer and talking and listening to the waves roll in in the dark.

All this while everyone at home was wearing mittens.

Doug says Philly is a true baseball town. Doug says that Philly has suffered for 20 years not making it to the World Series. Doug points out that the Rays haven't even been around for 20 years yet, and consequently they haven't suffered enough. (Year after year of last place isn't suffering?)

Me, my affection is with Tampa Bay. Mine and the pelicans'. The series starts tomorrow night. It should be fun.