Explaining Novak Djokovic’s failure to get the New York crowd behind him at the U.S. Open, Martina Navratilova suggested this morning on Tennis Channel that it could be a “Slavic thing” – noting that neither she nor Lendl won their hearts. Immediately I recalled the match at the 1986 Open in which Boris Becker played the brilliant shotmaker Miroslav Mecir and the entire stadium seemed to be behind the boorish German.
To someone who has written a lot about Poland, Navratilova's theory didn't seem all that implausible.
At the end of a close match, or a long game, the victorious player will sometimes pound his chest (to indicate his “heart”) or stab his temple with his forefinger (mental toughness). I’m waiting for a linesperson, after Hawk-Eye confirmation of his call, to point with self-congratulatory fervor to his eyes.
Drove down to see the Marlins last night.
“So you survived the Yankee fans,” I said to the parking attendant.
“I’m still recovering,” she said wearily. “They have no respect for Miami. Such rude people.”
I parked on the second level and walked to the stadium, estimating the amount of time one interacts with a parking attendant. Thirty seconds? Sixty? And yet Yankee fans had managed in that span to demonstrate ill manners. The New York minute.
Then I wondered what they could possibly have been rude about. It couldn’t have been the fee: $15 to park would have seemed a bargain to any New Yorker. And surely they didn’t insult the Marlins’ owner. Perhaps they found the attendant too slow with the credit card machine.
I showed my ID and picked up my free ticket (Seniors Thursday), though the young man who had directed me to the table said I looked “pretty young.” At the top of the escalator a member of the stadium staff greeted me with “Buenos noches.” Apparently I also looked Hispanic.
I walked past the senior ghetto in Section 25 and followed some thirtysomethings down the steps to a row of empty seats behind third base. I took the one on the aisle. The protective netting behind home plate had been extended since last year, insuring that I wouldn’t be hit with a foul ball.
Also new, at least to me, were the bongo cam – when fans, as soon as a camera was aimed at them, pretended to beat on drums – and the dance cam. Actually the name of the later camera was superfluous as people danced on screen at every inning break. Some were quite good; all transmitted an infectious joy. There didn’t seem to be a New Yorker in the house.
In the first inning of the Marlins-Braves game last night, Braves slugger Ronald Aruna Jr. – who had led off the previous three games with a home run – was hit by a pitch. It is a common and despicable practice in baseball. A tennis player, after getting aced four times, does not, in the next game, hit the ball as hard as he can at his opponent.
Interesting that the team that refuses to put its players’ names on jerseys is the one that’s the most profligate in its spending to get the biggest stars.
I used to think the ESPYS were silly and redundant: Why award people who've already won? Yet last night's show - honoring Jim Kelly, Jake Wood, the murdered coaches at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High, the "sister survivors" of Larry Nassar - made every other awards show look hopelessly trite.