World Serious

At the very beginning of Frank Capra's big-screen adaptation of "Arsenic and Old Lace," there is a brief scene that, for the longest time, confused me. The story is set on my favorite holiday, Halloween, but the viewer is treated to a moment of...baseball? Even as a little kid, this made no sense: I love baseball, but wouldn't the World Series be over by Halloween? Wouldn't the players be cold in New York in late October?

In most years, even with the additional layers of playoffs added over time, the baseball season would have ended by now.

But as America--and, in truth, the whole world--knows already, 2001 is not like any other year. After the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, most professional sports took the week off. And rightfully so. We weren't in any frame of mind to pay attention to anything but the horrific images coming from the East Coast. We weren't up for watching Barry Bonds break Mark McGwire's three-year-old home run records, for seeing the Mariners grab the most victories in a season since the 1906 Cubs (back when the Cubs actually went to the World Series), for experiencing once more the collapse of the modern Cubs into yet another heap of choking, bickering losers. Baseball stadiums went silent and empty for a few days, and the games that were cancelled were made up at the end of the season.

So here we are, on All Hallow's Eve 2001, and Game 4 of the World Series is being played in the Bronx tonight, between the New York Yankees and the Arizona Diamondbacks.

I love baseball. I love Halloween. But are these two great tastes that taste great together? Hardly. The fact that the World Series could very well continue into November for the first time ever (as I write this Tuesday night, the Diamondbacks lead the Series two games to none) points to how abnormal our lives are now, and how weird they might always be from here on out. Even the things we could count on to be regular and "normal," like baseball and kids in costumes asking for candy, aren't.

That having been said, there is something to cheer me about this year's World Series: Mark Grace, who spent the previous 13 seasons--i.e., his whole career--with the Cubs, is playing in the "fall classic" for the first time ever.

13 years with the Cubs? Not even a whiff of the World Series. One year away from the Cubs? He's in.

One. Fucking. Year.

Amazing how things can change in such a short space in time--for worse or, in Grace's case, for better--isn't it?

Maybe there's hope after all.

Good luck, Gracie. Good luck to us all.

And Happy Halloween, everbody.