Death and Transfiguration.

Two days ago this team was going places. They took two out of three in Tampa, then three out of four from Chicago, capped off by Cody Ross hitting a ball far into the night. They were getting their players back and those players were making contributions. Now? Not so much. Josh Beckett laid yet another egg yesterday. And, without David, the offense seems to have been stymied by pitchers who don't seem like they should have a place on a major league roster. So, they're back to being a lousy team; a team that's treading water until...well, unless they're waiting for Bailey, there's nobody else coming. This is it. It's not very inspiring.

In Tod und Verklärung (Death and Transfiguration, 1889) Richard Strauss composed a tone poem about a man lying on his deathbed. At first the man lies there sleeping, though soon enough (Mvt. II) death reappears and tries to claim him for its own. But the man fights back and survives. In the third movement, the man contemplates his life and all the striving he's done--first to figure out his purpose, his meaning, and then to go out and achieve it. In the final movement though, Death (as it is wont to do) triumphs over man. But according to Strauss, as is evidenced by the sweeping theme in C major, this is not a bad thing, because it is only through death that the man will, and does, achieve his transfiguration.

Now, this isn't a call for mass-suicide (though maybe they'd play better if so threatened); they won't be transfigured as ballplayers and win more games by being dead. Perhaps though, I might be better off if I let my fandom die. It won't make them a better team--I'm not sure that there's anything that could do that at the moment--but it might me me less insane.

Of course, I have tried to quit before and it's never worked so...

(You see what your poor play has caused, cabbages? I've had to go all high-brow and philosophical on you. At least, it lets me trot out this amusing little gem.)



[Complete aside that has very little to do with anything: I took a class in school called German Romantic Literature. I have no idea why I signed up for that class. Knowing my complete inability to deal with whining, it did not go well. The first thing we read was The Sorrows of Young Werther and I spent most of the book telling him to shut up or urging him to get over himself and then finally demanding to know why he wouldn't just die already because really, what was taking so long? Although I do appreciate the emphasis on the individual, romanticism was not the period for me.]