How Do You Get To Yankee Stadium?
Posted on | July 22, 2008 at 9:45 pm | 6 Comments
A few months ago, I commented on how the character of Schroeder in Peanuts doesn’t make sense to me. He can’t be both a baseball player and a music geek. Lo and behold, the two sides of Schroeder definitely are at war, and one side has finally won (click to embiggen):
(Note these strips originally appeared in 1961, when I was just a-toddlin’!)
You go, Schroeder! Embrace your true self and your destiny. You will always be a music nerd, destined to hide away from the cruel rays of the sun and forced to endure the company of a groupie you can’t stand. You don’t belong out there with the other boys, laughing and running. They will end up as insurance salesman, while you will someday play Carnegie Hall, assuming you ever get to grow up. Or maybe you’ll work at a pizza joint while amassing a vast CD collection of bands no one’s ever heard of, and dreaming dreams of fame unfulfilled. Whatever. The point is that you know your place. At least you won’t be making weekly visits to a therapist like your friend Linus, who as an adult keeps trying to understand why the Eternal Blanket he lost and keeps searching for is a substitute for the love he never got from his family (well, the Blanket and the sex addiction). And you won’t be hanging out at the methadone clinic with Pigpen, trying to “get clean”. Nor will you be selling yourself on the streets like Frieda, desperately trying to fish for compliments on her hair. And Charlie…. poor old Charlie Brown. Good thing you escaped his terrible fate!
No, you will be content plunking out tunes on your MIDI-enabled toy piano, while the world passes you by outside. Baseball is for losers!
Wow, that went to an unexpectedly dark place. I think The Dark Knight is still affecting me…
Latre.
(”Practice, man, practice!”)
Poignant Search Term Of The Day That Led To This Blog: “how do i get fiberglass out of my shirt”.
Comments
6 Responses to “How Do You Get To Yankee Stadium?”
July 23rd, 2008 @ 8:38 am
I will forever be traumatized by my horrible experiences while being forced out of my usual summer reverie to attempt to play baseball in the Denver area’s South Suburban baseball league as a child. Oh, the horror!
I just wish I’d had a little toy piano and unwanted groupie waiting for me at home….
July 23rd, 2008 @ 5:06 pm
I was forced into BOTH softball and piano lessons, among others, by a mother who cast about for anything resembling an opportunity to broaden my horizons.
Particulary with softball, it would have worked out better if I, for example, knew the basic rules of the game – what strikes and balls were, for instance – before being put up to bat. But I suppose American boys are presumed to be born with the rules genetically encoded somehow, and no provision is made for training (they don’t even ask). I wonder if Australia is the same way?
July 23rd, 2008 @ 7:32 pm
I’m with DMR on this – I “tried out” for a little league team when I was a kid and was soooo not in my element, I hid in the bushes, Never went back.
July 23rd, 2008 @ 7:52 pm
Oh, I dunno…Steve Wynn and Scott McCaughey would disagree, as would Barbara Manning…and I’m pretty sure I remember reading about somebody-or-other who in addition to being a good musician was a pretty fair basketball player. I’m sure the sports geeks among your readership will be able to name more musicians who are also athletic… (Gene Simmons’ tongue-calisthenics does not count)
July 23rd, 2008 @ 10:51 pm
I did play little league football briefly as a young’un, but never had to do softball. I did play it in class in elementary school, and was bad and always got picked last. *Shudder* Explains a lot, don’t it?
July 29th, 2008 @ 8:33 pm
Oh – I remembered who I was thinking of before in terms of a musician who’s also a pretty good athlete: Robert Pollard (ex-GbV), who was a good enough baseball player to throw a no-hitter for Wright State University. In high school he was varsity for three sports. So there’s that. Evidently Schroeder’s no Robert Pollard. (Pollard’s also on the all-star drinking team, of course.)