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Friday, October 23, 2009

Bad Omen: Soupy Sales has been pied in the face by Death


OK, Yankee God, You've done it.

Are you happy?

You've creeped me out.

I'm officially terrified.

This was supposed to be a humor site, a parody of Yankee blogs, a whimsical sashay through the rainbow Yankiverse, where we fans -- at least in one capacity of our ritualistic and pathetic lives -- imagined themselves as Your Chosen Tribe of American Capitalism.

And the 2009 season -- wait, did that calendar just say 2004? -- was ours. All ours. You certainly gave us that impression, did You not?

Because the year has been characterized by two grand, comic and iconic vagaries:

1. When celebrities died, the Yankees launched winning streaks. (See McMahon, E.; Travelina, F.; Jackson, M.; Fawcett, F.)

2. The team celebrated walkoffs with pies in the face.

So what do we make of this?

Last night, as Giardi & Sons blew the kind of game we might rue the rest of our lives, Soupy Sales got the call from your bullpen.

He was 83... Ian Kennedy's number in reverse.

More than anyone, he was famous for the pie in the face.

Listen to this: In Today's Times Obit, it's as if he's speaking directly to AJ Burnett:

“You can use whipped cream, egg whites or shaving cream, but shaving cream is much better because it doesn’t spoil. And no tin plates. The secret is you just can’t push it and shove it in somebody’s face. It has to be done with a pie that has a lot of crust so that it breaks up into a thousand pieces when it hits you.”

So the question is -- o God of Yankees, o taker of games and life -- did Soupy become soup to signify our next, most glorious victory?

Or is this the death of something else?

4 comments:

dadlak said...

from Leonard Cohen's "Closing Time"

It feels like freedom, but it looks like death.

It's something in between I guess.

It's closing time.

Anonymous said...

He also died in the Bronx. Hmmm...

OpusOne said...

Well, this is why we lost last night. It was destined that the ALCS was to end with a pie to honor Soupy. You can't have a walk-off as the visiting team.

That said, this theory also suggests that we have to win a game in our final at-bat, which means it will be close, and I'm not comfortable about this.

Samantha K said...

i absolutely loved Soupy Sales' personality, some of the best facial expressions ever