Mississippi State won the College World Series on Wednesday night, and I don’t know what to do about it.
Even before the final out was recorded in the Bulldogs’ 9-0 win over Vanderbilt securing the school’s first national championship in any team sport, the inevitability of that outcome ignited celebrations among State fans young and old. Then, when the outcome was official, all hell broke loose, emotionally-speaking.
As far as I know, no cars were set on fire and nobody looted a Walgreens. The emotion that accompanied was a pure expression of joy rather than an outlet for repressed anger that leads to destruction. Good on everybody for that.
But as I listened to the radio broadcast of the game while watching on TV with the sound muted (a ritual I suspect a lot of us old-time MSU fans followed), there was no great emotional release, no outward reaction to years of hopes dashed and dreams unfulfilled, although as someone who has followed MSU sports for the better part of six decades, my reservoir of emotion must be as deep as anyone’s.
As Jim Ellis, who’s been on the Bulldogs baseball radio broadcast for 11 of MSU’s 12 trips to the College World Series, made the call on the final out and the images of MSU players dog-piling in joy near the pitchers mound flickered on the TV screen, I sat, unmoving but not unmoved, in my recliner with only a smile to register my pleasure.
Perhaps it is a function of my age that restrained my emotions. Jumping and shouting and running around like a crazy person are well-suited to youth. Old folks like me are more cautious. Hey, you can break a hip, you know.
I realize I am out of the mainstream here. Yesterday, a huge crowd turned out on campus to welcome the Bulldogs back home. Today in Starkville, there will be a parade, followed by a celebration at Dudy Noble Field. Neither promises to be a subdued affair. The delirium that began Wednesday around 9 p.m. continues unabated.
I recognize the joy of it all and do not find it at all inappropriate.
But somehow I find myself apart, not a part, of the pandemonium.
I feel like a dog that has been chasing cars every day for years and has finally caught one: Now what do I do?
These Bulldogs chase championships, not cars, and have been doing so for generations without success.
That changed Wednesday, of course. That elusive title is clinched in the Bulldogs’ jaws, never to be taken away. I first explained my subdued reaction to this as caution: Let’s wait until all the absentee runs have been counted.
But there are no court challenges, nobody running around hollering “Stop The Steal.”
It’s real.
That’s not to say that, for me, State’s win is without poignancy.
I listened to the game on the radio that my brother, Fred, relied on to follow the ups and inevitable downs of Bulldogs sports. He died on March 30, still tuning in to the games on the radio, still deeply troubled about the absence of a reliable third starter, the Bulldogs’ sometimes shaky defense (*You watch,” he would caution. “This is going to come back and bite them at the worst possible moment!”) and the lack of production from the bottom of the lineup.
In other words, Fred was a Bulldog fan through and through, which carries with it a foreboding Calvinistic fatalism that is as much a part of being a Southerner as sweet tea and collards. It’s a view of the world that the fates will ultimately turn on you and that time, as Faulkner wrote in “The Sound and the Fury,” is “the mausoleum of all hope and desire,” that, as Browning wrote, “A man’s reach must exceed his grasp or what’s a heaven for?”
In those first few moments after the final out, my thoughts turned to my brother and how much I wished that he could have stuck around long enough to enjoy Calvin and Faulkner and Browning eat a little mortal crow.
He would have been so happy.
Hell, he might have even broken a hip.
Me? I’m satisfied, deeply, thoroughly satisfied.
That’s all I’ve got.
That will have to be enough.
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
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