Watching - and listening - to the Noles
You could count on Howser Stadium to offer all sorts of noise
One of the most eloquent writers on the game of baseball was the late Roger Angell. And after attending Friday’s Super Regional game between the Seminoles and UConn - Noles won a squeaker, 24-4 - this quote of his kept rumbling around in my head.
So let me share the top half first before I spout off…
“It is foolish and childish, on the face of it, to affiliate ourselves with anything so insignificant and patently contrived and commercially exploitative as a professional sports team, and the amused superiority and icy scorn that the non-fan directs at the sports nut (I know this look - I know it by heart) is understandable and almost unanswerable. Almost…(to be continued)” - Roger Angell
I entered Howser Stadium on Friday as a civilian. Almost every single time I’ve walked into that joint over the past 30 years, I was either a working journalist (hey, no wisecracks out there!), a working baseball Dad (and unofficial hitting coach) or a working husband sitting aside a loving Seminole fan who’d also occasionally find the necessity to double as my in-the-stands editor as in “Do NOT say a word about that call.”
THIS time, I could have hollered my head off. But I did not. I was taking in the Howser Sauna Experience as a fan, keeping both my eyes and ears open for the first time in a lot of years. Of course, the mostly dominant sounds in the ballpark emanated from the right side of the stadium, Section B. They are - and have been - the most ardent supporters of Florida State baseball since I’ve been here and that’s 31 years with no end in sight. Let the noise continue!
If Angell had ever attended an FSU game, it’s certain that he would have found a way to weave the Canadian National Anthem or “K-Time” or “Let’s go…fill in the name.” I think they might have even done the musical-sounding “Let’s go No-go” a few years back. Which is fine. Cool. Part of the Howser Experience.
Other than the occasional thin-skinned pitcher or coach who may get whatever dander he has available up, their intensity - and VOLUME - generally tend to liven up the festivities, both for them and for their audience. And, as you can see from the array of Facebook pics collected at the top of this page, they get into it. Noting the decibel count. Even inviting “11” to their postgame fest. How he would have loved that, especially a few years ago when he would let himself enjoy a cold one or two.
“I might have one or two,” he told me once, laughing “or maybe three or four.” He was telling me of a time when Red Sox legend Carl Yastrzemski showed up to watch his son, carrying a six-pack. FOR HIM.
On Friday, from my first seat across the field, try as I might, I did have to strain a few times to clearly make out the Section B songbirds. This was due to the absolutely non-stop nonsensical chatter from a guy behind me who was (A.) evidently really, really happy to be out of work, (B.) had listened intently to color announcers at every game he ever watched and memorized most of it or (C.) felt the urge to pepper the air from the first pitch on with an absolutely ceaseless run of chatter. Like….
“This kid had a great Regional (He got a single).
“I think he’s having trouble with his release point,” (At the time, Carson Dorsey was five innings into a one-hitter!)”
“THAT’S A BALK, THAT’S A BALK,” he screamed when UConn’s Garrett Coe turned and threw to second base.
Finally - and showing gentlemanly restraint - I turned and softly corrected our self-appointed analyst.
“He stepped back off the mound,” I said. “It’s not a balk.”
“Oh.” He seemed so disappointed to learn the UConn hurler made a legal move.
Though I was in a cherished spot (the shade) I had to move two innings later. Only so much a man can stand.
Later in the game as the score mounted - as I wrote the other day - I found myself on the other side of the field in front of a pair of Seminole fans (one still religiously keeping score) when in the 9th, UConn’s Luke Broadhurst blasted one into left center, a clear two-bagger all the way.
The Seminole fan saw different, clutched his scorebook, stood and hollered out to FSU left fielder Jaime Ferrer. “This ain’t the time to be laying down.”
The score at the time was Florida State 24, UConn 3. When the next UConn hitter singled to make it 24-4, his other half hollered “Now’s not the time to go soft on them.”
Yes, they are a good match.
Look, I get being a fan. I also get how much every game, hell, every pitch means to some of Seminole Nation out there. In all sports. I remember covering my first FSU football road game in North Carolina many years ago and when I arrived in the lobby, a fan recognized me and said, in shocked tones, “You don’t even wear the team’s colors!”
Now, I sent my son to play for Mike Martin. In my years at the Democrat, I covered all FSU teams (and FAMU) for seven seasons. Trust me, I understand life is easier for everyone if the teams are winning. And I’m not trying to stop anybody from enjoying the living hell out of this run. If you’ve been here for a while, you know there’s another side to all this.
But it would be nice - maybe except when FSU is playing Florida - if some of these fans could remember there is ANOTHER team out there with Moms and Dads and Sisters and Brothers who may well be in THEIR stands when your FSU kids play on the road. Just for the sake of decency, perspective, fairness, kindness, maybe just think about who’s around you, what you’re saying and most importantly, how it looks to someone who ISN’T in your Seminole tribe.
Sure, it’s a free country and recent leaders have worn that First Amendment out with all sorts of hateful, nasty, insensitive remarks. You’ve heard them, too, I know. We can and should be better than that.
Now this is not to put a damper on what should absolutely be one of the greatest experiences in Seminole history, a turnaround like this is unprecedented and worthy of the best celebration anybody can conjure up. But whether it’s here or in Omaha, people are listening. And they should.
To get back to Angell’s quote, which I certainly think applies to everyone I’ve previously mentioned and everybody else who sat there in that heat to watch a bunch of kids try to achieve a dream and another bunch of kids, who usually don’t get this close, see it taken away.
Take it from here, Roger:
“What is left out of this calculation, it seems to me, is the business of caring - caring deeply and passionately, really caring - which is a capacity or an emotion that has almost gone out of our lives. And so it seems possible that we have come to a time when it no longer matters so much what the caring is about, how frail or foolish is the object of that concern, as long as the feeling itself can be saved. Naïveté - the infantile and ignoble joy that sends a grown man or woman to dancing in the middle of the night over the haphazardous flight of a distant ball - seems a small price to pay for such a gift.”
―Roger Angell, Game Time: A Baseball Companion