July 31: Road teams

Lately, I have become enamoured with a baseball team called the Empire State Greys. They play in the Frontier League, a professional independent baseball league with teams in Eastern Canada and the northeastern part of the United States. As of this writing, the Greys have a record of five wins and 60 losses, giving them a winning percentage of .077. At this stage of the season, the Greys have about as much a chance of making the playoffs as I have of being hired as the Editor of Vogue.

But it gets worse. The Empire State Greys are a road team, meaning they don't even have a home stadium. All of their games are on the road – they never change out of their grey uniforms, hence the name: Greys – and they don't ever get to bask in the applause of an appreciative crowd. If a Grey hits a grand slam, they are greeted with silence. Pull off a double play and they get angry jeers from the fans. Their victories are not saluted; their losses are mostly welcomed.

They play from the beginning of May until the end of August. With the exception of Mondays and the all-star break, they play every day. They don't just lose most of their games, they are demolished in them. They lost a game 20-1. Another loss 19-6. Another one 8-0. 

The players are mostly guys in their 20s. Maybe they all dreamed of Major League stardom and are now milking the last ounces of baseball they have in them by playing a season on the road. They must have families that miss them. They're probably not making a whole lot of money. But they keep playing because they love the game.


I hope they see friends and family when they play the New Jersey Jackals or the New York Boulders. I hope they have fans across the league.

Know what I want to do one day? I want to buy a whole bunch of Empire State Greys wear from this place right here:

https://jeeta-ebl.square.site/

Then I'd get a whole lot of church friends to put it on and we'd go watch the Greys play the Ottawa Titans. We'll sit right behind the Greys dugout and cheer 'em on. If they get a win, they have to invite us for pizza.

-

The Greys are the opposite of the Washington Generals, who are the perennial opponents of the Harlem Globetrotters. Those games are not competitive, they are a hybrid of slapstick comedy and basketball games. The Generals might "try" to beat Harlem, but Harlem almost always comes on top. Apparently, there's only one recorded instance of the Generals beating Harlem and you have to go way back to 1971 for it. As the story goes, Harlem was so intent on entertaining the crowd – weird acrobatics, slapstick routines – that they lost track of the score. Washington beat them, ending a losing streak that was at least 2,000 games.

I saw the Globetrotters play once in Calgary. It was a fun time but I felt bad for the Generals. I was too young to realize that it was all just an act, that "feeling bad" for the Generals was like "feeling bad" for the actor who plays MacBeth. It's an act.

The Greys are not an act.

And that is why I cheer for them.


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