Chasing the Bandwagon: A Non-Baseball Fan, Appreciating the Will Bolt Huskers
Off the top: I’m not a big baseball person.
If you know me, if you read me, you know this.
Baseball is like a really nice pair of dress pants for me: stashed in the back, feel great when I put them on, I just don’t have much use for them except for specific occasions.
But, I am a Nebraska person.
I’m a shout-at-the-radio-during-bad-takes, stare-wistfully-at-the-prairie-sky-while-imagining-the-Pioneers, thinks Carhenge is worth a stop, Nebraskan. I am a Busch Light at 8:27 AM on a Saturday in November when the wind chill in 1 Memorial Stadium is enough to make you want to climb into a jacuzzi-tub full of Magma, Nebraskan.
I care a little too much about an N on a hat and the way people comprehend the place where I grew up.
I’m certainly not alone in these things. In my 34 years — spent mostly between the cannon-shaped borders of this uncut diamond — I’ve often pointed to the kinds of people who are from here.
With italics. With intent.
If you’re from here you get it.
You understand.
You get that emphasis and understand inherently what that auditory inflection tattoo entails in the hearts and minds of our 1.8 million maniacs.
Here’s the thing about those italics, though: they’re not always given.
They’re not a birthright, so much as a career achievement award. Being born in Nebraska doesn’t mean you’re from here automatically.
But, you can earn that shit.
You can reap what you sow just like you’re a giant metal statue on top of our dong-shaped capitol.
And that is exactly what this group of young men in tight pants appears to be doing before our very eyes.
There are 18 guys who have their hometowns listed on Huskers.com as being in Nebraska (*Author’s note: very rough research on this) but each and every one of the guys on this particular roster is playing like they’ve been out grinding in a field since 5 AM somewhere out by Chadron.
There are, at a minimum, 20 synonyms listed for the word ‘Gritty’ on Thesaurus.com. Some fit, some more accurately describe the texture of sand in your sandwich, but there is no mistaking this 2021 squad of Nebraska Men’s Baseball and their innate ability to never stop swinging.
They’re Rocky in round 13.
They’re the slasher in the last 10 minutes of the ’80s movie, after they’ve gotten two bullets to the chest, but not the head and you just keep waiting to see their fingers twitch.
They’re the undead zombies, roaming around Zack Snyder’s latest bajillion dollar exercise in slow-motion cinematography.
That’s what we love, here. That’s what I love.
It’s not about the baseball for me; the casual, obnoxiously anti-baseball bro that’s only begrudgingly splitting the screen with the NBA Playoffs even when his favorite team from his favorite place is doing something utterly fucking remarkable.
But it is about the way they play.
The way they swing harder when they feel their shoulder blades pressed firmly against the brick wall behind them. The way they are always one moment away from defibrillating themselves and their state behind them with a bold, brassy play.
The way 38-year-old father of two, (and guy who absolutely already has a 401(k) and a mortgage) Mojo Hagge, somehow has managed to troll the living h-e-double-hockey-sticks out of the Arkansas fans simply by breathing their sweet southern air.
So, maybe you’re like me. Maybe you’re not a baseball person.
But turn on the game tonight. You’ll like what you see. Especially if you’re from here.
