Pynchon and baseball

[robinlandseadel at comcast.net]

My Father on his deathbed---the last "real' conversation we had [he just found 
out about that "spot" on his lung, after thirteen angioplasties spread over a 
decade] says to me "There's no way the Angels can lose tonight!", just full of 
himself. I mean, this is a man who would memorize baseball stats rabbinically: 
as if it were his own personal Holy Cabbalah, his greatest dream would be to a 
Professional Baseball Umpire or Russ Hodges or Vin Scully. I mean, about the 
only Lit. connection I could make with him---illumination coming from both sides 
this time--is to quote from the start of DeLillo's "Underworld" which still 
strikes me as one of the most Pynchonian of non-Pynchon novels and 
whatdayaknow---baseball is to DeLillo as Philatily is to Pynchon. I'd start up 
with : "Bob Thompson hits into the lower deck of the left-field stands" and Dad 
just takes off from there as if it was his litany of the saints or at least the 
Dodgers. Dad was listening to his radio at the time, burned into his memory 
but good and I wasn't even born yet, seems like Bird had to go first, so "they" 
could play some weird trick on my warped little mind---just as I pop out of the 
sack, christened "Robin" (a mystery girl to many looking for mystery) and 
there's "Bird Lives!" on the walls and sidewalks---"

          "The dead have come to take the living. 
          The dead in winding-sheets, the regimented 
          dead on horseback, the skeleton that plays 
          a hurdy-gurdy.

          Edgar stands in the aisle fitting together the two 
          facing pages of the reproduction. People are 
          climbing over seats, calling hoarsely toward the 
          field. He stands with the pages in his face. He 
          hadn't realized he was seeing only half the 
          painting until the left-hand page drifted down 
          and he got a glimpse of rust brown terrain and 
          a pair of skeletal men pulling on bell ropes. The 
          page brushed against a woman's arm and spun 
          into Edgar's godfearing breast.

          Thompson is out in center field now dodging fans 
          who come in rushes and jumps. They jump against 
          his body, they want to take him to the ground, show 
          him snapshots of their families.

          Edgar reads the copy block on the matching page.
          This is a sixteenth-century work done by a Flemish 
          master, Pieter Bruegel, and it is called 
          The Triumph of Death. . . . 

          Don DeLillo, Underworld, 49/50


So of course, the "Angel" word would signify to me Enochian calls, or Luciferian 
dreams, or perhaps Dad's TV staying on Joyce Meyers for hours and hours and I 
keep museing down this darkening hole as he pipes up: "They're not playing 
tonight, so there's no way the Angels can lose." and I can't help but agree, and 
it looks like they got themselves another half-way decent umpire in the bargain