Reason No. 38,374,749 that baseball is awesome
Posted: May 5th, 2008 | Filed under: Baseball | 17 Comments »
OK, so I’m in that fun stage of Big Red Machine book research where I plainly am losing contact with the real world. It isn’t that I don’t know what’s going on in the world … it’s flat that I don’t care. People will come up to me and say normal things like “Hey man,” or “You can’t park there” or “Dude you’ve got this giant hornet on your left ear,” and I will smile and nod mindlessly but I will be thinking, “Seriously, now, WHAT THE HELL DOES THAT HAVE TO DO WITH MERV RETTENMUND?”*
*This sort of inane sportswriter tunnel-vision is best appreciated at the Olympics. There really is nothing quite like covering an Olympics. Two days before they begin, if the eight best 100-meter butterfliers in the world were competing in your BATHTUB, as a sportswriter you would be be like, “Hey, listen, I’m going downstairs to watch the third round of the Chrysler Classic, but can you guys clean up in there after you finish? You guys always leave such a huge mess. Water everywhere.”
But then the Olympics begin, and without any warning the 100-meter butterfly is your whole life. I’m serious. Your whole life. You know all about all the swimmers. You know that this guy is a side breather like Melvin Stewart (my old pal) and this guy started swimming obsessively when he was 7 because his father got sick, and this guy is dedicating his swimming victories to the rebel forces in whatever country he happens to be from, and this guy learned to swim fast by practicing in crocodile-infested waters. You know the history. You know who has won the 100 meter butterfly each of the last 12 Olympics, and you know who has a chance to break the World Record, and you know if the American is supposed to win or not. But, no, it’s more than that because, see, it isn’t just like you can go and cover the 100-meter butterfly, no, no, no, you need a special TICKET to go to the event, something beyond the regular Olympic credential you have, because every sportswriter from every country in the world wants to cover this 100-meter butterfly, and the Olympic Committees are only giving out a limited number of these tickets — what I’m saying is that these tickets to see the 100-meter butterfly, tickets that a few days before would not be worth the cardboard, are now GOLD, man, they now have a sportswriter street value of roughly 3.9 billion dollars, you are willing to bribe Olympics officials to get these tickets, you are willing to call in political favors to get these tickets, you are willing to hire people to open up Wonka Bars to get these tickets, because you HAVE to cover the 100-meter butterly, I mean, you came across giant seas, to get here and you’re staying in a dorm room that is closing in around you like the garbage compactor in “Star Wars,” and your shower sprays scalding water in all directions, and you’re sleeping three hours a night on a bed roughly the size of a ham sandwich with the crusts cut off, and you’re never precisely sure what time it is at home, and you’re never precisely sure what you’re eating, and you’re constantly surrounded and bumped by swarms of desperate sportswriters who haven’t bathed in weeks because their showers also spew scalding water — and you know that the reason you’re doing all this is because THIS 100 METER BUTTERFLY IS THE MOST IMPORTANT FREAKING SPORTING EVENT THAT HAS EVER TAKEN PLACE IN THE WHOLE LONG HISTORY OF THIS PLANET.
Anyway, it’s easy to lose perspective.
So yeah, I’m totally zoned into the 1975 Cincinnati Reds, completely, utterly, and because of this everything out there is a blur. I guess this week the Rev. Jeremiah Wright came out and said that the AIDS virus was actually invented by Roger Clemens. Whatever. I guess Royals pitcher John Bale broke his non-pitching hand* by punching a door back at his hotel room. Well, that’s the story they’re telling. Personally, I think that replacement starter Luke Hochevar is going to help the Royals escape the camp through the sewers of Paris, and it was actually Michael Caine who broke Bale’s hand. Anyway. I guess Ozzie Guillen went off again. I guess America still hasn’t chosen Obama or Clinton.
*I did not set up this joke well. It was his left-hand that he broke. But both hands are non-pitching these days.
Don’t care. I’m figuring Will McEnaney stats at the moment.
So, this was my mindset as I went to the Reds-Cubs game Monday night. I was not there to see this game, I was there to see people about baseball played 33 years ago. It had been a long day, filled with lots of research drudgery, and I figured I’d strick around for a couple of innings, get a little baseball fix and then head back to the world of Gullett, Geronimo and Concepcion.
The game was OK. The Cubs kicked the ball around a bit. The Reds started Johnny Cueto, and this kid’s got some electric arm action, no? You know, some people throw hard, and some people look like they’re throwing hard, and a few (Bob Gibson comes to mind first, but other lesser lights like Jose Valverde too) are both — they LOOK like they’re throwing and they really ARE throwing hard. That was Cueto. He struck out seven in the first four innings and also gave up a cartoonishly hard-hit homer to Geovany Soto (although one inning later Adam Dunn would hit his homer even harder and even longer). It was entertaining enough, though after four and a half innings I needed to get back into Big Red unreality.
So, I started packing up and then I heard them announce Ken Griffey Jr. I will always take a moment to watch Junior swing the bat. It’s still a beautiful thing. Plus, he’s connected to my book. Plus he’s just three homers away from 600. I don’t ever want to get jaded enough where 600 homers becomes just another number. I sat back down.
So, Cubs starter Ryan Dempster threw a change-up for a strike — Junior seemed to be looking fastball. That’s how I am on this game. Give me fastballs up or I’m spitting on them.
The next pitch was a fastball up, I believe, and Griffey got it. Straight-away center field. Home run No. 598. He began that familiar Griffey slow trot around the bases, and the crowd was standing and cheering, and it was a sweet moment. One thing though … centerfielder Felix Pie did not seem to be giving up on the ball. As a baseball observer over time, you really do begin to sense the rhythm of an outfielder who knows he has a shot to make the catch. Pie was going back to the wall like he knew … and the ball was hit high enough that he was going to be able to set himself up at the wall and leap.
And so, for a beautiful instant … there was no way to know. Homer? Out? History? Web Gem? Reds fans? Cubs fans (and there appeared to be about an equal number in the stands). This to me is the coolest part of sports — that moment when the jump shot’s in the air, when the long pass is spiraling*, when the putt is twisting toward the hole. Baseball has it better than any of them.
*This is why NFL Films has come up with the kind of slow motion that suspends Terry Bradshaw and Roger Staubach bombs in the air for roughly 3 days.
Pie went back to the wall … and it’s worth saying here that TRUE home run theft is a rare thing. You will often see outfielder go back to the wall, leap, make great catches — but it’s clear from the replay that they only saved a double. The ball was not going to go over the fence. In fact, Griffey made a nice catch earlier in the game like that, and I suspect some people said, “He saved a home run.” But he really didn’t. The ball wasn’t going out.
This ball, however, WAS Going out. Pie stood at the wall, he leaped … he caught it. This wasn’t an especially graceful catch. This wasn’t an especially beautiful catch. But it was a bonafide stolen home run.
Then all the cheers turned to groans, all the groans turned into cheers, people standing sat, people sitting stood up, the stolen homer is the greatest reversal in sports. And suddenly I’m at this rather blah game in a half-empty stadium, and my mind is 99.44% pure mush … but I had a moment. I never argue with people who say baseball is boring because, well, baseball is boring, But then, suddenly, it isn’t. And that’s why it’s so great.
Loading ...
This was a great game – I was there tonight while in town on business and snagged a great seat about 10 rows back of home plate off to the left. Pie’s catch was awesome and the 9th inning of the game was fantastic!
Wow…just, wow.
Ab
So
Lutely
btw, Dunn’s HR made me gasp when I saw it on Baseball Tonight. He connected on that ball like Gustavel Dudamel does with an orchestra.
Sorry for the hyperbole.
The 100 meter butterfly riff should immediately go to some sportswriting blog HOF somewhere… But I’ll pick a small bone with the “boring” tag at the very end. Sure, I’ve been bored at and by some ball games (and bothered by some inebriated fans) but I always, always get a sense of peace and simmering expectation, anticipating the moments such you describe. I think the secret is moderation. Too much of anything gets stale.
I think the home-run-robbing catch is the most aesthetically pleasing play in the game (at least when it’s in the Giants’ favor). It’s why I enjoyed watching the old Bonds more, even though his later contributions at the plate were more valuable for the team.
Joe, how many meals per day are you eating at Skyline? 3 1/2?
I just delivered an impromptu reading of the 100 meter butterfly tangent to my boyfriend. He laughed all the way, and, at the end, asked who wrote it, even though he isn’t much of a reader and not at all a student of the great sportswriters of this generation.
“Joe Posnanski.”
“Oh! The guy whose book you gave to your aunt at Christmas! He’s funny.”
So there you go. You made an impression on a guy who really, truly, definitely does not read sports writing. Admittedly, the impression is a touch tangential, but I think that’s more or less appropriate here.
For most of my childhood I preferred plan M&Ms; but I guess somewhere in my twenties I switched to preferring peanuts. That’s an awesome poll question; I had to think about it for a minute.
“As a baseball observer over time, you really do begin to sense the rhythm of an outfielder who knows he has a shot to make the catch.”
I think that’s also true in other baseball situations. After watching enough baseball, you should be able to predict some events in advance, through no gift other than repeated observation. I was watching a close game between the Cubs and Reds once, and from the way Rick Sutcliffe was pitching I had a feeling he was going to do something stupid against Eric Davis. “Watch this,” I told my roommate. “Sutcliffe is going to try that low fastball again and Davis is going to hit it out.” Next pitch, boom, I wind up looking like a genius, but I don’t think there was much of a trick to it. I’d just seen Eric Davis hammer enough low fastballs during his career, and I’d Sutcliffe throw enough of them in that game, to put two and two together. It’s one of the things I like about baseball; It occasionally gives me the opportunity to look smarter than I really am.
http://dcgrays.blogspot.com/2005/09/oh-how-i-love-baseball.html
I love those moments, so much that I sometimes forget where to put the punctuation.
At the risk of missing the joke (and at the risk that the depth of your tunnel vision is amusing hyperbole), it was Bale’s pitching hand that he broke, not his non-pitching hand.
I sat for 8 innings of scoreless baseball last night watching Ervin Santana and Brett Tomko (yes, the Royals’ Brett Tomko) pitch one beautiful game. K’s looking, swinging, great (at least really good) defensive plays by Hunter, Pena, Grudz and Gload and probably 1 or 2 more by the Angels. All in all a great game.
The best part of the whole evening is when my 5 year old looks at me and says, ” I hope it goes into extra innings”
The sad part is, although it was a quick game, 3 and 5 year olds have to go to bed before 10:00 on weeknights. And sometimes middle relievers decide games.
My wife and I were in San Diego recently, and I thought since we were staying right next to Petco stadium, I would buy some tickets so we could see our first ever baseball game. I play fantasy baseball like there’s no tomorrow, but I’ve never gotten into watching it.
At the end of the game, a 5-1 win for the Diamondbacks, my wife looked at me and said: “My god, if these people ever went to a hockey game, they’d have heart attacks.”
The stolen home run might be an amazing sight to behold, as is, I’m sure, a running full-extension double-play, or a contetious pick-off, or a diving outfield catch. Thing is, the game we saw had none of it. There was one rally in the 4th where Arizona scored 4 runs, and nothing much happened the rest of the game.
And yes, I understand the game, all the nuances and the vagaries. Baseball is a game with long periods of inaction which make any of the periods of action seem more interesting that they really are. At least it’s cheap.
“I guess Royals pitcher John Bale broke his non-pitching hand* by punching a door back at his hotel room. Well, that’s the story they’re telling. Personally, I think that replacement starter Luke Hochevar is going to help the Royals escape the camp through the sewers of Paris, and it was actually Michael Caine who broke Bale’s hand.”
Victory. Best. Soccer Movie. Ever…
(Not that the list is long, mind you)…
Padres games, unfortunately, are just about as boring as they come. If Peavy’s pitching, and you’re sitting behind home plate, it’s cool, but otherwise….whew. (I love the Padres, their players, fans, staff, and Petco Park itself – I don’t know whose fault it is that their games are mind-numbing, but it is the case).
“And sometimes middle relievers decide games.”
Or sometimes managers who have no clue about the percentages do. Hillman should have walked Kotchman and let Ramirez pitch to Hunter for the DP; Kotchman hits over 40 points better against lefties than righties over his career, and has been tuning up lefties to a better-than-.525 clip so far this season. These are the sort of things one has to know as a manager; Hillman obviously doesn’t.
Joe makes covering an olympic swimming event alot like Hunter S. Thompson covering a moto-cross spectacle.
If Ken Griffey Jr finishes his career at 761 career homeruns, I’m going to find Felix Pie…