November 9 – The Day After

Ed. Note: While this piece was inspired by the events of November 8, 2016, the words and phrases in italics below were taken from Selected Poems: 1965-1975 by Margaret Atwood.

I refuse to look in the mirror, as I know what will stare back is sorrow and sadness.  I cannot allow my kids to see that look; that look that tells them, immediately, instinctively, indisputably, that something is wrong.

It is dangerous to read newspapers.  They are filled with so much negative information, so many opinion pieces about what may come, what may be.  While in some areas, the air is filled with an ether of cheers, not in my house, not in my head.

How did this happen?  Why did it happen?  What will happen next?

This is not order, but the absence of order.  We live in a country where this should not, cannot happen.  This is for banana republics and third world countries where the populace is fooled by con men and flim flam artists.  But not here, not in the grand ol’ U.S. of A.

I wander around my house in the quiet of night.  Whose dream is this?  It must be mine, as it is my footsteps that creak on the hardwood as I descend the stairs, slowly making my way from room to room, checking on my kids, ensuring that no harm befalls them tonight – at least.

Surreal is a word that is bandied about, often improperly.  But tonight it seems only fitting.  This cannot be real.  It is a fever dream.  It is surreal.

I want to climb back into bed and wake up in four years; I want to climb out the window and shout at the moon; I want to climb out of my skin so I don’t have to carry this feeling.  Which is what, exactly? Shock? Horror? Disappointment?  Anger? Frustration? Annoyance?  Fear?  Maybe all of the above.

I am able to get a few hours of restless sleep.  I awake in world I hardly know – a world I don’t want to know.  And yet, here I am.  I cannot help but think that we are all relics of what we have destroyed, and we must now come to terms with a new reality.

After a few more moments of despair, a switch flips.  The sadness has not gone away, not at all.  But my reaction to it is altered.  I begin to think, “was the sky ever that blue?”  Had I got what I wanted, would it have been that different?  Would my life be better in any true, measurable way?

The answers to those questions are now rendered moot, irrelevant to the task ahead.  We must resist.  We must refuse to disappear.  Now, more than ever, we must make ourselves known, and push back against the powers that want to be, but cannot be, without willing acquiescence.  We must circle, confront our opponent.  Let them know we will not be quieted, we will not be defeated.

Some outcomes are immutable, and we should not waste time trying to control matters over which we now have no control.  But we do have the ability to control our reaction.  If we have any agency in this world, it is in our response.  Do we cower and retreat?  Do we stand and deliver?  The measure of a man is how he faces adversity; how he reacts when all is falling apart around him.

And then it happened.  The most aggrieved person – more so than the nearly 60 million others, stood at a lectern and spoke from the heart – a heart that could have been nothing less than broken; a heart that must have been shattered like shards of a glass ceiling; a heart that still beat with selflessness and inspiration for the well-being of others.

She cajoled us to get off the mat and face our demons – both inner and public.  No one ever survives by retreating or giving quarter to the powers that shouldn’t be.  The only way to survive in moments like these is to move forward, remembering the past and the pain, using that as fuel for the future.

We owe this to ourselves, to the greater good, and we owe it to our children.  The Chinese proverb implores us to go straight for the heart of danger, for there you will find safety.  That is our true place.  As people, as citizens, as sentient beings who want, nay, demand, more from ourselves and our society, we must confront our would-be oppressors and let them know that we will not be oppressed; that we will not back down; that we will not fade into darkness or the abyss.

The battle may be long, and it may be difficult, and at times, it may seem hopeless.  But that is the true test.  Do we have the gumption to fight for what we believe?  If we don’t, maybe we don’t truly value those beliefs?

The somber day ends and I am reunited with my kids.  They have smiles on their faces and joy in their hearts.  It was their own ignorance I entered, and I could not be more grateful.  They are too young and too innocent to be required to know the task at hand.  One day they will, and one day they will appreciate what it entailed, and one day they will look back with respect and gratitude that a group of right-minded people were willing to put aside whatever differences they might have for the betterment of all.

History, our history, is not written on a single day, nor even a single year.  History is written over prolonged periods when people – against long odds – create change that is lasting (even if only temporarily so).

None of what I feel is mine, it belongs to 60 million people and the countless millions more who voted against their conscience on a hope and a prayer; it belongs to our collective future; it belongs to our children.

So, with sorrow nearly as great as it has ever been, I resolve to move forward and battle back.  I will not go quietly into that good night.  Too much is at stake; too many people will be affected by our choices, and our responses; too much of our tomorrow is riding on decisions made by those of us feeling pain today.

G.O.A.T. (Game 7 Edition)

Wow!  Just, wow!  How else to describe what we witnessed Wednesday night in Cleveland?

That game had so much, nearly all of which has been written about – wonderfully, poignantly, emotionally, by Buster Olney, Ken Rosenthal, Bob Nightengale, Ben Lindbergh,  Jonah Keri, Rick Telander, Michael Bauman, Jayson Stark, Peter Gammons, and too many more to count.  Hell, 96-year old Roger Angell cracked out the old Selectric to write a short article about the game.

As always, I try to find the nooks and crannies that aren’t being covered by the MSM.  For instance, everyone is discussing Joe Maddon’s use of Aroldis Chapman with a 7-2 lead in the 7^th inning of Game 6, and what effect that had on him in Game 7.

Everyone is writing about Maddon’s decision to pull Kyle Hendricks with two outs in the 5^th inning of Game 7 to bring in Jon Lester for a “dirty” inning.

Everyone is talking about Maddon’s safety squeeze on a 3-2 pitch with a guy at the plate who had already hit a homerun.

Everyone is praising Jason Heyward, fighting through his struggles at the plate to continue to be the best right fielder in baseball, and the consummate leader by calling an impromptu team meeting under the stadium during the rain delay.

But is anyone talking about Terry Francona’s decision to pull a Little League move by bringing in a new right fielder and shift his right fielder to left, in the middle of an inning?  When was the last time you saw that (outside of a double-switch)?  That decision, defense over offense, would prove costly in the bottom of the 10^th.  Haven’t heard much about that.

Winning cures all ills, but can we talk a minute about the disaster that was Javy Baez for the first three innings?  I truly love how he takes a knee to insure he fields ground balls.  But, come on, throwing from said knee?  Sidearm?  How about trying to turn two without the ball.  Memo to Baez, SSK provides you with quality leather – try using it rather than attempting a bare hand catch and throw in one motion.  It looks cool when it works, but when it doesn’t, we get a two-minute replay delay wherein 50 million people repeatedly get to see you look like a hot dog with no mustard.

Is anyone wondering what happened to John Lackey?  With all of the talk about Jon Lester coming out of the bullpen for his first relief appearance in nine years, where was Lackey?  He had three days’ rest (Lester had only two), threw 84 pitches in his last outing (Lester threw 90), and came out of the pen in Game 4 of the 2013 World Series, and Game 2 of 2002 World Series.  He had done this before.

No one is mentioning how silly it is to just give a runner second base.  Brandon Guyer worked a two-out walk in the bottom of the 10^th, bringing the tying run to the plate in the person of Rajai Davis.  Anthony Rizzo played behind Guyer, allowing him to take second without a throw.  Yes, I know his run “didn’t matter” as the Indians were down two.  But…but, three things happened with that seemingly inconsequential defensive indifference: (1) It denied the left-handed throwing Mike Montgomery an opportunity to pick off Guyer; or, at a minimum, keep him close; (2) It denied the slick Cubs infield the ability to go the “short way” on any ball hit into a hole; and (3) It allowed Guyer to make it a one-run game when Davis dropped a single into center field.  How much better would Cubs’ fans have felt being up 8-6, with runners on first and second and Michael Martinez coming to the plate?

Another thing that got overlooked was Dexter Fowler’s poise in not attempting to throw out Guyer at the plate.  Had he done so, which seemed like a possibility based on the trajectory and speed of the hit, Davis would have been standing on second base instead of first; with the tying run now in scoring position.  A lesson for our kids watching at home, note how Fowler understood the circumstances and made the heady play, not the heroic one.  (Said differently, “what do I do if the ball is hit to me?”)

And while we are on the topic of Fowler, it was he who started the game by “cutting the Russian”.  He showed the entire Cubs organization that Corey Kluber was mortal and could be scored upon.  Putting aside all of the reasons that was important, it is incredible to think that Fowler shouldn’t even have been there – he was supposed to be the starting right fielder for the Orioles.  How did the Fox crew not mention this?  Check out what I wrote about this deal back in February.  It looks like Fowler made the right call.

Just a few more . . . I promise.

Everyone is talking about Rajai Davis’ 8^th inning homerun.  That hit had the third highest WPA in the history of the game.  Think about that.  But few are talking about the actual at bat.  Davis went down 1-2, took a ball (99.8 MPH), and then fouled off two 2-strike pitches (98.1, 99.6) before depositing his liner into the lens of the left field camera.

The only thing better than Game 7 dramatics are Game 7 dramatics with two strikes.

And not nearly enough is being made of Albert Almora, Jr. tagging up and going from first to second on Bryant’s flyball in the 10th.   Sitting on the bench for nearly four hours, he had the presence of mind to read the ball, the fielder, the moment, and take an extra 90 feet. That set up the intentional walk of Rizzo, which set up Zobrist’s tie-breaking double. If Almora stays put, who knows what kind of at-bat this guy would have given the Cubs.

  

What I haven’t heard a single person mention is that Kris Bryant slipped on the wet grass as he made the final throw.  I saw it.  I am sure legions of Cubs fans saw it.  I am quite certain that generations of Chicagoans registered it and assumed that the ball was being airmailed over Rizzo’s head, setting up the tying and winning runs in scoring position with Tyler Naquin (looking for redemption) coming to the plate.

Maybe the dramatics of the moment overwhelmed that detail.  Maybe Bryant’s ear-to-ear smile 
as he fielded the ball rendered his ice skates meaningless.  But, for me, let’s just say my heart skipped a beat.

 

And last, and maybe – in light of outcomes – least, how soon we forget that Jason Kipnis’ foul ball with one out in the bottom of the 9^th certainly looked like Aaron Boone, Joe Carter, and Bill Mazeroski all rolled up into one.  Kipnis, the Chicago kid, eventually struck out, so the at bat became a footnote in the “I cannot believe Chapman came back out for the ninth and got a 1-2-3 inning” story.

But, for a nanosecond or two, it seemed like Joe Buck was about to parrot his father with an “I don’t believe what I just saw” call to end a 68-year drought.  Alas, it was not meant to be, and only baseball nerds like me even made note of an ultimately harmless foul ball down the right field line.

So there you go.  I have tens more, but we can save them for coaching clinics and backyard BBQs down the road.

The greatest Game 7 of all time.  The only downside: it is 150 days until we hear . . .

PLAY BALL!!

THERE COULD BE NO OTHER WAY

On June 19th of this year, on the morning of Game 7 of the NBA Finals, I wrote this. In the article – if you haven’t read it – I predicted the Cavaliers would beat the Warriors in Game 7 of the NBA finals to win the NBA Championship. I compared the 2016 Cavs with the 2004 Red Sox, and explained that in order to “Exorcise Demons”, they had to take the toughest road. In order to quench a multi-generational drought, a team needs to overcome not just its opponent, but the longest of odds.

The ’04 Red Sox had to go down 0-3 to the hated Yankees to storm back, win four in a row to win the pennant, and then sweep the Cardinals to bring home their first World Series Championship in 86 years. The ’16 Cavaliers had to go down 1-3 to the record-setting, ridiculous shooting, reigning world champs, just to win three in a row to bring the first title (of any kind) to Cleveland in 52 years.

I hope, by now, you see where I am going. The Chicago Cubs entered this season the prohibitive favorites to win the World Series (Vegas had them at 5/1). They then ran away with their division, won 103 games, and made the prognosticators look like geniuses. They dispatched the Giants in four games, and the Dodgers in six, setting up our current World Series showdown.

The Cubs did face some adversity this season: They lost one of their best hitters (never mind he didn’t have a defensive position) in their third game; they rallied to overcome a one game deficit back on April 8th; and they lost a whole five in a row in July, reducing their NL Central lead to 6.5 games. You might say that 2016 was pretty much smooth sailing for Lovables…until October.

So when the Giants won Game 3 of the NLDS in 13 innings, and had Madison Bumgarner lined up for Game 5, the folks back on Clark and Addison were starting to get the stench of Billy goat.

When the Dodgers won Games 2 and 3 of the NLCS, and had Clayton Kershaw lined up for Game 6, the diehards sitting on stools at Harry Caray’s and The Cubby Bear were gripping their Old Styles a little tighter.

And when the Indians won Games 3 and 4 of the World Series (at Wrigley Field, no less), to put the Cubbies in a backs-against-the-wall, 1-3 hole, you could feel the tension through the television, two times zones away. Fans who had been primed to sing “Go Cubs Go” were resigned to two consecutive slow walks down the concourse, out the gates, through Wrigleyville, and up to the “L” for long, late, and painful rides home.

This is how it had to happen.

A sweep? Win in it five in front of 41,000 delirious Cubs fans? Take it in six to the dismay of the denizens of Believeland? No. That would have been too easy, too trite, too according to plan.

Like Andy Dufresne, the Cubs will have to crawl through 500 yards of shit – through Kluber, Bauer, Tomlin, Kluber (again), Shaw, and Miller – to come out clean on the other side. I tell my kids, nothing worth having comes easy. The first championship in 108 years is  worth having. The Cubs had to have obstacles, they had to have roadblocks, and impediments, and nearly the longest odds possible, to get to the promised land.  There could be no other way.

Theo Epstein designed it this way. Joe Maddon managed it this way. The players had no choice but to play it this way. Because the Baseball Gods fated it this way.

So I’m sorry, Cleveland, you got one title this year. Two would have been a bridge over the Cuyahoga too far. It is the Cubbies’ time.

Or, Kluber throws another gem; joins the likes of Jack Morris and Curt Schilling; and becomes the World Series MVP with his third win. Maybe there is a Party at Napoli’s and he launches one into the Ohio night. Maybe the Northbrook Kid actually hits for the cycle (he came damn close in Game 6) to lead the Tribe. Maybe Francisco Lindor put the icing on his coming out party cake, gets three more hits, and smiles the Indians to the title.

What the hell do I know? I do know that we get baseball for another day.  Two teams with a combined 176 seasons of futility have nine innings to exorcise their demons.

Is there anything better in sports than a Game 7?  Twenty hours until we hear…

PLAY BALL!!

SWEET SOUNDS

A baby’s coo into her mother’s ear. Children’s laughter. Waves crashing on a pristine beach. Whitney Houston owning the National Anthem. The question is, what is the sweetest sound in the world?

I cannot say, with any certainty, the “sweetest”, but what I heard bellowing from a 102-year old ballpark on Saturday night comes pretty damn close.  

Many teams have victory songs – some are horrendous, and actually invite you to root against the home team for fear of being subjected to such noise. And some teams have fantastic anthems that stick with you for days.

For instance, I defy anyone not to hum “I love L.A.” as they climb into their car a few minutes after a Dodger victory. When the P.A. blasts Randy Newman upon the third out in the ninth – or, better yet, after a walk-off – there are few more iconic themes.

As a diehard Red Sox fan, I am partial to “Dirty Water”, which rings throughout Fenway Park after every BoSox win. But as great as “Dirty Water” is, it finds itself in direct competition with “Sweet Caroline”, which plays in the eighth inning of every game. The Fenway Faithful really get into that one, and the harmony of “so good, so good, so good” gives you chills the first time you experience it. Truly. The hairs on the back of my neck are at attention as a write this.

But as you go around the league, the Yankees can keep their Sinatra, and the Giants can hang onto their Tony Bennett. The Royals can forget about the Beatles’ “Kansas City”; and the ChiSox fall short with the Blues Brothers’ “Sweet Home Chicago”.  

For my money, for my ears, for my fandom, I am not sure anything can top what you get on the North Side when the Cubbies fly the “W”.

I have been to Wrigley a handful of times, and, remarkably, have always seen the Cubs win (which, before this season, was far from a fait accompli). But, because I am not a denizen of Wrigleyville, and because it is often years between my visits, I always forget the sweet sounds that are about to hit me. And then I am reminded.

America was reminded – or introduced – on Saturday night. When the Cubs recorded the final out of Game 6 of the NLCS, beating Kershaw, the Dodgers, and the entirety of the National League to win their first pennant in 71 years, Wrigley exploded. But it did not explode into riots or idiots rushing the field. No, it exploded into beautiful harmony.

Russell to Baez to Rizzo, and the celebration commenced on the mound. Less than thirty seconds later, it started. Listening to more than 42,000 fans sing “Go Cubs Go” in equal parts shock, adulation, and utter excitement, many with tears streaming down their faces, was one of the most beautiful things I have ever heard. Yes, that makes me a baseball nerd; and yes, it makes me a sap; and it probably says a dozen other things about me that I wouldn’t want the public to know. But man, that was something.

When the Red Sox won the World Series in 2004 and ended their 86-year drought, they revised the documentary “The Curse of the Bambino” to include footage of the win, the celebration, and the parade. But they also included shots of cemeteries all over Boston where fans left championship gear for their dearly departed; fans who never to got to experience the Red Sox as World Series champs. After too many viewings to count, the documentary still gets me misty.

I thought of those people on Saturday night. The ones who lived through Ernie Banks and Billy Williams; Bull Durham and Ryne Sandberg; Greg Maddux and Mark Grace; Kerry Wood and Mark Prior; Billy Goats and Bartman. I thought of my former father-in-law, who grew up on the North Side. A baseball man whose father used to be a concessionaire at Wrigley Field and befriended a left-handed first baseman some 75 years before his own granddaughter would marry one. I thought about “Jolly Cholly” Charlie Grimm’s mitt that sits encased in glass in my office, and the hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Chicagoans who celebrated – some posthumously – on Saturday night. Those 42,000 fans sang for them, too.

Feeling those fans exhale a few pitches after Carlos Ruiz hit a foul ball nearly into the “Bartman Seat” (9th inning vs. 8th; 5-0 lead vs. 3-0, but still). And then to see those fans dance like no one was watching, and hear them sing like no one was listening. And yet, all across the land, everyone was watching, and everyone was listening.

“Go, Cubs, go! Hey, Chicago, what do you say? The Cubs are gonna win today”.

That went on for what seemed like hours. When droughts end, and curses are reversed, when there is once again joy in Wrigleyville, hearing those fans sing the best victory song in the sport was, simply put, the sweetest of sounds. (Scroll down and check out the dftbalicia11 Instagram post for a sense of what it was like in Chicago Saturday night.)

Postscript: I will leave you with one fun fact that is not getting nearly enough run: There have only been two instances in which a team faced the minimum number of batters in a post-season game. The first was Don Larsen’s Perfect Game in the 1956 World Series. The second was Game 6 of the 2016 NLCS. A pick-off and two double-plays erased the Dodgers’ lone three base runners. Bottom line, no matter what he threw or how much command he had, Kershaw wasn’t beating the Cubs Saturday night.

Onto the World Series. 108 vs. 68.

PLAY BALL!!

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THE CALL THAT COULD HAVE BEEN

*Editors Note: The words you will read below are what you might have heard when we came back from commercial Thursday night, starting as  Clayton Kershaw finished up his warm-up pitches.

As best you can, read this in Vin Scully’s voice, in Vin Scully’s cadence.

“When Kershaw takes the hill, you get the sense he is not pitching against Daniel Murphy, he is not pitching against the Nationals, nor is he pitching against the Phillies, the Cardinals, the Mets, the millions of people who have written and spoken about Clayton’s troubles in the post-season.

No, you must imagine that Clayton is pitching against those doubts that bubble up in the head of every athlete – at one time or another – those doubts that ask, “Am I really that good?”

Anyway, enough about that.

Daniel Murphy digs in and Kershaw comes set at the belt.

Fastball, up and in.

Whoa! So much for fatigue.

That fastball had a little extra something on it. In fact, I don’t think Kershaw hit 95 even once on Tuesday afternoon but, sure enough, fatigue is no match for adrenaline.

Kershaw stares in at Ruiz, shakes his head, once, now twice. Kershaw comes set at the belt, and the one and oh pitch is fastball in on the hands; short pop on the infield, Culberson takes a few steps back and just like that, Daniel Murphy is retired.

You have to wonder if Dave Roberts will go out and get Kershaw, having got the one man he was brought in to get.

Well, I guess we have our answer.

Roberts is staying put, and you get the feeling that it would have taken Roberts, Honeycutt, and a team of coaches to pry the ball out of Kershaw’s hand at this point.

So the chess game continues.

Well, fresh out of options, Dusty Baker has gone to the last man standing.

Wilmer Difo, the rookie shortstop is Baker’s and the Nationals’ last hope.

Wilmer, from Santiago de los Caballeros in the Dominican Republic, made his major league debut on May 19th, and here he finds himself square in the eye of the hurricane.

Difo, a switch hitter, digs in from the right side against the left-handed Kershaw.

Fastball, way inside. Difo had to do a little dance to avoid that 93 MPH heater. Difo must be wondering how he got himself into this situation, and wondering if he can pull a Houdini act and get himself out of it.

Kershaw is ready, Harper leads from second and Werth off of first. Gonzalez is playing behind Werth, and Seager is bird-dogging Harper, trying to keep him close.

The 1-0 delivery is a fastball fouled away. And Kershaw has squared his account.

When you look out in the infield, Seager is doing his best to keep Harper from getting too big of a lead, hoping to keep him from scoring on a single.

Of course, with two outs, the runners will be off on contact. Harper runs pretty well, and knowing the way Harper plays the game, there will be no holding him at third if the opportunity to score arises.

Here comes the 1-1 pitch, Difo swings through a 91 MPH slider. I tell you, that just isn’t fair.

Difo started the season in AAA, and now, in the biggest moment of the year, in quite possibly the biggest moment of his life, he has to face arguably the best pitcher on the planet.

Kershaw brings his hands high above his head, and slowly brings them down and settles at the belt. He takes a look at the runners, and the runners GO.

Difo dribbles it foul up along third, and the runners have to return from whence they came.

Difo really had a defensive swing on that pitch, and really, who can blame him. He is doing his level best just to stay in the box at this point.

You know, this is the 167th game that each of the Nationals and the Dodgers have played this season; they have split the first two games of this series; and here we are in the bottom of the ninth inning of a one-run game. Folks, it doesn’t get much closer than this.

Kershaw has rubbed up a new ball and is now ready to go.

Difo digs in while Harper and Werth take their leads. The 1-2 delivery is a BREAKING ball in the DIRT, SWUNG ON and MISSED. Ruiz keeps the ball in front of him and guns it to Gonzalez covering first to complete the strike out.

At 12:41 in the morning, East Coast time, the Dodgers have won the division series; and maybe, just as importantly, Clayton Kershaw has slayed his demons.

I tell you folks, just when you think you have seen it all – you get Clayton Kershaw saving a game in which Dodger CLOSER, Kenley Jansen, threw nearly three innings and 51 pitches.

And, not for nothing, but the last time Kershaw, the three-time Cy Young winner recorded a save – it came ALL the way back in 2006, in  rookie ball in the Gulf Coast League. His catcher that day…Kenley Jansen.

Well, that’ll do it from the nation’s capital where the Dodgers have defeated the Washington Nationals 4-3 to advance to the National League Championship Series.

For Charlie Steiner, Rick Monday, and the rest of our crew, this is Vin Scully wishing you a very pleasant good evening.”

GAME 5

There is truly no reason to add to the multiple canons that have been or will be written about last night’s Dodgers-Nationals game. That said, and while it is still quite early, after reading and listening to a ton of commentary, I have yet to hear anything about the following three points, which may mean they are only interesting to me. However, on the off-chance that others will find them notable, allow me to throw my hat into the ring:

I.

Two years on, I guess Mike Jirschele is officially exonerated. Who is that, you ask? Mike Jirschele was the Royals’ third base coach in Game 7 of the 2014 World Series who held Alex Gordon. As you may recall, there was great consternation about whether or not Jirschele should have sent Gordon with a chance to tie the game. All metrics showed he made the right call, but some people were still dubious.

Well, after Bob Henley decided to send Jayson Werth to the plate in the bottom of sixth inning last night, and after Werth got thrown out by anywhere from 15–30 feet (depending on the calculation), any and all dubiosity about Jirschele’s decision should go by the wayside. Now we can know, with pretty good certainty, how the 2014 World Series would have ended had Jirschele waved Gordon around. Pop-outs to third notwithstanding, that would have been a tough way to lose.

II.

A lot of ink was spilled — by this writer as well — about the Dodgers’ pre-deadline move to send A.J. Ellis to Philadelphia in return for Carlos Ruiz. Well, I guess Andrew Friedman and company knew something a bunch of us didn’t. It is impossible, of course to know whether or not Ellis would have come through in the same way, but we do know that Ruiz went 2–4, with three RBI in the series, including the tie-breaking single in the decisive seventh inning last night. Oh, and he blocked the hell out of that filthy “Public Enemy #1” to end the game.

As I wrote back in August, Friedman makes $7 million/year to make difficult decisions. There is a reason he is paid like one of the best executives in the sport — because he is. No, he didn’t have a crystal ball, but he certainly knew the Dodgers needed better production from their back-up catcher, and that they got. (Ironically enough, after the trade, Ellis and Ruiz had virtually identical numbers with their respective new teams (Ellis: .313/.371/.500; Ruiz: .278/.350./.683)). But, if you are a Dodger fan, ask yourself who you would have rather had at bat with the game tied and a runner in scoring position in a deciding game. Ruiz felt — to me — like the safer choice.

I am sure there are a lot of people out there who will claim that Ellis would have been better for Kershaw in Game 1 (where he grinded through five innings) or Game 4 (when he just couldn’t get the third out in the seventh) or even last night as he worked against Daniel Murphy. Maybe. All we know is what happened, and Ruiz got the hit and made the block and the Dodgers won.

III.

In all the ballyhoo about Dave Roberts’ managing (every compliment well-deserved), Dusty Baker’s 0–9 record in win-or-go-home games, Kenley Jansen’s miraculous 51-pitch effort, and Clayton Kershaw’s incredible save, I have yet to hear or read this comparison: This was pretty damn close to a Kirk Gibson moment.

Calm down, let me explain. By all accounts, and on nearly every list, Gibby’s dinger was the greatest moment in Los Angeles sports history. Vin Scully’s call of that moment has been played ad nauseum the last few weeks. But hear me out.

Did we have an injured player? Check. Kershaw was on the 60-day DL. When was the last time a player — let alone a pitcher — was on the 60-day DL and then came back to have a meaningful impact on the playoffs?

Did we witness a gutty prior performance? Check. We often forget about the 1988 NLCS against the Mets, but Gibson fought through that, including a home run off Sid Fernandez in the fifth inning of Game 5 at Shea Stadium. Putting aside the final box score, Kershaw was remarkable in Game 4 of this series. He should have been done after six innings, giving up only two runs. He should have been done after seven innings, giving up only two runs. Umpires, shortstops, and relievers are the only reason he was charged with five. Nonetheless, he was awesome (considerably better than Gibson was prior to the ninth inning of Game 1 of the ’88 World Series).

Did we have a player unlikely to appear? Check. When directly asked about Kershaw pitching to even one batter in Game 5, Dave Roberts replied: “Absolutely not”. Hell, Kershaw didn’t even have his cleats on for the first seven innings of Game 5. When Kershaw told Roberts he was okay to go, Roberts first had to check with the trainer to get permission.

We can all hear Vinny saying: “Look who’s sitting in the dugout”. Now imagine that same voice, that same cadence, saying: “Look who’s heading to the bullpen”. It wasn’t just improbable, it was impossible. Clayton Kershaw, the man with the closet filled to the brim with October demons, the man who missed ten weeks with a herniated disk, the man who had thrown 110 pitches just 48 hours earlier in a stadium clear across the country, would not only come in to the game, but would come in to face the hottest post-season hitter on the planet; a batter who took Kershaw deep not once, but twice, in the playoffs last year; a batter who represented the winning run. No, this just couldn’t happen.

Think back. Had Gibby flailed at a few sliders against the best closer in the game and walked back to the dugout with the Dodgers down 0–1 in the World Series, no one would have said “boo”. He did his best just to get to the plate. What a gamer. Ultimate team player.

But had Kershaw come in and served up a gofer ball to Murphy, it may have been the final nail in Kershaw’s playoff coffin. Could any player ever come back from that much heartbreak, that much back luck, that much failure? When Kershaw asked into the game, and jogged to the mound, as Bill Simmons tweeted: “The legacy of his legacy’s legacy is gonna be at stake”. Simply put, a LOT was riding on that Texan’s broad shoulders. Seven pitches; a weak pop-out and a nasty K, a massive monkey off a weakened back.

When Clayton threw his hands in the air and hugged Carlos Ruiz, the Dodgers had felled the Nationals, those demons were exorcised, and Los Angeles had its second Gibby Moment. The only shame: Vin Scully was at home, watching, just like the rest of us.

Championship Series, here we come.

PLAY BALL!!

BROADCAST BLUES (Playoff Edition)

A few months ago I wrote how I felt that baseball broadcasters (save for Vin Scully) were hurting the game. They were making it considerably less enjoyable for fans to experience the experience while watching on television or listening on radio. I was brought back to that sentiment – in the words of one presidential candidate – “bigly”, yesterday afternoon.

I will begin by saying that I believe Kenny Albert, Harold Reynolds, Tom Verducci, and Jon Morosi are doing a nice job on FS1. But . . . come on.

Allow me to set the stage; and then you tell me if an opportunity was missed. On October 11, 1978, at Dodger Stadium, a stud pitcher named Bob Welch took the mound (in the World Series) with the game on the line against (one of) the most ferocious hitters in baseball, Reginald Martinez Jackson. (For those of you paying attention, you will note that I have dubbed this one of the greatest two-strike situations in the history of baseball). The pitcher and hitter battled to a 3-2 count, and a few pitches were fouled away. For the purposes of this analysis, the outcome of the at bat is irrelevant.

On October 11, 2016, 38 years to the day, at Dodger Stadium, a stud pitcher named Clayton Kershaw took the mound (in the playoffs) with the game on the line against (one of) the most ferocious hitters in the game, Bryce Aron Max Harper. The pitcher and hitter battled to a 3-2 count, and a few pitches were fouled away. For the purposes of this analysis, the outcome of the at bat is irrelevant.

So how many times, do you think, the FS1 broadcast booth made reference to that epic battle 38 years prior, and how history seemed to be repeating itself? That Kershaw-Harper at bat lasted 8 pitches and nearly five minutes. Did they overrun the telecast with nostalgia? Did they pepper the broadcast with flashback highlights? Did they talk with longing of times past? Nope! They did none of it. Not once did they mention the ’78 World Series. They didn’t show a single clip. I was screaming at my television: “38 years, TO THE DAY!” “Welch v. Jackson!” “Same exact damn location!”

Fairytales don’t get written better than that. And yet, the entire broadcast team missed it. In my anger, frustration, annoyance, I quickly tapped out a text to some baseball friends stating, “Somewhere, Vin Scully is so upset about this missed opportunity”.

Kershaw ended up walking Harper (he should have been called out on the 1-2 pitch, but I digress), and the moment passed. But, the point is, the moment was less because the broadcasters didn’t do more. Only true baseball nerds like me know/remember those moments/dates and tie them back in real time. For me, the moment was beautiful. But what about the 99.8% of the other viewers who needed a little primer, a littler reminder, of the moments that have made baseball so great?!?!

You want to increase baseball viewership, have the broadcasters bring the game to life by reminding us how our collective past oftentimes looks exactly like our collective present.

PLAY BALL!!

TORN BETWEEN TWO LOVERS

Anyone who knows me, knows that I have an undying love of the Boston Red Sox.  (Not for nothing, being a Red Sox fan can better be described as a “close to dying” love.)  Anyone who reads me, knows with absolute certainty of my love of the game of baseball.  So, as we embark on the best month in sports – which started with a bang last night (and with apologies to March, as it really only has three quality sports weeks), and begin the best tournament in sports (with apologies to hockey, whose playoffs simply go on too long), I find myself sitting squarely on the horns of a dilemma.

See, even when the Curse of the Bambino was in full swing, when the names Bucky “Fucking” Dent, Bill “Slow Roller” Buckner, and Aaron “Bleeping” Boone” rolled off the tongues of New Englanders, there was a fan base on the North Side of Chicago that was in even more pain – they just didn’t get the same publicity.  As a reminder, the Cubs’ era (eon?) of futility started a full decade before the Red Sox’.

The BoSox came close in ’86 (at 68 years and counting), but the Cubbies came damn close in ’84 (then in the midst of a 76-year drought).  And while Grady Little and the aforementioned Aaron Boone were ruining the Fall of 2003 for New England, Steve Bartman was doing the same for Chicago.  Had things turned out differently (foul balls and pitching changes are the darndest things), had the outcomes been as the pundits predicted, the 2003 World Series would have pitted 95 years of misery vs. 85; and at long last, either the Billy Goat or the Babe would have been absolved.  Alas, we don’t live in such a world.

We all know that the Babe (really, Harry Frazee and Bill Buckner) got off the schneid the next year, and it has been nothing but sunshine and roses on the Charles for the past ten plus years.  Not so much in Chi-town.

Since Bartman, the Cubs have made the playoffs thrice, and have yet to win a game.  Including the Bartman game, that is 12 in a row over four playoff series.  But Theo Epstein, the Exorcist of the Back Bay, has the Cubs as the heavy favorite to win it all this year.  A close second in those odds . . . Theo’s former employer.  Which has me torn between two lovers.

Would there be a better story in baseball?  Theo Epstein gets (part of) the BoSox band back together with Jed Hoyer (GM), Jason McLeod (Sr. VP of Player Development), Jared Porter (Director of Pro Scouting), Jon Lester, David Ross, and John Lackey, adds a whole crop of incredible young talent, the most unconventional manager in the game, and brings a title 108 years in the making back to the banks of Lake Michigan.  As a true baseball fan, how can you not root that?  Hell, even President Obama would be rooting for it.

The only problem with this fairytale, for me, is that the Red Sox decided to have the bounce back year many people predicted.  And behind Betts, Bogaerts, Bradley, Benintendi, Price, Porcello, Pomeranz, a rejuvenated Pedroia, and the most epic swan song in the history of the game for Big Papi, the Red Sox have a legitimate to chance to (a) make the showdown we missed in 2003 a reality and (b) squash the hopes and dreams of another generation of Cubs fans.  So what do I do?  For whom do I root?

I have often said that the 1991 World Series should have been called a tie when neither team scored after nine innings of Game 7.  Both teams deserved to win; and neither team deserved to lose.  But we all know Jack Morris went out for his tenth inning, shut down the Braves, and then Gene Larkin (you all remembered that, right?) got the game-winner, bringing home Dan Gladden (you remembered that, too?), and the Minnesota fans nearly blew a hole in the Hubert H. Humphrey Homer Dome.  (As an aside, how much better would it have been if Kirby Puckett had knocked in or scored that winning run?)

Which brings me back to this season – a quarter of a century later.  As I stare down the barrel of the next four weeks, all I can hope is that the Red Sox and Cubs are tied at three games apiece, tied after nine innings, and then someone cuts the Eversource/NStar power grid.  Then, after a collective groan, everyone calmly and politely exits Fenway Park, gets on the “T”, and goes on with their life.  Hope can always spring eternal.  Hey, it’s not that much of a stretch – the Cubs do have one tie this season!

However, more likely than not, they will both lose in the division series, and then we could end up watching the Blue Jays and the Giants in a World Series battle of two highly unlikable teams.  That said, what would you pay to see Jose Bautista take Madison Bumgarner deep, flip his bat, saunter around the bases, only to get drilled in his next at bat?  That would be appointment viewing.

So as we dive headlong into the playoffs, as the Red Sox fly to Cleveland and the Cubs host either the Giants or the Mets, a man can dream about what may come . . . and fear being torn between two lovers.

PLAY BALL!!

THE VOICE OF GENERATIONS

In the world of psychology, it is a given that the sense of smell is the most evocative of prior experiences.  Who am I to dispute the science?  But if sense of smell is number one, for me, the sense of hearing is a close second.  I can hear a horn, an alarm, or a voice, and be transported back to my childhood as fast as, well, the speed of sound.

In the world of sports psychology, there is a school of thought that your prime sports fandom years are between ages 12-14.  For boys, this is oftentimes pre-puberty, pre-girls, pre-high school, and pre-real pressures.  It is when you are introduced to fantasy sports and advanced stats, and when you still have an innocent and healthy love of players and teams – unsullied by what we, as adults, know to be true about both.

Recently, I have given a lot of thought to this topic – how the sound of a voice can bring back memories of childhood.

Billy Crystal, and many others, have told tale of walking out of the tunnel of Old Yankee Stadium and seeing – for the first time – the bright green grass.  Who hasn’t been moved to hunger by the smell of a Fenway Frank as you walk up concourse from Yawkey Way?  How many stories have you heard about the taste of a cold Old Style while sitting in the bleachers at Wrigley Field?  Can you feel the grit of peanut shells in your hands as you mow through an entire bag before the third inning?  All are true.  But for me, it’s the sounds.

And certain sounds, certain voices, resonate more than others.

Imagine you were, like my father, born in 1941.  By 1955, you were in the prime of your sports fandom.  And if you happened to live in New York, you were lucky enough to listen to Vincent Edward Scully announce to the world: “Ladies and gentlemen, the Brooklyn Dodgers are the champions of the world”.

But let’s say you were born ten years later, in 1951, at the tail end of the Truman Administration.  If you lived in Los Angeles and were fourteen years old, you would know – with absolute certainty – that “the mound at Dodger Stadium … is the loneliest place in the world”.

And what if you born a decade later, say 1962, and were watching a game the first week of the season of your twelfth year?  You would be too young to have heard the words of Dr. King, but you would remember, with absolute clarity: “What a marvelous moment for baseball. What a marvelous moment for Atlanta and the state of Georgia. What a marvelous moment for the country and the world. . . A black man is getting a standing ovation in the Deep South for breaking a record of an all-time baseball idol”.   And it is a great moment for all of us”.

Or, like me, you were born in 1972.  And maybe you aren’t a Red Sox fan, but you are 14 years old.  Can you still picture – even without the benefit of a VHS tape – “A little roller up along first. Behind the bag. It gets through Buckner!”?

Or two years later, if “She is . . . gone” doesn’t get you dusty, maybe it takes, “In a year that has been so improbable, the impossible has happened” to start the waterworks.

If you were born in 1981, and lived north of the border, and were about to enter your teen years, you probably can never forget this from 1993: “A fastball is hit to leftfield, down the line, in the corner . . . homerun.”  And then you and an entire nation celebrated for a total of 45 seconds before another word was uttered.

How about someone born after the turn of the century (like my son), 60 years and three full generations after that kid (like my dad) in 1941.  And at 12 years old you hear the words: “The Wild Horse”.  Who/what do you imagine?  Unless you love dressage as much as baseball, I defy you tell me that this doesn’t fill your mind’s eye.

And, no matter your age, no matter your hometown, when you hear: “It’s time for Dodger baseball”, an amazing alchemy happens – a paradox that cannot be duplicated by any drug.  When you hear those words, when you hear that voice, your blood pressure immediately rises with unmitigated excitement, and immediately drops as you know you are in store for mellifluous sounds for the next 2½ hours.  When you “pull up a chair”, sit back and enjoy a “very pleasant good evening”, it is that voice – that sense of sound – that transports you to a happier, simpler, and more contented time.  It’s not the photographic memory, the Mark Twain-esque story-telling, nor the “deuces wild”, that I will miss the most.  No, what I will miss the most is the sound of being 12-14 again – when turning on the TV or the radio meant there was no need to long for easier times, easier times were ahead for the next nine innings.  That, for me – and for decade upon decade of baseball fans – is what we will lose this Sunday when the best there ever was says “and a very pleasant good afternoon to you, wherever you may be” for the very last time.

I miss him already.

PLAY BALL!!

RACISTS IN OUR MIDST

Colin Kaepernick is on the cover of this week’s Time Magazine.  Did he win a Super Bowl, or save a drowning baby?  No.  He merely took a knee.  A small gesture, no larger or physically more significant than raising a gloved hand to the sky.  But sometimes small gestures have a long and lasting impact.

There is no reason to re-hash what Kaepernick started, the implications of the movement, the rightness or wrongness of the act, or the legality thereof.  All of those issues have been addressed, many times over, by people smarter, better read, and more articulate than me.  What I will say, however, is that by speaking (kneeling) his mind, Kaepernick may have opened the door to other, less thoughtful, athletes thinking that they, too, should speak (or Tweet) their minds.

Rosters and scrapheaps are strewn with athletes making (or attempting to make) righteous political stands.  Sometimes these hit the mark and lead to real change; and sometimes they are epic fails.  The best example of the latter may have happened just yesterday.  Take a journeyman catcher with a misguided view of the world, a poor grasp of facts, and a smart phone, and you have a combustible combination.

Steve Clevenger began his career with the Cubs in 2011 (2 games/5 ABs), moved to Baltimore in 2013, and is now in Seattle.  His illustrious career includes a .227 BA, 4 HRs, 48 RBI, and a .608 OPS.  So who better to thrust himself into the limelight and do and say something utterly contemptible while his teams is vying for a Wild Card birth?

As this election season has shown us, people are angry and they seem to have no compunction about expressing that anger in public.  And this has led people to do and say things that, in a more genteel time, they would never think to do or say (publicly, at least).  The Trumpifcation of our national discourse has left us with the idea that nothing is out of bounds.  Well, this morning, the Seattle Mariners reminded us that some things are still out of bounds.

When a black man was shot and killed in Charlotte, North Carolina, people protested.  There are many questions about the circumstances of the shooting (how and why we cannot know the difference between a book and a gun is beyond me, but I will leave that to those with more forensic experience than I).  In any event, a community felt aggrieved, and they utilized their First Amendment right to peaceably assemble.

By all accounts – and as these things are wont to do – the expression of First Amendment rights led to an expression of Second Amendment rights, and soon a State of Emergency was called.

After seeing, hearing, reading about the goings-on in Charlotte, Steve Clevenger deemed it important to shed some light on the topic.  He felt that he, a white, professional athlete from an affluent suburb of Baltimore, who makes more than half a million dollars per year, had a particularly insightful view of this situation; and, in a sign of the times, felt compelled to share the same with his 2,480 Twitter followers.  Herewith, his elegant prose:

The Mariners acted swiftly.  Ostensibly under Article XII.B. of the MLB Collective Bargaining Agreement (Conduct Detrimental or Prejudicial to Baseball), the Mariners effectively fired Clevenger, suspending him for the rest of the season without pay.  Kudos to Jerry Dipoto and the entire organization.

Now it is up to the other 29 teams to not sign this piece of trash next season.  He is a free agent; and any team that employs him is willingly making him their representative – on the field and off.

We seem to live in a world where words have no consequences.  People – political figures included – can compulsively lie, and we shrug our shoulders.  People can go on television and the Internet and race bait and not get called out.  People can incite violence, and not feel the wrath of that which they have provoked.

I told my son, just the other day, in real life you have certain freedoms, but you must be prepared to deal with the consequences of exercising those freedoms.

It is time for the Steve Clevengers of the world to deal with the consequences of exercising their freedoms.  I whole-heartedly defend Clevenger’s right to write that which he wrote; but I also whole-heartedly believe that a private institution – like Major League Baseball – need not avail itself of the racists in its midst.

So, here’s to hoping that this is something that Steve Clevenger will never again hear on a Major League diamond . . .

PLAY BALL!!