The Mound-Walk (One Sixty-Two: Day 29)

Writer’s note: One Sixty-Two is a season-long series of blog posts connecting baseball’s major-league players to life’s universal themes. Just as there are 162 games in a season, so there will be 162 posts in this series. Let’s play some ball.

Day Twenty-Nine: Tim Lincecum, San Francisco Giants

”Daddy, can you grape-dance?” Chelsea asked me.

We were watching Michael Jackson’s This is It, so I think she meant break-dance. As the girls and I viewed the film’s footage, we saw Jackson rehearse for the concerts he did not live to perform. As we watched, it was difficult to believe that a human being could perform some of the moves Jackson pulled off on stage. There were times when the man seemed to be floating, and other times when his arms and legs seemed to be operating on springs. And this was at age 50.

No, Chelsea, I cannot break-dance. Although I used to practice the moonwalk in front of my mirror, with little success. Some people, however, do move with a kinesthetic brilliance that you can only stare at in awe. Jackson was one such person, and hence his reputation as one of the great showmen in the history of entertainment.

Over on the diamond, the best show in baseball takes place every five days wherever the San Francisco Giants are playing. It starts when a 5-foot-11, 170-pound right-hander stands atop 10 inches of dirt and starts throwing 98-mile-per-hour fastballs. Tim Lincecum, the best pitcher in baseball, has been called “The Freak,” which is a baseball way of saying that he does things no one else can do.

As he kicks his left leg, Lincecum’s head tilts toward first base, his left arm flies up in the air and his right arm rears back. His left leg follows with an enormous, 7½-foot stride toward home plate. His right arm then whips around overhead, unleashing rawhide and stitches with uncommon fury.

At 25 years of age, Tim Lincecum has a career record of 45-17, and has won two straight Cy Young Awards. He has given up fewer than three runs per nine innings pitched in his career and has struck out 10 batters per every nine innings. Now 5-0 this year, Lincecum has been even more unhittable and has struck out an even higher percentage of batters than his career average.

Lincecum, like Michael Jackson before him, has a lean and flexible physique that can bend in ways most of our bodies cannot. And, like an early-1980s Jackson, Lincecum appears to be still rising toward his highest levels of brilliance. If the past few years were his Off the Wall, perhaps the next few will be his Thriller. Wherever that electric delivery takes him, Lincecum can be sure that baseball fans will be watching. “The Freak” might lack the regal ring of “The King of Pop,” but the man is a dancer nonetheless. Call his show the mound-walk. Without the white glove.