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 Sixty-One: Jimmy Rollins, Philadelphia Phillies
It always seems like it’s been too long since we last saw the fireflies. When they dance onstage midway through June each year, their neon lights herald the beginning of summer. It’s a glorious display of illumination, nature’s own Times Square – and in our own backyards. When school ends for the Hynes family later this week, we’ll have our annual Firefly Night, in which the girls get to stay up late one evening to watch the little guys light up our block.
Of course, these lightning bugs always leave us too soon, in the same way that summer does. By the time July nears its end, there are just a few stray fireflies left, each of them flickering like a lost hiker with a broken-down flashlight. At times like this, we’re reminded of just how fleeting life’s beauty often is.
For two out of the past three years, Jimmy Rollins has been baseball’s version of the firefly. The Phillies shortstop has had some untimely injuries, and they’ve kept him away from the game for portions of the 2008 and 2010 seasons – thus making his own dynamic appearances more fleeting than Phillies fans would have liked. In 2008, however, Rollins returned from his injuries in time to help lead his team to a championship. And this year, having played in just 12 games due to calf injuries, Rollins finally returned to the Phillies lineup tonight.
He didn’t get any hits. But with that confident swagger, that power, that speed, and that slick glovework, Rollins is an electric summer force. The Phillies have their firefly back in the lineup again, just as the summer light shows have begun outside our own houses. To the National League, beware. To the fans in Philadelphia, enjoy the show.
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