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 One Hundred Twenty-Four: Casey Coleman, Chicago Cubs
I don’t often stop to take in the scenery at a strip mall. But one night last week, I found myself doing just that.
It was after dinner, and my older daughter and I had driven over to the Watchung (N.J.) Square Mall to buy a couple of things at the bookstore. As we stepped out of my car, Katie and I glanced up and stopped in our tracks. We saw a complete rainbow, starting on the northeast horizon and soaring up into the sky before diving down and stretching to the southwest. We pointed at it, smiled to each other, then leaned back against the car and marveled at this giant gift of nature.
I showed the rainbow to a few other bookstore customers, and they stopped in the parking lot as well. As we counted the colors that stood out before the blue backdrop, I put my arm around Katie and allowed myself to slow down, if only for a few minutes. I didn’t notice any shopping carts, or honking cars, or receipts and cigarette butts on asphalt. Just this spectrum of light, far above the Borders, Stop & Shop and Home Depot signs.
Sometimes, things are not as ugly as they seem. On Sunday, the Chicago Cubs fell to 23 games below .500, and their legendary manager retired after the game. Lou Piniella, who has been either a player, manager, front-office executive or TV commentator in this game for five decades, took off his No. 41 uniform and went home to care for his ailing mother. The Cubs were given an interim manager to help guide them through the rest of this season, a year that will extend their string of years without a championship to 102.
Sunday’s final game under Piniella did not bring Sweet Lou his 1,836th win; instead, the Atlanta Braves crushed the Cubs by a score of 16-5. “This’ll be the last time I put on a uniform,” Piniella said through tears afterward. “It’s been very special to me.”
As the Cubs began their post-Piniella era Monday in Washington, there were surely a lot of North Side faithful wondering what else lay in store for them. Would there be a few season-ending injuries on tap for this week? Or perhaps a 20-run loss?
But as Monday night’s game began, a 23-year-old youngster made his second major-league start for Chicago, and he held the Nationals to just three hits while pitching into the seventh inning. Casey Coleman is not the hottest young prospect in Chicago’s farm system, but on Monday he was plenty good enough. And his team supported Coleman with nine runs, including one driven in by Coleman himself.
The Cubs’ 2010 season has been about as pretty as a strip mall. But yesterday, a kid from Florida – the same state to which Lou Piniella returned to begin his retirement – stepped on the mound and drew the Cubs a rainbow. It lasted for a couple of hours, and then it was gone. But while it lasted, Coleman’s piece of beauty gave Chicago fans something to watch, and point at, and chat about with the neighbors. He gave them something they don’t see every day.
And, dare I say, he gave them a reason to hope.
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