Thursday, September 23, 2010

Dollars & Dust (One Sixty-Two: Day 154)

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 Fifty-Four: Jose Bautista, Toronto Blue Jays

She called me at work today with one of the major announcements of her 5-year-old life.

“Hi Daddy,” Chelsea said on the phone. “I lost my first tooth.”

Whoa! And the crowd roared its approval. Or, rather, the Daddy roared in excitement. When I saw her later, she opened wide and showed me a gap in the bottom row of teeth. Chelsea said it was much easier to chew now, and that she looked forward to munching on carrots again.

At night, she tucked her little plastic tooth holder under the pillow, and asked me assorted questions about how the Tooth Fairy operates as I sang her to sleep. “Magic,” I kept whispering, “magic.” My wife, meanwhile, was out securing a bag of fairy dust to place in that plastic holder, along with some cold, hard cash. It was a good day to be 5 and toothless.

Magic. It happens, you know; don’t lose faith just because you’ve got your wisdom teeth. For the first six years of his major-league career, Jose Bautista never hit more than 16 home runs in a season, never drove in more than 63 runs and never posted an average higher than .254. This year, in his second full season as a Toronto Blue Jay, Bautista has mashed his way to the title of baseball’s home run king. Today, in a 1-0 win against the Mariners, Bautista blasted his 50th home run of the season. He’s driven in 115 runs, his batting average is over .260, and his slugging percentage is well over .600. There has been no breakthrough in 2010 quite like that of the 29-year-old Bautista.

You can say all you want about the guy tweaking his batting stance, or working out more in the off-season. As for me, I’m going with the fairy dust, the baseball ghosts, and the unexplainable magic that turns a utility player into an MVP candidate.

Jose Bautista lost all his baby teeth long ago, so there are no dollar bills under his pillow tonight. But after home run number 50, the Blue Jays slugger can rest assured that there will be some very large checks headed his way this winter. The reward for losing a tooth may be dollars and dust, but the prize for becoming a superstar is one that can be deposited, saved and invested.

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