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-Six: Kevin Youkilis, Boston Red Sox
We’ve solved the mystery, although it took awhile. We know who planted a pair of red socks where they didn’t belong.
My parents have a metal sign hanging on the fence in their driveway reading “Yankee Fans Parking / Red Sox Fans Go Home.” Sometime during the week, an individual slapped a magnet on this sign. It was a pair of red socks – the unmistakable logo of Boston’s Red Sox.
No longer was it a lazy beach week; someone had declared war. Where will he strike next?
Tonight, my 8-year-old daughter and her 10-year-old cousin performed songs from the musical Wicked for the family, lip-synching to “Popular” and “Defying Gravity” with plenty of energy and emotional gravitas. While Katie and Megan have not seen Wicked on Broadway, they understand the theme to this story – that sometimes it’s hard in life to tell just who the evil people are around us. Is green-faced Elphaba the wicked witch we’ve always known her to be, or is perky Glinda the one with true wickedness inside her? Are there times when a person chooses a questionable path largely because of the ways she’s been mistreated by others? In that case, who’s the real wicked one?
Tonight they meet again: the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox have begun a four-game series in the South Bronx with the Red Sox needing wins to keep their season alive. For years, the fans in New England have called New York the “Evil Empire” owing to the seemingly unlimited cash that the Yankees have to spend. But are the Yankees really the evil ones? After all, didn’t this whole string of 27 championships begin because Boston’s owner wanted to sell New York a guy named Babe Ruth? Was that the Yankees’ fault? And how can you blame the Yankees when Mike Torrez helped pitch them to a World Series title in 1977, but then switched to Boston the following year and gave up the division-clinching homer to New York’s Bucky Dent? Didn’t both teams have the guy, after all?
My brother and I didn’t spend our summers lip-synching to show tunes, as my girls have done this year. We were more the baseball and Star Wars-figure types. If we weren’t playing ball outside, we were probably creating stories with our Han Solos and Luke Skywalkers. Sometimes, we’d even mix the two, creating a baseball diamond on the living-room carpet and placing a Star Wars figure at each position. We’d use one of the Ewoks’ cannonballs for a ball, and create a semblance of baseball using Gamorrean guards and Cantina bar customers. Somehow, it all worked.
It was rare that a member of the Evil Empire wound up on top in our fictional ballgames. The guys with the force usually won out. And when we played our baseball games outside, it was always New York sending Boston home with a loss.
And yet, some 250 miles north, it was surely the opposite every day. From Connecticut to Maine, it was the Yankees who secured the Dark Side; those magnetic red socks were a sign of goodness and northeast-American unity.
So really, who’s the wicked one? And how should we feel about the guys on the other side? Should New York fans be cheering because Boston first baseman (and sometime Yankee antagonizer) Kevin Youkilis is out for the season with a torn muscle in his thumb? No one mourns the wicked, right?
Or should we feel sympathy for those on the other side, and search for a way to finally get along? After all, Darth Vader did come back to the Jedis in the end, right?
Yeah, but Elphaba didn’t get all Goodie Two Shoes up on her broom, even if Dorothy did do her in. Rivalries are too much fun to give up, whether you’re battling through ballgames, musicals or action figures.
Oh, and those mysterious magnetic socks? My niece, the one who played Glinda tonight, has a dad who likes to joke around. He confessed to planting the dreaded logo on my parents’ sign. It took days before he came forward, but we finally got his story.
So, Glinda, when you and your family drive home from your vacation tomorrow, look to the western sky as you pass through New York City. You’ll surely see a blimp up there somewhere, defying gravity in order to photograph Yankee Stadium for a nationally televised New York-Boston game. Who, you might ask, is the wicked one on that field?
It depends on how you read my parents’ driveway sign, I guess.
Showing posts with label Babe Ruth. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Babe Ruth. Show all posts
Friday, August 6, 2010
Monday, May 10, 2010
Cracking 'The Lineup' (One Sixty-Two: Day 18)
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 Eighteen: Jason Bay, New York Mets
There’s a neat show on the MSG Network titled “The Lineup,” in which a panel of experts debate the best players at each position in the history of New York baseball. Although Babe Ruth was the clear-cut choice for right field on last week’s show, he had plenty of esteemed company: Reggie Jackson, Darryl Strawberry, Willie Keeler and Roger Maris, to name a few. Tomorrow’s show takes on center field, and the debate here is an extraordinary one: Who do you pick from among Joe DiMaggio, Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle and Duke Snider? Whew.
But in left field, the candidates are not quite as impressive as at the other two outfield spots. Sure, you’ve got Hall of Famers Dave Winfield and Rickey Henderson, but they played most of their careers outside of New York. The top two choices are probably the Giants’ Monte Irvin, who would have had much more impressive career numbers had baseball not maintained a color barrier prior to 1947, and Zack Wheat, the Hall of Fame Brooklyn Dodgers outfielder.
As I said, though, no one really stands out. That’s what makes the Mets’ signing of slugging outfielder Jason Bay this past winter that much more interesting. Bay is 31 years old, and in six full seasons he has averaged more than 30 home runs and 100 runs batted in per season. If Bay averaged the same over another 10 years, he’d be both a Hall of Famer and the greatest New York left fielder of all time. Toss in a Mets’ championship and he might even have a retired number.
But such lofty goals can only be achieved one game at a time. So far, Jason Bay is starting off slowly, with just a home run and 14 runs driven in this year. The Canadian native is not exactly lighting up Citi Field quite yet. But the season is a marathon, and there is time to turn things around. When he does begin lifting balls out of the park, Bay might even brush up on his New York baseball history. He’ll find that there is plenty of room for new legends in left field.
Day Eighteen: Jason Bay, New York Mets
There’s a neat show on the MSG Network titled “The Lineup,” in which a panel of experts debate the best players at each position in the history of New York baseball. Although Babe Ruth was the clear-cut choice for right field on last week’s show, he had plenty of esteemed company: Reggie Jackson, Darryl Strawberry, Willie Keeler and Roger Maris, to name a few. Tomorrow’s show takes on center field, and the debate here is an extraordinary one: Who do you pick from among Joe DiMaggio, Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle and Duke Snider? Whew.
But in left field, the candidates are not quite as impressive as at the other two outfield spots. Sure, you’ve got Hall of Famers Dave Winfield and Rickey Henderson, but they played most of their careers outside of New York. The top two choices are probably the Giants’ Monte Irvin, who would have had much more impressive career numbers had baseball not maintained a color barrier prior to 1947, and Zack Wheat, the Hall of Fame Brooklyn Dodgers outfielder.
As I said, though, no one really stands out. That’s what makes the Mets’ signing of slugging outfielder Jason Bay this past winter that much more interesting. Bay is 31 years old, and in six full seasons he has averaged more than 30 home runs and 100 runs batted in per season. If Bay averaged the same over another 10 years, he’d be both a Hall of Famer and the greatest New York left fielder of all time. Toss in a Mets’ championship and he might even have a retired number.
But such lofty goals can only be achieved one game at a time. So far, Jason Bay is starting off slowly, with just a home run and 14 runs driven in this year. The Canadian native is not exactly lighting up Citi Field quite yet. But the season is a marathon, and there is time to turn things around. When he does begin lifting balls out of the park, Bay might even brush up on his New York baseball history. He’ll find that there is plenty of room for new legends in left field.
Saturday, May 8, 2010
Welcome to Boston (One Sixty-Two: Day 16)
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 Sixteen: Victor Martinez, Boston Red Sox
There were days, Victor, when a 15-16 start was met with shrugs. Never acceptance, but a shrug nonetheless. Maybe a bitter “here we go again” tossed in as well. I know you’re still new to Boston, Victor, having come over from Cleveland at the trading deadline last July. But you missed the eras when 15-16 was met with patience.
There were those 86 years, of course, in between world championships. As generations of Red Sox fans grew up rooting for the team that Babe Ruth had left behind, the Sox had some pretty ugly records at times. For instance, the Sox had a string of 15 straight losing seasons from 1919-1933. They finished 42 games out of first place in 1954, and 40 games back in 1965. And yet, despite those dark years the Red Sox always managed to rise up again and field terrific teams. With players such as Ted Williams, Carl Yastrzemski, Jim Rice and Wade Boggs, Boston won 85 games or more a total of 30 times between 1938 and 2003 – only to claim not a single championship. In fact, the Sox made the World Series just four times in that span, losing in the deciding seventh game every time. Meanwhile, the Yankees claimed 26 world titles between 1923 and 2000, a record for professional American team sports.
And then, as you know, Victor, things did change. Your current teammate, the big lefty named David Ortiz, turned into the true Babe Ruth of Beantown, leading the Red Sox to their historic wins against the Yankees and Cardinals to claim the 2004 title. Then in 2007, Ortiz and Co. won it all again. Boston has won at least 92 games seven of the last eight seasons, and has become the standard by which 21st-century baseball teams are measured. Fenway Park, always a cinch to draw more than two million fans a year, now pulls in more than three million. Baseball executives study the moves of your general manager, Theo Epstein, as a model of how to build a winning team that also keeps an eye toward the future.
That’s how the Sox got you, Victor. You were smashing balls all over the place in Cleveland, but Epstein wanted your bat enough to give up young players for you. But not his best young players. He held the line, and got you anyhow. Now you’re starting in front of the team’s captain, because the Sox want to win at all costs. So does all of New England, as they tune in each night to listen to your team’s games from the Connecticut coastline all the way up to the tip of Maine.
You’ve finally started hitting the ball in recent days, Victor, just as you’ve done throughout your career. So it’s time you really thought about this – there’s an entire region of the nation about ready to lose their Cracker Jacks if you and your boys don’t start winning games. Embarrassing losses at home to the Yankees are the final straw.
You’re a catcher, Victor, and you’re a great player to boot. So you know what it’s like to carry a team. It’s getting to be mid-May, and the Boston Red Sox are not a 15-16 team. Fenway Park heroes get their numbers retired on the façade beneath the upper deck in right field. Your number 41 would look real nice up there. New England awaits, Victor. Your turn to bat.
Day Sixteen: Victor Martinez, Boston Red Sox
There were days, Victor, when a 15-16 start was met with shrugs. Never acceptance, but a shrug nonetheless. Maybe a bitter “here we go again” tossed in as well. I know you’re still new to Boston, Victor, having come over from Cleveland at the trading deadline last July. But you missed the eras when 15-16 was met with patience.
There were those 86 years, of course, in between world championships. As generations of Red Sox fans grew up rooting for the team that Babe Ruth had left behind, the Sox had some pretty ugly records at times. For instance, the Sox had a string of 15 straight losing seasons from 1919-1933. They finished 42 games out of first place in 1954, and 40 games back in 1965. And yet, despite those dark years the Red Sox always managed to rise up again and field terrific teams. With players such as Ted Williams, Carl Yastrzemski, Jim Rice and Wade Boggs, Boston won 85 games or more a total of 30 times between 1938 and 2003 – only to claim not a single championship. In fact, the Sox made the World Series just four times in that span, losing in the deciding seventh game every time. Meanwhile, the Yankees claimed 26 world titles between 1923 and 2000, a record for professional American team sports.
And then, as you know, Victor, things did change. Your current teammate, the big lefty named David Ortiz, turned into the true Babe Ruth of Beantown, leading the Red Sox to their historic wins against the Yankees and Cardinals to claim the 2004 title. Then in 2007, Ortiz and Co. won it all again. Boston has won at least 92 games seven of the last eight seasons, and has become the standard by which 21st-century baseball teams are measured. Fenway Park, always a cinch to draw more than two million fans a year, now pulls in more than three million. Baseball executives study the moves of your general manager, Theo Epstein, as a model of how to build a winning team that also keeps an eye toward the future.
That’s how the Sox got you, Victor. You were smashing balls all over the place in Cleveland, but Epstein wanted your bat enough to give up young players for you. But not his best young players. He held the line, and got you anyhow. Now you’re starting in front of the team’s captain, because the Sox want to win at all costs. So does all of New England, as they tune in each night to listen to your team’s games from the Connecticut coastline all the way up to the tip of Maine.
You’ve finally started hitting the ball in recent days, Victor, just as you’ve done throughout your career. So it’s time you really thought about this – there’s an entire region of the nation about ready to lose their Cracker Jacks if you and your boys don’t start winning games. Embarrassing losses at home to the Yankees are the final straw.
You’re a catcher, Victor, and you’re a great player to boot. So you know what it’s like to carry a team. It’s getting to be mid-May, and the Boston Red Sox are not a 15-16 team. Fenway Park heroes get their numbers retired on the façade beneath the upper deck in right field. Your number 41 would look real nice up there. New England awaits, Victor. Your turn to bat.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
There Go My Heroes
The heroes are everywhere in late March. They’re tossing in three-pointers en route to the Final Four. They’re filling the pages of baseball preview articles on the long road to Opening Day. They’re scoring third-period goals in pursuit of a Stanley Cup. And they’re finishing the fourth quarter strong in preparation for the NBA Playoffs.
Heroes. We use that term a lot in sports. Ever since the sportswriters and radio broadcasters began telling us about the exploits of Babe Ruth, Joe Louis and Jesse Owens, millions of Americans have dreamed of becoming the next great athlete. Very few of us make it to that hallowed place, but the dreams of getting there can help form the foundation of a childhood.
There comes a time, though, when most of us begin to expand our definition of “heroism” to include some of the people we’ve learned about in history class, as well as some individuals we see around us each day. Perhaps we include the firefighters who helped rescue someone we know. Maybe even the doctors who operated on our grandmother. Or, better yet, the parents who are with us each day in so many ways.
As my freshmen read Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird this winter, we talked a lot about heroes. Students discussed the most impressive heroes they’d encountered in their 15 years of life so far, and I heard a lot about parents, siblings, aunts and uncles. When we finished the book, I asked the kids to write about the character they found to be the book’s truest hero. As they wrote their essays, more of the teens chose Atticus Finch than any other character. One of American literature’s best-known characters, Finch’s heroism lies in his ability to give fully of himself – both to the world around him and to the children he is raising.
As I reflect on – and grade – these essays, and as I sample some of the March Madness and baseball previews, I think about the heroes I’m seeing today. And as much as I’d like to tell you that the Butler Bulldogs or the Opening Day starters are my heroes, I’m looking in the same direction as my freshmen. I see heroes closer to home.
For one, I see my colleague Sara. This is Sara’s spring break, when she should be resting and taking some time to gear up for labs and lessons she’s got to teach. But Sara is actually in Haiti this week. Thanks to the support of some extraordinary colleagues and students, Sara was able to hop a flight to the earthquake-ravaged nation this week and is helping in whatever ways she’s needed. Last I heard she was digging latrines and drainage ditches in a refugee camp.
Secondly, I see my friend Siobhan. After nine months of pregnancy and some 17 hours of labor, Siobhan gave birth to a gorgeous little girl a few days ago. Right now, Siobhan’s life is in its most intense period of adjustment. She’s finding the strength to raise another human being, and on far less sleep than she’s ever had in her life. But she and her husband couldn’t be doing any better if they tried – they’re as devoted as two parents can be, and their daughter is an enormously lucky little girl.
So Sara and Siobhan are two of my heroes in late March, 2010. They’re giving for a living right now, Atticus-style. You can watch someone snip a basketball net off a rim or spray champagne in a teammate’s face all the time. But you don’t always get to see someone change another’s life. I saw two such people this week. And when you looked into their eyes, you could see that gleam of pride.
They knew the definition. They knew, deep down, that they were embodying real heroism. It was just like my freshmen said – the great ones are all around us.
Heroes. We use that term a lot in sports. Ever since the sportswriters and radio broadcasters began telling us about the exploits of Babe Ruth, Joe Louis and Jesse Owens, millions of Americans have dreamed of becoming the next great athlete. Very few of us make it to that hallowed place, but the dreams of getting there can help form the foundation of a childhood.
There comes a time, though, when most of us begin to expand our definition of “heroism” to include some of the people we’ve learned about in history class, as well as some individuals we see around us each day. Perhaps we include the firefighters who helped rescue someone we know. Maybe even the doctors who operated on our grandmother. Or, better yet, the parents who are with us each day in so many ways.
As my freshmen read Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird this winter, we talked a lot about heroes. Students discussed the most impressive heroes they’d encountered in their 15 years of life so far, and I heard a lot about parents, siblings, aunts and uncles. When we finished the book, I asked the kids to write about the character they found to be the book’s truest hero. As they wrote their essays, more of the teens chose Atticus Finch than any other character. One of American literature’s best-known characters, Finch’s heroism lies in his ability to give fully of himself – both to the world around him and to the children he is raising.
As I reflect on – and grade – these essays, and as I sample some of the March Madness and baseball previews, I think about the heroes I’m seeing today. And as much as I’d like to tell you that the Butler Bulldogs or the Opening Day starters are my heroes, I’m looking in the same direction as my freshmen. I see heroes closer to home.
For one, I see my colleague Sara. This is Sara’s spring break, when she should be resting and taking some time to gear up for labs and lessons she’s got to teach. But Sara is actually in Haiti this week. Thanks to the support of some extraordinary colleagues and students, Sara was able to hop a flight to the earthquake-ravaged nation this week and is helping in whatever ways she’s needed. Last I heard she was digging latrines and drainage ditches in a refugee camp.
Secondly, I see my friend Siobhan. After nine months of pregnancy and some 17 hours of labor, Siobhan gave birth to a gorgeous little girl a few days ago. Right now, Siobhan’s life is in its most intense period of adjustment. She’s finding the strength to raise another human being, and on far less sleep than she’s ever had in her life. But she and her husband couldn’t be doing any better if they tried – they’re as devoted as two parents can be, and their daughter is an enormously lucky little girl.
So Sara and Siobhan are two of my heroes in late March, 2010. They’re giving for a living right now, Atticus-style. You can watch someone snip a basketball net off a rim or spray champagne in a teammate’s face all the time. But you don’t always get to see someone change another’s life. I saw two such people this week. And when you looked into their eyes, you could see that gleam of pride.
They knew the definition. They knew, deep down, that they were embodying real heroism. It was just like my freshmen said – the great ones are all around us.
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