Pine Tar & Partners (One Sixty-Two: Day 93)

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 Ninety-Three: Jose Guillen, Kansas City Royals

I’m good with dates, in a Trivial Pursuit kind of way. For some reason, I can remember that Mt. St. Helens erupted on May 18, 1980. I can tell you that Ronald Reagan was shot on the same day that Indiana defeated North Carolina in the men’s basketball title game – March 30, 1981. I recall the first Gulf War’s aerial attacks starting on the day before my 20th birthday – January 16, 1991.

And so on. You can argue, quite convincingly, that there are more important things to store in my brain than dates I can look up in two seconds’ time on the Internet. But our minds do what they want, and we can’t really control that. So while my brother compares me to Raymond Babbitt in Rain Man, I shrug and say sure, good connection. It’s my own idiosyncrasy, and I embrace it.

For a long time, I associated July 24th with a baseball event – the legendary “Pine Tar Game” of 1983. For those who don’t recall, this was the game in which Kansas City Royals third baseman George Brett hit a two-out, two-run homer off Yankees reliever Rich Gossage in the top of the ninth inning to put his team on top by a run, only to be called out by home plate umpire Tim McClelland for having too much pine tar on his bat. Yankees manager Billy Martin brought the bat to the umpires’ attention as soon as Brett crossed home plate. Martin challenged the bat’s use by claiming that the pine tar was spread too high up the barrel of the bat. This, Martin claimed, was against baseball rules. The umpires conferred and agreed with Martin, calling Brett out and therefore ending the game.

The rest is the stuff of legend – Brett dashing onto the field like a man out for blood, his teammates and other umpires restraining him from McClelland, and the Yankees walking awkwardly off the field, somehow victorious. A few days later, American League president Lee MacPhail reversed the ruling, claiming that Brett’s pine tar hadn’t interfered with the spirit of the rules. Twenty-five days after Brett’s home run, the game resumed and the Royals won.

For six years, my brain-bank of dates and numbers noted July 24th as Pine Tar Day, and nothing more. It was a fun event to remember for a baseball fan like me. And then, when I was 18, I started dating a girl who was born on this same day. A whole bunch of years later, we’re still going steady. So now, there are a few more important things to remember when July 24th comes around – cards, gifts and plans for the day, for starters. My wife isn’t real big on birthdays, and she especially doesn’t like to be the center of attention. But my daughters and I do what we can to make her feel as special as we know she is. Today, it was homemade cards and drawings, a trip to the big balloon festival here in Jersey, her favorite ice-cream shop, and a movie.

There aren’t many similarities between my wife and the Pine Tar Game. Amy is not a rule-breaker, nor is she very controversial. She doesn’t run after anyone like Brett did on that day, although now and then she flashes me the kind of look Brett gave to those umpires. My wife, in fact, is the antithesis of that game: She’s calm, reliable, fair, cheerful and loving. And, of course, she is beautiful.

Coincidentally, the Yankees happened to play the Royals today on the anniversary of that crazy game 27 years ago. When Kansas City’s Jose Guillen blasted an upper-deck home run off New York’s Sergio Mitre today, there were no calls for a look at Guillen’s bat. It was a homer, fair and square. The Royals won, although a controversial umpire’s call in the ninth inning found Mark Teixeira out on a play in which he appeared to be safe. Royals closer Joakim Soria got out of the game with less drama than Rich Gossage experienced a quarter-century ago, preserving a 7-4 win.

We watched the end of the game, then moved on to other things. There are, of course, more important things than baseball. And there are other things that happen on July 24th. Such as the birthday of your life’s partner. The day you get to remind her that she’s the most important person in your world. There’s nothing controversial, or trivial, about that. The umpires all agree.

Waving the Flag (One Sixty-Two: Day 50)

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 Fifty: Mark Teixeira, New York Yankees

And so it begins – one month of frenzied passion, as athletes from around the globe converge in South Africa for the most-watched tournament in sports. As the World Cup kicks into gear today, 32 teams are vying for the ultimate title, to be determined in the World Cup final one month from today. There’s a lot of soc … ahem, football, to be played in the next 30 days, and a lot of amazing plays to be seen along the way.

As I left school today, I saw two students looking at a bracket that one of them had filled out for the tournament. I walked over and took a look. The student had Argentina defeating Brazil in the final – a pretty safe pick, as Argentina has won the tournament twice and Brazil has claimed it a record five times. Since only seven countries have ever won the World Cup, most of the teams in the tournament are playing for their first-ever title. And that makes their fans all the more rabid.

Portugal is one such country with a reputation for success yet an empty World Cup trophy case. Star forward Cristiano Ronaldo will try to take his team to the promised land this year, but with Brazil, the Ivory Coast and North Korea in the same first-round group, just making it to the second round will require serious effort from the Portuguese team.

Outside of Ronaldo, the most famous athlete of Portuguese descent in America is probably New York Yankees first baseman Mark Teixeira. Now in his eighth season as a big-leaguer, Teixeira has already slugged more than 250 home runs and driven in more than 800. The 30-year-old switch-hitter claimed his first championship last year with New York, and he’s won a trio of Gold Glove and Silver Slugger awards.

Teixeira is known for his slow starts. But his 2010 season has been even slower than normal, as he’s hitting only .226 nearly midway through June. At this rate, he won’t come close to meeting his average batting numbers for a full season. The Yankees remain patient, though, penciling his name into the lineup’s No. 3 spot every night.

Perhaps Teixeira was just waiting for the World Cup to get his blood boiling. As Ronaldo and Co. fend off those tough teams in Group G, maybe Teixeira will draw inspiration from his ancestral home and lift some long fly balls to deep right field. Perhaps it will be Portugal’s year, at long last. If by chance it is, there will be a man in pinstripes waving the flag. It’s that time of year.