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-Four: Chris Coghlan, Florida Marlins
It was a beautiful beach day, but not for me. Not when you’ve got to accompany your wife to the urgent-care center.
Now I understand your instinct here: How in the world can I complain about losing a few hours in the sun when my wife is in need of medical attention? I get that. What you don’t know, however, is the reason for this visit. It has something to do with a bicycle and some empty 2-liter bottles. And it doesn’t get any better from there.
While escorting our kids to a wonderful session at Cape May’s nature center, Amy made a couple of interesting choices: One, she rode her bicycle while wearing Tevas; and two, she rode with a bag full of empty soda bottles. The nature center had asked parents to bring in the bottles for some sort of project, and Amy dutifully obliged. However, while crossing the street with the plastic bag on her handlebars, a bottle started to slip out. She reached for the bag, lost her balance, and caught her foot in the back wheel.
So that led us to a bloody foot, a hobbling wife, and an urgent-care center. After X-rays, the kind doctor explained that Amy’s bloody ankle was sprained, not broken, and a smiling nurse administered a tetanus shot to cover the cuts from Amy’s metal spokes.
I’m grateful that my wife is fine, of course. But as you might have figured out, I’m a bit annoyed by the reason for the injury. In this way, I’m not unlike Florida Marlins manager Edwin Rodriguez, who lost one of his key players last week in an equally bizarre injury. Left fielder Chris Coghlan, who was last season’s National League Rookie of the Year, was celebrating teammate Wes Helms’s game-winning hit on July 25 by giving Helms a pie to the face. While carrying out this increasingly popular baseball ritual, Coghlan managed to tear the meniscus in his left knee. He’s hoping to play again this year, but surgery will be required even if he can play again this summer.
Coghlan is by no means the first baseball player to sustain a strange injury, as there have been a couple of doozies this year alone. Los Angeles Angels first baseman Kendry Morales was lost for the season after breaking his leg while jumping on home plate after a game-winning home run. San Diego Padres pitcher Mat Latos landed on the disabled list after straining an oblique while sneezing.
Clint Barmes knows all about this kind of thing. As a utility infielder for the Colorado Rockies, Barmes has managed to play a key supporting role in the Rockies’ success over the past several years. But in the spring of 2005, Barmes was putting up numbers that exceed anything he’s done since. Some were wondering if he was the next great hitter to come out of Colorado. And then, one spring day, Barmes fell while carrying a package of deer meat he’d received from a teammate. The result: a broken collarbone. After recovering, Barmes returned to the Rockies, but his breakout season was interrupted forever. While carefully handling meat of all kinds these past five years, Barmes has remained a key contributor in Denver.
So this is a man who knows that pies in the face can lead to knee injuries, and that soda bottles can lead to ankle sprains. And if Barmes knew Amy’s husband, he'd remind the man that despite his occasionally cute way with words, the husband has surely experienced an embarrassing injury of some sort; we all do. And he’d be correct. I should know as well as anyone what these kinds of injuries are all about. There was, after all, the finger spliced open with a pocket knife while trying to scrape bark off a tree. There was the hand cut open while trying to catch a glass I’d knocked off a counter. There was the face full of dirt collected after tripping over first base in an attempt to leg out a single (I was out, of course). We can go on - for a disturbingly long time, I might add.
So Amy, I hope you’ll ride safely next time. Maybe you can even try a helmet when you’re on the bike. But I will do whatever chores you need while you recover. And I’ll stop complaining about the lost sun rays. Because I’ve been there and done that, far more often than you have. We all, at some point, get a pie in the face.
Showing posts with label Kendry Morales. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kendry Morales. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Hemingway's Kind of Hero (One Sixty-Two: Day 41)
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 Forty-One: Albert Pujols, St. Louis Cardinals
Do you believe the great DiMaggio would stay with a fish as long as I will stay with this one? he thought. I am sure he would and more since he is young and strong. Also his father was a fisherman. But would the bone spur hurt him too much?
I have begun reading Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea with my freshmen. While they haven’t yet reached the quote above, they are engaged in Santiago’s humble, dedicated life as a fisherman, and they are well aware of the protagonist’s devotion to the great Joe DiMaggio.
When I asked the freshmen if they knew who DiMaggio was, almost all said they’d heard the name, and that he had something to do with baseball. A few knew he was a Yankee. But that was about all. So I gave them a primer on one of the 20th century’s most famous Americans, from his humble beginnings as the son of an immigrant fisherman to his 56-game hitting streak to his life as the royal prince of New York and, eventually, of baseball. I explained that the level of popularity DiMaggio experienced during the 1940s surpasses the fame of any American athlete today, since baseball was simply the sport at that time in our history. We watched a video of DiMaggio, and the kids asked some good questions.
But afterward, as I flipped through the book preparing for tomorrow’s lessons, I wondered who Santiago would call his hero if he were out on his skiff in the Caribbean today. Which ballplayer would give him strength as that mighty marlin tugged on the line for days?
Would it be the great Mariano Rivera, relief pitcher for the New York Yankees, who maintains a regal grace and cool under pressure as he saves games for his team? Would it be Mike Lowell of the Boston Red Sox, who has been discarded like an old fisherman and tossed aside on the Boston bench, and who must wait patiently for his opportunity to ply his trade again for another team? Or would it be Kendry Morales of the Angels, the most famous of the current players born in Santiago’s country of Cuba?
All would be wise choices. But I think that if Hemingway were writing this novel today, he’d do just what he did 60 years ago, and shoot for the top. If you’re facing the greatest challenge of your working life, then why not take your inspiration from the mightiest baseball hero of all? Santiago’s choice would be easy: He’d be cheering for Albert Pujols, the St. Louis Cardinals’ larger-than-life first baseman.
It is the mighty Pujols, after all, who hits all pitchers, who has played with pain in his elbow, and who stops at nothing to excel in all facets of his game. Pujols has averaged 40 home runs and 123 runs batted in per year in his first nine seasons. He has won three Most Valuable Player awards and one world championship. At age 30, Pujols is already a sure-fire Hall of Famer. And he may still be improving. By the end of the year, this Dominican-born slugger will likely have more than 400 career home runs. Were he to play into his 40s, there may be no record he does not own.
So yes, Pujols would surely be Santiago’s man today. But although it’s easy to pick DiMaggio’s equal in 2010, it is much more difficult to visualize Pujols the hero in quite the same way that Santiago saw DiMaggio in Hemingway’s story. Santiago was a poor man, who might have had access to some radio, but whose main source for baseball news was the newspapers that he read, then used as a sheet to cover the springs that stuck up from his bed. Today, however, the fisherman would surely have access to countless Pujols images on TV and the Internet.
While this makes it easier to know just what the big guy looks like hitting his awesome homers, it also takes something away from the myth-makers inside of us. When you’ve got to create your own images from the agate type you read in the box scores, those home runs take on a whole new life. They become personal snapshots and videos that you can own and fine-tune all day long, as you hold fast to that great fish inside your skiff on the sea.
Day Forty-One: Albert Pujols, St. Louis Cardinals
Do you believe the great DiMaggio would stay with a fish as long as I will stay with this one? he thought. I am sure he would and more since he is young and strong. Also his father was a fisherman. But would the bone spur hurt him too much?
I have begun reading Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea with my freshmen. While they haven’t yet reached the quote above, they are engaged in Santiago’s humble, dedicated life as a fisherman, and they are well aware of the protagonist’s devotion to the great Joe DiMaggio.
When I asked the freshmen if they knew who DiMaggio was, almost all said they’d heard the name, and that he had something to do with baseball. A few knew he was a Yankee. But that was about all. So I gave them a primer on one of the 20th century’s most famous Americans, from his humble beginnings as the son of an immigrant fisherman to his 56-game hitting streak to his life as the royal prince of New York and, eventually, of baseball. I explained that the level of popularity DiMaggio experienced during the 1940s surpasses the fame of any American athlete today, since baseball was simply the sport at that time in our history. We watched a video of DiMaggio, and the kids asked some good questions.
But afterward, as I flipped through the book preparing for tomorrow’s lessons, I wondered who Santiago would call his hero if he were out on his skiff in the Caribbean today. Which ballplayer would give him strength as that mighty marlin tugged on the line for days?
Would it be the great Mariano Rivera, relief pitcher for the New York Yankees, who maintains a regal grace and cool under pressure as he saves games for his team? Would it be Mike Lowell of the Boston Red Sox, who has been discarded like an old fisherman and tossed aside on the Boston bench, and who must wait patiently for his opportunity to ply his trade again for another team? Or would it be Kendry Morales of the Angels, the most famous of the current players born in Santiago’s country of Cuba?
All would be wise choices. But I think that if Hemingway were writing this novel today, he’d do just what he did 60 years ago, and shoot for the top. If you’re facing the greatest challenge of your working life, then why not take your inspiration from the mightiest baseball hero of all? Santiago’s choice would be easy: He’d be cheering for Albert Pujols, the St. Louis Cardinals’ larger-than-life first baseman.
It is the mighty Pujols, after all, who hits all pitchers, who has played with pain in his elbow, and who stops at nothing to excel in all facets of his game. Pujols has averaged 40 home runs and 123 runs batted in per year in his first nine seasons. He has won three Most Valuable Player awards and one world championship. At age 30, Pujols is already a sure-fire Hall of Famer. And he may still be improving. By the end of the year, this Dominican-born slugger will likely have more than 400 career home runs. Were he to play into his 40s, there may be no record he does not own.
So yes, Pujols would surely be Santiago’s man today. But although it’s easy to pick DiMaggio’s equal in 2010, it is much more difficult to visualize Pujols the hero in quite the same way that Santiago saw DiMaggio in Hemingway’s story. Santiago was a poor man, who might have had access to some radio, but whose main source for baseball news was the newspapers that he read, then used as a sheet to cover the springs that stuck up from his bed. Today, however, the fisherman would surely have access to countless Pujols images on TV and the Internet.
While this makes it easier to know just what the big guy looks like hitting his awesome homers, it also takes something away from the myth-makers inside of us. When you’ve got to create your own images from the agate type you read in the box scores, those home runs take on a whole new life. They become personal snapshots and videos that you can own and fine-tune all day long, as you hold fast to that great fish inside your skiff on the sea.
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Unhappy Endings (One Sixty-Two: Day 38)
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 Thirty-Eight: Kendry Morales, Los Angeles Angels
It’s your wedding day, and after the beautiful ceremony, the lovely first dance, the hugs from relatives, and the delicious dinner, it’s cake-cutting time. As you cut that first slice, the knife slips, you feel a sharp pain in your finger, and suddenly you’re off to the emergency room for stitches.
It’s your graduation day, and after the diploma and the cheers and the speeches, you toss your cap in the air. You reach up to catch it, but instead catch an elbow in the mouth. Instead of dinner, your family gathers with you at the dentist’s office.
It’s your birthday. You’ve gone out to eat, taken calls from family members, and eaten some of the cake your mom baked. On your way to bed, you don’t see the dog on the floor, you slip, and now you’re spending the night with an ice cap on your knee.
Horrible.
To finish a beautiful day with such a sudden twist of fate is something we all hope to avoid in any way possible. But there are times when it happens. And all it really does is remind us of how fragile, how human, we are – even in our moments of triumph.
It’s the bottom of the 10th inning, game tied 1-1, with Los Angeles Angels first baseman Kendry Morales up at the plate against Seattle Mariners reliever Brandon League. Morales crushes League’s offering well over the left-centerfield wall for a game-winning grand slam. As the 26-year-old first baseman rounds third and heads for home, Morales sees his teammates gathered around home plate, ready to pounce on him in the kind of “dog pile” celebrations that have become popular around baseball. Morales tosses his red helmet into the air and leaps. He lands on his left foot, slips, and falls.
His leg breaks right there, on home plate, with giddy teammates trying to pound his helmet. But these teammates gradually realize that instead of celebrating, they have to cart their best hitter off the field. He is writhing in pain.
The ballgame is over, and so might be Morales’s season. All because he slipped on home plate while trying to enjoy the moment.
There’s no right or wrong to it. The Angels will not celebrate this way at home plate again, as their manager, Mike Scioscia, has said. They’ll try and learn from it. Right now, there are surely a lot of heads hung low in that team’s clubhouse.
Life will absolutely go on, and there will be much better days ahead. But the wedding cake will never taste as good as it might have. The graduation pictures won’t bring back the kinds of memories we hoped they’d bring. The birthday cards won’t elicit the same smiles. The ending didn’t match the day, and it’s hard to forget that.
Day Thirty-Eight: Kendry Morales, Los Angeles Angels
It’s your wedding day, and after the beautiful ceremony, the lovely first dance, the hugs from relatives, and the delicious dinner, it’s cake-cutting time. As you cut that first slice, the knife slips, you feel a sharp pain in your finger, and suddenly you’re off to the emergency room for stitches.
It’s your graduation day, and after the diploma and the cheers and the speeches, you toss your cap in the air. You reach up to catch it, but instead catch an elbow in the mouth. Instead of dinner, your family gathers with you at the dentist’s office.
It’s your birthday. You’ve gone out to eat, taken calls from family members, and eaten some of the cake your mom baked. On your way to bed, you don’t see the dog on the floor, you slip, and now you’re spending the night with an ice cap on your knee.
Horrible.
To finish a beautiful day with such a sudden twist of fate is something we all hope to avoid in any way possible. But there are times when it happens. And all it really does is remind us of how fragile, how human, we are – even in our moments of triumph.
It’s the bottom of the 10th inning, game tied 1-1, with Los Angeles Angels first baseman Kendry Morales up at the plate against Seattle Mariners reliever Brandon League. Morales crushes League’s offering well over the left-centerfield wall for a game-winning grand slam. As the 26-year-old first baseman rounds third and heads for home, Morales sees his teammates gathered around home plate, ready to pounce on him in the kind of “dog pile” celebrations that have become popular around baseball. Morales tosses his red helmet into the air and leaps. He lands on his left foot, slips, and falls.
His leg breaks right there, on home plate, with giddy teammates trying to pound his helmet. But these teammates gradually realize that instead of celebrating, they have to cart their best hitter off the field. He is writhing in pain.
The ballgame is over, and so might be Morales’s season. All because he slipped on home plate while trying to enjoy the moment.
There’s no right or wrong to it. The Angels will not celebrate this way at home plate again, as their manager, Mike Scioscia, has said. They’ll try and learn from it. Right now, there are surely a lot of heads hung low in that team’s clubhouse.
Life will absolutely go on, and there will be much better days ahead. But the wedding cake will never taste as good as it might have. The graduation pictures won’t bring back the kinds of memories we hoped they’d bring. The birthday cards won’t elicit the same smiles. The ending didn’t match the day, and it’s hard to forget that.
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