The American Dream: A Shortstop with Standards

            When Derek Jeter made his Major League Baseball debut in the spring and summer of 1995, it was a busy time in America. An act of domestic terrorism had recently struck Oklahoma City, and the Unabomber was on the loose. The United States Congress was at sharp odds with the president. Acts of savage cruelty abroad had led the U.S. to take military action in Bosnia. Extreme heat waves in the Midwest had many wondering what was happening to our climate. A trial in Manhattan was under way for the 1993 terrorist bombing of the World Trade Center. A Brooklyn man had recently been sent to prison for life after shooting and killing several people on a Long Island train. And a certain former NFL running back was on trial for murder in Los Angeles.
            There were a lot of frightening things happening, and it was hard sometimes to find your footing in what felt like an uneven world. But one September evening, a baseball shortstop helped us remember how inspiring humans can be when they’re at their best. Baltimore Orioles shortstop Cal Ripken Jr. had been playing his position every day for nearly 14 years without missing a single game. On September 6, he broke the record that many had thought to be untouchable – Lou Gehrig’s mark for consecutive games played. When the 2,131^st game of Ripken’s career became official, his teammates encouraged him to jog around Oriole Park at Camden Yards, shaking hands and slapping high-fives with fans. As millions of people watched Ripken on TV, they shared a moment that was clearly about much more than baseball.

            In the 19 years since that summer, you can argue that a lot has changed in this world and this country, but that an awful lot has also stayed the same. There are still too many people out there engaged in activities that we struggle to understand, from terrorism to domestic shootings to governmental infighting to ignorance of global warming. We read more of our news online these days than we did in 1995, but we often hesitate to scan the headlines, sometimes because we just don’t want to hear about another crisis.

            Derek Jeter has been working at his job in the Bronx during every one of these past 19 years, often excelling at his job during our most frightful collective moments. He led the New York Yankees to 125 wins in 1998, when the Clinton-Lewinski scandal held Americans’ attention. He won the World Series MVP award in 2000, leading the Yanks past the cross-town Mets a few days before the American presidential electoral process entered a state of chaos. He made two of the most extraordinary plays in playoff history during the fall of 2001, just weeks after the attacks of September 11. He led the Yankees to their 27^th championship in 2009, one day before the Fort Hood shootings. He led the American League in hits in 2012 at age 38, with the Yankees finishing their postseason run a few days before Hurricane Sandy hit. During these moments, Jeter didn’t ask for the applause, nor did he view himself as larger than life. He just said he was living his dream, playing for his favorite team, and wanted only to win. His modesty, maximum effort and grace under pressure were all we needed to feel that maybe things were not so bad out there as they seemed.

            Human nature being what it is, we can be sure that individuals will continue making decisions that frighten, confuse and worry us in the days and years ahead. Even in the world of sports, we have seen a whole host of poor decisions, from steroid use among baseball players to off-the-field violence among football players to neglect of head injuries in several sports. But in spite of this constant turmoil, there are always individuals out there who inspire us. Some of them are artists, others are teachers, and others are just people we love who serve as our personal role models. And, yes, there are also athletes. Since Cal Ripken’s moment 19 years ago, other sports stars have stepped forward and provided more examples of excellence on and off the field. Athletes such as Tim Duncan, Peyton Manning, Mariano Rivera and Grant Hill have gained such respect within and beyond the world of sports because of the way they’ve carried themselves day in and day out. When young athletes arrive in the pros saying they idolized Manning or Hill while growing up, you know it’s not just because of how great these players were in action. It’s also because of the class they showed while playing the game.

Before I knew the name Derek Jeter, I was covering the University of North Carolina men’s basketball team as a college senior in Chapel Hill. I had just written dozens of stories chronicling the team’s second national championship under Coach Dean Smith in 1993, and I was invited to the program’s year-end dinner. As I sat in the arena named for Smith and listened to him speak, I was struck by the tears this often-stoic coach shed while speaking of his players. He cared just as much for the walk-on bench player as he did the leading scorer, and he spoke more about players’ grades and post-college plans than their basketball accomplishments. That evening, I sat next to the late Doug Marlette, whose editorial cartoons had won him a well-deserved Pulitzer Prize. Marlette, who lived in a nearby town, was a big Tar Heels fan. When I asked why he loved UNC basketball, Marlette began speaking of Smith. “He has such standards,” Marlette said, explaining that when you set such high goals for yourself and those you lead, you tend to win – and win with integrity.

Three years later, I was watching Derek Jeter celebrate his first championship with the Yankees, and I heard him speak reverently of the Yankees’ manager, Joe Torre. I saw him embrace his parents, and refrain from even the slightest boast. This, you could tell, was a man with standards. It’s hard to believe that he’s already 40 now, and that his career will end this weekend in Boston. Last night, in his final game at Yankee Stadium, Jeter heard more than 48,000 people cheer his name for more than three hours straight. He said he nearly cried several times, and felt it was he who should be thanking the fans. Again, the modesty.

The highlight reels can show you all the clutch hits, diving catches and great throws in Jeter’s career. But really, that’s just part of the story. You needed to hear those fans last night, chanting “Thank you, Derek,” just as you needed to see Cal Ripken take his lap around Camden Yards. These were gifted, millionaire athletes, on the receiving end of adulation that seemed at odds with a harsh, cynical world. We’ve taken a lot of hits over the past two decades. But somehow, we keep finding the sparks of light. Sometimes those sparks are standing at shortstop. Only in moments like these can you see just how ready and willing we are to applaud those who hold onto standards in this crazy world of ours.

Love is in the Air

            “We Have Big Peonies,” read the sign outside a Central Jersey nursery.

            It must be June. As the first day of summer nears, the weather reaches a blissful state, the sun shines most of the time, and the fireflies dance for us at night. It’s enough to put love – and lust – in the air.

In 2013, that lust is literally flying through the air, as the loudest loverbugs you’ll ever meet – the 17-year cicadas – now blanket the East Coast. Their mating buzz changes the atmosphere a bit, as they add the sound of high-voltage power lines to an otherwise gorgeous night. It’s an intense sound, not quite what you hear when you imagine romance. But hey, to each his own.

After all, the cicadas are young and in love. It’s a fierce, fleeting feeling, and I hope they’re enjoying themselves. The last time these insects were visiting our skies, I was young and newlywed. Amy and I were in our mid-20s, and we were spending our free time enjoying vacations together, furnishing our new apartment and going out to dinner in Manhattan. It was 1996, which honestly doesn’t seem like that long ago.

In ’96, Bill Clinton was winning re-election and staring down Newt Gingrich in a budget crisis, the Unabomber was arrested, and England was dealing with “mad cow” disease. For baseball fans like me, 1996 marks the first full seasons in which Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera and Andy Pettitte were playing for the Yankees. For music fans, 1996 means Alanis Morissette, the “Macarena,” and Hootie & the Blowfish. At the movies, the first “Mission: Impossible” movie was playing alongside “Independence Day” and “Twister.”

When I was coming of age in the ‘80s, it was common to hear people wax nostalgic about growing up in the 1960s, as though that were ancient history. Bryan Adams’s pop song “Summer of ’69,” for instance, hit the Billboard charts in 1985 – just 16 years after the actual summer of 1969. Can you imagine a singer today penning a hit about the “Summer of ‘97”? I didn’t think so.

There’s just not a lot of affection for the era of our cicadas’ last visit. But then again, these buzzers aren’t interested in any long-term nostalgia. We may save their shells or wings, but they’re not into mementoes. The cicadas are all about living in the moment. That, after all, is what young love is all about.

Yesterday, we spent part of Father’s Day on Governors Island, that extraordinary piece of land in New York Harbor, nestled in between Lower Manhattan and Red Hook, Brooklyn. Yesterday’s big event at Governors Island was the Jazz Age Lawn Party. Hundreds of young New Yorkers took the ferry over to the island wearing their best flapper dresses and Gatsby suits. They flirted while dancing the Charleston and sipping the no-longer-prohibited alcohol.

But later on, as the 1920s costume partiers took the ferry back to Manhattan, another ferry brought hundreds of even younger adults to Governors Island. These folks were wearing neon tank tops and bikini tops, and they were wearing sunglasses even as the sun set. This was an electronic dance music concert, and the DJs were already pumping the beats as the partiers arrived.

There will come a day when this, too, will be nostalgic, and parents in their 40s will be telling their kids all about how cool the EDM concerts of the past were. Maybe they’ll dress their kids up in neon and take them to a nostalgic dance-music lawn party at Governors Island. By then, there will be new sounds of love and romance.

               But every 17 years, when the high-pitched buzzing returns, we’ll be reminded that no matter what the era or the sound, young love is all about living in the moment. It comes and goes so fast, you’d better just enjoy it. Like a firefly’s flicker. Or a cicada’s life above ground. Or – yes, I must say it – the blossoming of a big peony.

Turning Tom Seaver

It was full-blown baseball nerdiness, but we enjoyed it anyway. It was the kind of thing you’d never figure out unless you lived in our world. And we only did it whenever one of us had a birthday.

My brother Eric, my friend Ron and I had a mutual passion for baseball that far exceeded anything our mid-1980s world had to offer. So we expanded that world on our own. We went to stores and had our T-shirts silkscreened with Yankee uniform numbers and names long before sporting goods stores started selling those shirts. We joined fantasy baseball leagues long before those statistics could be compiled by web sites. We played Wiffle Ball for hours with make-believe lineups made from major-league teams.

And then there was this birthday thing. Instead of saying “Happy 17th, Warren,” my brother and friend would say to me, “Hey, you’re Mickey Rivers this year.” Instead of being 23, I was “Don Mattingly.” And instead of wishing one of them a happy 31st, I’d tell them they’d reached “Dave Winfield.” I guess when you’ve got so many uniform numbers floating around amid your baseball memories, you’d might as well find a use for them. So, during each birthday, we’d connect our years-old to the numbers worn by those pinstriped heroes we used to cheer for every summer night.

And during those years when there were no great Yankee uniform numbers attached to our new age, it was even more fun to try and remember lesser-known players who’d worn those digits. “You’re Bob Shirley,” one of us would say when we’d reached age 29, harkening back to the left-handed reliever of the mid-1980s. Or “Happy birthday, Kevin Maas” when we turned 24, referring to the slugging first baseman who started off his Yankee career like a superstar, then quickly became a much more pedestrian hitter.

I am pretty sure that the woman who would eventually marry me heard some of these conversations, and yet she chose to remain with me. You’d have to ask her why. I guess the important thing to tell you is that as I stand two days shy of 41 years of age, I do not partake in this nonsense anymore. I don’t sit around and think about the ballplayers who have worn the number my aging body will be donning throughout the year. That’s really kids’ stuff, to be honest.

Tom Seaver. Eddie Mathews. Sterling Hitchcock.

OK, so maybe I do think about it a little bit. Just for a minute. Then I move on to other, more mature stuff. Like writing a blog about baseball and life.

Number 41 is not a big Yankee number. There have been somewhat effective pitchers with the number, such as Hitchcock and some guys from my childhood, like Joe Cowley and Shane Rawley. But it’s not a number you’ll see on a pinstriped uniform for sale at Modell’s. Over in Queens, however, Number 41 means an awful lot. Even more than it does in Atlanta, where Eddie Mathews’ number 41 is retired. Mathews was a great player, but he played nearly all of his career in Milwaukee, before the Braves moved south. For the Mets, however, Number 41 represents the only player in team history ever to have his number retired.

They called him “Tom Terrific,” and Tom Seaver lived up to every bit of that nickname. In a 20-year career, Seaver won more than 300 games and became one of the best pitchers of his era. He spent 11 of those years with the Mets, and most New York fans will tell you that the Mets should never have let him go. As a Yankee fan, I always followed Seaver from a distance, except when he showed up as a Yankees broadcaster after his retirement. But when I’d go out on the field to pitch, I’d always hear coaches comparing my delivery to that of Seaver. I had the full windup, the “drop and drive” delivery that saw my right knee scraping the ground and my right foot pushing off the rubber, followed by the overhand delivery with the good follow-through. Just like Seaver.

Of course, that delivery was the only similarity you could find between my pitching style and that of Tom Seaver. Once the ball left my hands, you might compare me to, say, Charlie Brown. But for an average pitcher, I was apparently pretty to watch. A vague reminder of a classic.

So that brings us to age 41 – a little more vintage than I envisioned myself being back in my pitching days. But here I am, Tom Seaver in age. I’m not dropping and driving anymore. Just workin’ for a livin’, raising a couple of kids, and still in love with the cute redhead I met back when I was still pitching and making those corny birthday jokes.

It’s not the kind of thing they retire uniforms for, I guess. But I’ll take it. And as for the growing older bit, why worry? There’s lots to look forward to. After all, I’m only one year away from Mariano Rivera. Three away from Reggie Jackson. And five away from Andy Pettitte.

Plenty of numbers to throw around for a good long while. Baseball nerds unite. And blow out your candles.

Closers & Connections (One Sixty-Two: Day 162)

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 Sixty-Two: Mariano Rivera, New York Yankees

When I was taking journalism courses in college, I studied many of the great American sportswriters. It didn’t take long for Roger Angell to quickly become a favorite. Angell’s breathtaking New Yorker essays showed me the extent to which baseball writing can be literature. I studied Angell’s stories and noticed his attention to detail, as well as his willingness to go beyond balls and strikes and into the larger stories taking place in a ballpark every day.

Thanks to writers like Angell and the incomparable Gary Smith of Sports Illustrated, my life as a sports fan, sports reader and sports writer is framed by the dual observations of the game itself and the stuff of life surrounding that game. My heart pounds when Mariano Rivera enters a Yankee game in the late innings of a playoff matchup: He’s out there, after all, because New York is trying to protect a razor-thin lead against a formidable foe. But amid the nail-biting suspense, I try and see the big picture as well. I view the cool with which a man like Rivera goes about dispatching elite hitters every day, and wonder how different his nerves are from those of a man who welds together steel beams 100 stories above Manhattan, or a woman who defuses bombs for a living. As Rivera finishes off a hitter for the final out, I wonder what it says about the man that he is able to smile and shake hands while also maintaining a composure that seems to say, “The win was great, but it’s not everything.”

When Rivera closes a game, as he’s done better than anyone in history, he seems to enjoy the moment while also looking ahead. Even after he’d finished off the Philadelphia Phillies in last year’s World Series, Rivera stood on the dais at Yankee Stadium and announced that he was ready to play ball for another half-decade. The man can finish things, but he knows that every ending is really just another beginning.

“Baseball is not life itself, although the resemblance keeps coming up,” Roger Angell wrote in his book Season Ticket. The great part about this aphorism is that you don’t have to force it. My wife bought some Turkey Hill ice cream today at Stop & Shop, and it came in a Yankee-themed box with a flavor titled “Pinstripe Brownie Blast.” Now that is an example of a forced baseball-to-life connection. We didn’t need the brownie blast to see baseball and life interweaving – clearly, my wife had gone food shopping without eating a full breakfast today, and her hunger had left her buying food items in a manner befitting George Steinbrenner’s free-agent splurges of the 1980s: She was eagerly snatching up the fancy-looking stuff, buying on impulse rather than deliberate planning. Amy may not like this ice cream in the end, but for the moment it was a headline-grabbing purchase in our house.

Another arduous regular season draws to a close this weekend, with the playoffs set to begin in a few days. Sometime during the week, I’m sure Amy and I will find ourselves sitting in our living room, watching nervously as Mariano Rivera takes to the mound in the ninth inning. Our hearts will race a bit, but I’m sure we’ll calm ourselves down with a nice bowl of Pinstripe Brownie Blast. It will taste good enough to remind us both that baseball, like life, is about far more than the drama of the moment. In my final days of life, I don’t know that I’ll be able to recall what the Yankees did in 2010. But I know I’ll be able to remember what it felt like to sit next to my wife, eating some ice cream with her, while watching a ballgame together in our home.

In the end, it’s always about the connections – with those we know, with those we meet, and with our own selves. It’s always more about the hug Rivera just gave to his catcher than it is about the final pitch he threw. You don’t build a relationship with a pitch. But you can do it just fine with a hug.

When the Boss Listened (One Sixty-Two: Day 82)

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 Eighty-Two: Andy Pettitte, New York Yankees (via George Steinbrenner)

What is strong leadership? Is it getting the job done, no matter what the cost? Is it setting a standard for dignity and effort, with the knowledge that others will watch and follow your example? Must a successful leader rule by fear and intimidation, or is it possible instead to lead more effectively through quiet determination and clear communication?

As dozens of baseball players, managers, executives and media types commented today on the death of New York Yankees Owner George Steinbrenner, they said many kind words about a man who was driven to win. But as they spoke of Steinbrenner, the underlying discussion these folks were having was one on leadership. Was Steinbrenner a positive leader, one to be honored for all time? Or was he a pushy, overly involved boss who instilled more trepidation in his employees than trust?

I’ve followed the New York Yankees closely for 33 years, and in my formative years I watched Steinbrenner blow through managers, third-base coaches and front-office executives like a fussy homemaker ever dissatisfied with his living-room furniture. What’s more, Steinbrenner would constantly trade young prospects for veterans past their prime, and he would publicly berate his players time and time again.

This came to a head in 1990, when Steinbrenner was found to have paid a gambler in order to try and find incriminating information about his own player, outfielder Dave Winfield. Fay Vincent, who was commissioner of baseball at the time, banned Steinbrenner from the game for two years.

Yankee Stadium was a lonely place in 1990, as the home team was baseball’s worst franchise and fans could constantly be heard chanting “Steinbrenner Sucks” from the stands. I can recall feeling as though the suspension of Steinbrenner had given my team new hope. And indeed, that’s exactly what happened: The team’s front office executives worked to develop talented young players such as Derek Jeter, Bernie Williams, Mariano Rivera, Andy Pettitte and Jorge Posada. When these players matured, they were not traded, as had been the Steinbrenner way. Instead, they were inserted into the New York lineup.

By the time Steinbrenner returned, he could see that this plan was working. And so he did something that all good leaders do: He listened to his employees’ plan, accepted it, and changed his ways. By 1996, his Yankees were world champions again. Last year, New York won its fifth title in the past 14 years, three more than any other team has won in that time span.

In the early 2000s, Steinbrenner had one more relapse into his blustery ways, deciding strangely that Andy Pettitte – clearly his most reliable pitcher from 1995-2003 – was not worth signing anymore. He also went on to sign a few more of those big-name stars who looked good on paper but didn’t quite fit the Yankee mold. After he’d gotten Jason Giambi, Gary Sheffield and Randy Johnson out of his system and seen no titles as a result of it, Steinbrenner again listened as his general manager laid out a blueprint for developing from within and signing free-agent players who suited the Yankees’ needs. Again he listened, and agreed. So players such as Robinson Cano and Phil Hughes were not traded, and instead became All-Stars. Players such as CC Sabathia and, yes, Andy Pettitte were signed to free-agent contracts. Last year’s Yankees gave Steinbrenner one more championship – his seventh since buying the Yankees in 1973. Pettitte pitched the clinching game in all three rounds of the playoffs.

Today, as news of Steinbrenner’s passing spread throughout the country, Cano and Hughes and Sabathia and Pettitte all were in Anaheim to represent the Yankees as American League All-Stars. The plan is working, even if the Boss is not there to see it through anymore. I never met the man, so I can’t chime in on his character. But I think the sight of Andy Pettitte cruising through Inning 3 of tonight’s All-Star Game says something about this mercurial owner: He slowed down, shifted gears, and tried a new approach. He even stopped firing so many managers and coaches.

Ironically, early-21st century media have brought a reality-TV culture that thrives on intimidation, dismissed contestants and the words “You’re fired.” In the South Bronx, that’s so 1985. George Steinbrenner, dead at 80, learned patience. In doing so, he taught us all a lesson in leadership: It’s never too late to change.

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.

Super Cold (One Sixty-Two: Day 34)

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-Four: Ike Davis, New York Mets

So they’re going to play a Super Bowl in Jersey. This seems about as wise an idea as hiring Vanilla Ice to sing at the Super Bowl halftime show. Which, considering the weather around here in February, might actually be a fitting choice.

Whoever earns the right to play in Super Bowl XLVIII will have the privilege of suiting up at the New Meadowlands Stadium in lovely East Rutherford, N.J. If you’re looking for someplace to watch U2 in concert this summer, New Meadowlands is the perfect spot. But a Super Bowl? If I’m spending the kind of money they charge for a ticket to the big game, I want to see it in the most pleasant weather possible. Give me Pasadena, not past the Turnpike.

If the National Football League is going to play a Super Bowl in the Northeast, then maybe Major League Baseball should re-visit that proposal it received from Buffalo, N.Y., to host a major-league franchise. Back in the early 1990s, when baseball was expanding from 26 to 30 teams, Buffalo was one of the finalists. But, alas, it lost out to such warm-weather cities as Miami, Phoenix and Tampa. The one northern city given a franchise was Denver. And while the Colorado Rockies do have their share of snow-outs, a Buffalo team might spend most of April sliding around in the slush and snow.

There is a professional baseball team in Buffalo, albeit a minor-league one. The Buffalo Bisons serve as the New York Mets’ Triple-A affiliate. The team plays its games in open-air Coca-Cola Field, which seats more than 18,000. Up until a few weeks ago, Ike Davis was hitting the ball all over that field. But when you’re too proficient a hitter in the minors, you soon find yourself suiting up for the show.

And so now Ike Davis finds himself starting at first base for the Mets, plying his trade 25 miles from the site of Super Bowl XLVIII. Davis is doing well so far, hitting .282 in his first month as a big-leaguer. The 23-year-old seems able to excel regardless of the weather or the city. Davis even connected on the first pitch he saw from the great Mariano Rivera on Friday night. Davis smashed the Yankee pitcher’s famous cutter into right field for a run-scoring double.

To hit Rivera so hard, on your first try, is a sign that this Davis kid has some big-game talent. And maybe even nerves of steel. Or ice. Ice. Baby. Bring him to the Jersey Super Bowl. He can handle the chill.

Rooting for the Wrong Ending

It’s OK to root for my school, I’m telling myself. It’s not un-American.

Seven and a half years ago, I was rooting passionately for the Yankees to defeat the Arizona Diamondbacks in the World Series. I’d have done that anyway, but the events of September 11th placed the World Series storyline in a whole different light. The Bombers weren’t just playing for themselves, it seemed – they were playing for an entire city, one in need of all the inspiration it could get.

When Luis Gonzalez’ bloop single won the Series for Arizona in the last inning of the deciding game, it seemed as though someone had sabotaged the script and ended everything all wrong. Who really needed to see people hootin’ and hollerin’ in Phoenix at that time? Why was New York facing a sports-related heartbreak after all it had endured that fall? It was like leaving Dorothy in Oz with no good witch to save her, just Toto and a bunch of Munchkins.

Of course, the beauty of sports is that there is no set script (1919 World Series notwithstanding) and the thrill of the unexpected brings its share of joys and sorrows to the die-hard fan. We can write all we want about what a certain victory would mean to a town, a city, or a region, yet the facts remain that there’s a game to be played and symbolism doesn’t suit up to play; he just watches in press row.

So that takes us to tonight, in Detroit, when the North Carolina Tar Heels take on the Michigan State Spartans for the NCAA Division I men’s basketball championship. It is true, there has been incredible suffering among auto workers in Michigan and among those residents of Detroit itself. Only the heartless would lack sympathy for the thousands of unemployed in this area, or for the auto workers who are about to sacrifice portions of their precious pensions just to keep their jobs, or for the residents of Detroit who walk past empty storefronts and long for a new day. No matter how we feel toward the auto companies themselves, it has been a long, hard road for the people of Detroit, and they could use a pick-me-up as much as anyone this side of New Orleans.

It is most serendipitous that Detroit was able to host the Final Four this year, at a time when its economy could use a real jolt. Even more exciting for Michigan, though, is the fact that the Spartans are playing in the title game. As they suit up tonight, Tom Izzo’s players will try to win for themselves, for their school and for their region.

It sounds like a great, great story. The only problem here is that I went to the other school, the one that Michigan State is playing. I’d really like to see North Carolina win. And I have nothing against Detroit, auto workers or anyone in the Midwest. I just really like Carolina basketball. I feel somehow ashamed of that today, as I know the preferred plot favors the local guys winning one for Motown.

So if indeed the championship trophy is bathed in Carolina Blue tonight, I might just do one thing: I might forgive Luis Gonzalez. He didn’t mean to bruise my heart when he touched up Mariano Rivera with that well-placed single in November of ‘01. Neither did the Arizona fans. It’s just a game, and you don’t get to pick the ending. You just root for your guys, then get back to the literary devices of your own life.

The Promise of a Nation

My grandfather passed away two years ago at the age of 88. He had lived a long life, and in doing so had grown quite a bit in his outlook toward those of different races. I can recall, some 30 years ago, sitting in the car with him while he told me that black players were ruining baseball. He said that guys like Reggie Jackson and Dave Parker, with their “cocky” attitudes, were bringing the game down. I can remember feeling an uncomfortable pang in my gut while he told me this, hoping his diatribe would end soon.

Maybe it was his memories of Mr. Henry that brought about the changes I’d see later on in my grandfather’s life. Mr. Henry was a black man, a teacher, at PS 12 on Staten Island. One day, nearly 80 years ago, Mr. Henry asked my grandfather if he wanted to try pitching during a baseball game. Some 15 years later, my grandfather was earning a living as a minor-league ballplayer. He’d go on to play semi-pro ball for years. His success in baseball gave him self-esteem and business contacts that would affect his life forever.

So while my grandfather may have had trouble figuring out what to make of Dave Parker, he knew deep down that labeling a race wasn’t the way to go. As he grew older, our baseball talks often centered around our mutual appreciation for African-American players such as Derek Jeter and Bernie Williams, as well as other players of color, from Mariano Rivera to Hideki Matsui. As he told me stories of his youth, he spoke with fondness of Mr. Henry.

My grandfather still had his blind spots, but he had seen so much change, so much growth, in America that he was willing to reevaluate things. I thought of him on Monday, when Madelyn Dunham, the grandmother of Barack Obama, passed away at age 86. Obama has spoken about his grandmother’s racial blind spots as well, but he has also spoken with such gratitude for the devotion she showed in helping to raise her African-American grandson. Her views toward race were imperfect, but in the end deeply compassionate and deeply hopeful.

I think my grandfather would have had a great time talking with Mrs. Dunham. They would have had a lot in common – pride in their grandsons, and pride in America. They would have talked about the changes they’d seen around them, and about the need to understand and adapt.

Because sometimes, the change we need is a kind that requires growth and acceptance and, yes, equality. There comes a time when the best candidate for the most important job in our country is indeed African-American. And when that time comes, we ask, can we push past those blind spots? Can we take that step forward? Instead of calling this black man “cocky,” or something far worse, can we just call him “Mr. President”?

Yes. We. Can.

Yes we did. On November 4, 2008, there were so many people, with stories just like my grandfather’s and Barack Obama’s grandmother, who took that step forward. They cast a ballot not only for the best candidate we could have hoped for, but also for the promise of the Declaration itself. It is a promise that, in our very best moments, guides the moral compass of this nation with breathtaking beauty. It is the kind of promise I will gladly share with my own grandchildren.

Take Me Out to the Debate

Four years ago, I asked a friend a pointed question: “Which do you think would be worse, the Red Sox defeating the Yankees in the playoffs, or George Bush defeating John Kerry?” His response was simple: Let’s not take our baseball too seriously here.

He was right. I didn’t get either of the victories I was looking for in 2004, but it was only the latter that made a difference. Four years later, I don’t have the luxury of rooting for the Yankees in the playoffs this season. But I do have my vote, and in October 2008 the American presidential race is really the only game of consequence.

As I watched the final presidential debate Wednesday night, I found myself reflecting on the emotions I’ve felt while watching these contests. This year, I find myself deeply invested in one ticket, as I believe Senators Obama and Biden are clearly the more qualified candidates. With that in mind, I’ve found my body language during these debates to be strikingly similar to the behavior I show during Yankees playoff games.

I can’t sit still. I roam from room to room, cleaning the house while listening to their words. I stop and watch one of them answer a question, but when the back-and-forth gets going, my heart races some more. I move about the house again, making my lunch for the next day or getting my clothes ready. In Wednesday’s final debate, with Obama riding high in the polls, I felt as though I were watching Mariano Rivera pitch the Yankees through the ninth inning, trying to hold onto that lead by staying cool under pressure. Even so, that pressure was too much to take through the constricted medium of a television set.

I watched the CNN Ohio voters give their immediate reactions to the words in the debate, and it reminded me of the scrolling ticker at the bottom of a sports event. I listened to the political pundits speak after the debates, and their partisan bickering seemed as predictable as the goofy back-slapping in modern postgame sports desks. Even so, I found myself glued to the post-debate analysis, even though I knew what was going to be said – just as I find myself watching those postgame playoff interviews, even when I know players will give the standard responses. I even watched replays of key moments in the debates, just as I turn to SportsCenter after a big game to see the postgame highlights.

There are similarities between these Fall Classics, all right. But there are differences, too. The thing about a baseball game is that the fan at home has no impact whatsoever on whether the favorite team wins or loses. But democracy is different; the candidates’ fans don’t have to sit idly. So I’ve made my donation. I’ve got my lawn sign and car magnet. I’ve helped a half-dozen people register to vote. I’m thinking about taking a drive to Pennsylvania or spending a few hours on the phone with voters in North Carolina.

It’s the late innings, and my candidate needs to seal the deal. I’m willing to answer the call. Mariano Rivera doesn’t need me to do that.