And normally, having more faith in medical science than I do in any other belief system mankind has managed to dream up, I would agree. But sometimes, I heed a higher calling.
I've tried 'em all, I really have, and the only church that truly feeds the soul, day in, day out, is the Church of Baseball.
-Annie Savoy, Bull Durham
No, maybe the liquid streaming from my pores wasn't merely the ridding of toxins, no brothers and sisters, maybe it was the Baseball Gods purging me of all the bad mojo I've endured since 1977, the summer before I turned 9, when I saw Ellis Valentine of the Montreal Expos unleash some sort of firestorm from the right field corner to the catcher on a line that makes the term 'nice throw' an embarrassing understatement.
That summer of '77 I became a convert, and left myself open to all the good and bad that role implies. I'm no Job, but the trials of a Montreal Expos fan have been tough. I won't list them all here, but the years 1979, 1981, 1993 and 1994 will always make me shudder. Rick Monday and Jeffrey Loria are the filthiest curse words I could ever utter. And the sight of Brad Wilkerson, 1st baseman for the Expos, crying like a baby as he waved farewell to the crowd at the last ever home game on September 29, 2004 is something that I'll never forget, no matter how much I want to.
As much as it pained me to watch the Expos leave Montreal, I was happy to see them go to Washington, where the owners might be willing to re-grow the harvested farm system, maybe sprinkle some cash on free agents and give them a venue meant for baseball, not some broken down UFO called Olympic Stadium in the suburbs that repelled spectators. Throw in some horrendous seasons that reaped once in a lifetime first round picks and things were looking up. Maybe 2012 will make us contenders? 2013 a playoff berth? That's what the baseball experts were mumbling and what fans were hoping. We were all drinking the Kool Aid.
Turns out, they were ahead of schedule. They finished the 2012 regular season with the best record in baseball, winning the NL East by 4 games over the Atlanta Braves. No scrambling for a wild card spot, no watching other teams celebrate, just home field advantage through the postseason. Sweet?
We don't know what to do tomorrow. It's Saturday, and we don't have a game.
-Mike Rizzo, Washington Nationals GM.
Bittersweet. After 4 games, the NLDS with the St. Louis Cardinals is tied 2-2. Gonzales vs. Wainwright, destined to be a pitcher's duel, right? Wrong. The Nationals came out and tore at Wainwright like he was a wrapped race car set on Christmas morning. They scored 6 runs and Wainwright was done in the third. Unfortunately, little did I know, the Nationals offence was also pretty much done, and out come the Cardinals like Michelangelo, chipping away a little masterpiece of a comeback on the usually stonewall Washington bullpen. Cut to the 9th. 7-5 Nationals. Drew Storen on the mound. Lead off double to Carlos Beltran who's been killing us all series. Shit. But two quick outs. Okay. One more out. That's all. Then I start focusing on the close up of Storen on my tv. As he sets up for the pitch he brings his glove close to his face and pauses. That's his natural windup. But as he pauses, I think I see his glove shaking. Is it the crowd stomping and making the camera shake? No, it's Storen, afraid to throw the next pitch in the wrong spot. And he does. Several times. Going to bottom 9, 9-7 Cards. Werth, Harper, and Zimmerman, the three that hit a double, triple and home run respectively in the first to tear a few layers of wrapping off Wainwright can't do anything in the home half. But all I can think of is Storen and all the fear in his quaking glove. Is that what I was thinking of laying there in a pool of sweat? Purging what Drew Storen wanted to sweat out but couldn't, having a glove betray him?
Dad? Did we win?
-Sam Hines, Son. Age 8.
My son Sam loves baseball as much as I do. Blind obedience. He's a talented player; his Little League coaches have asked him to skip a level next year. He practices his swing when he's walking or watching tv. We constantly play catch and we go up to the field by his school so I can pitch to him. He listens when I tell him the rules of a perfect swing: load hands, stride, throw knob of bat at ball, swing while exploding back hip, extension, follow through. And keep your head on the ball. Don't look to see where the ball is going, look to see where it is. He listens when I tell him that you can find the best player on a field by how well he uses his feet. The feet are key; they must anticipate your next move. Slow feet=safe base runners for the other team. He watches baseball movies with me, loves Mickey Mantle and Ted Williams because I always talk about them and show him clips on You Tube. He can imitate all of the Nationals' swings almost to perfection. His Bryce Harper is uncanny.
So when Sam walked into my bedroom the morning after the Nationals season ended and asked me what happened because the game was on too late for him to watch, I knew why I was sweating. It wasn't the flu. It wasn't for all the bad baseball moments that I've had, but for the one I was about to make for him.
