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How Lovely is the Sudden Death of the Light: Autumn's Game
I.
Tuesday, October 7, 2003
Well, after a long, tv-less summer, Ami and I decided to invest in an antenna in order to watch the baseball postseason. I won't pretend it was her idea.
So far, the investment has more than paid off--this October has all the markings of a classic, with two decisive games in the opening round, and the Red Sox and Cubs both winning. I watched both games - the first pitted the offensively dominant Braves, who were baseball's best team most of the summer, against the historically hapless Cubbies, who won the Central division this year largely based on a young starting rotation that is the envy of every team in the league excepting Oakland. Kerry Wood, who is only the Cubs' second-best starter, was brilliant through eight innings, mixing a high 90's rising fastball with knee-buckling curves.
The only time the Braves really mounted anything like a challenge to the imposing Wood was in the seventh inning, when they put men on first and second with no one out, and slugger Gary Sheffield coming to bat. Sheffield's batting stance is all violent, tensed-up energy--he stands against in the pitcher and wags his bat back in forth in the air constantly until the very last moment when he swings. The unorthodox batting style might help put him in the Hall of Fame one day, though, and this season it helped him to probably the third best offensive marks in the National League, behind the god-like Barry Bonds and quietly explosive Albert Pujols. Cubs fans everywhere had to be imagining the worst - a three run homer.
Their fears proved to be foolish, however, when Sheffield hit a hard, sinking liner to center, which Cubs outfielder Kenny Lofton appeared to trap as he caught the ball. Replays would later show that Lofton actually did catch the ball without the help of the outfield grass, but the umpire said he didn't catch it, much to the confusion of Braves baserunner Marcus Giles, who was forced out at second after he retreated to first base, thinking the ball had been caught. When it was all over, Sheffield was safe at first, and one run was in, and still only one out; but Chipper Jones could only manage a hard grounder to short off of a Woods breaking ball, and the consequent 6-4-3 double play ended the inning.
After that brief flirtation with offensive effectiveness, the Braves hitters quickly reverted back to their early habits of striking out on high, hard fastballs or swinging at curves in the dirt, and the game ended without anymore drama, 5-1. The Cubs seemed to take a brief moment after the last Brave made the last out before they began celebrating, as though they were still expecting the home team to somehow mount a last minute rally and dash their World Series hopes. But when your team hasn't won a pennant in 58 years or a chamionship in 95, a little disbelief seems appropriate. Once the final score registered, though, the Cubs were giddy with delight--Moises Alou and Sammy Sosa hopping to slap gloves in the air, Kenny Loften grinning hysterically as he charged in from center, threading through the pack of Cubs fans who had made the trek to Atlanta and were now running on the field.
The Cubs, of course, have a long way to go--the Marlins team they'll face in the National League Championship Series will be a tough match, especially with their youthful exuberance and 60,000 screaming fans who only lately remembered there was actually a baseball team in Florida--but, for now, Wrigleyville is happier than it's been in a long, long time--and even this diehard Cardinal fan can't begrudge them that.
II.
Wednesday, October 8
Game 5 of the Red Sox/A's series was Monday night, and it was even more enjoyable than the Cubs game...because it was a better game, and because my wife stayed up to watch it with me. I'm amazed at the effort she's putting into understanding baseball, how it demonstrates her love for me, and how she's beginning to find pleasure in it, too. Ami's parents and sister also came over for dinner before the game-I grilled hamburgers and hotdogs on the deck and talked to her dad about seminary while the girls were inside. We all ate out there and afterwards sat in the growing dark, listening to Simon and Garfunkel and the woods and not talking much. It's times like that I'm glad we live in the country.
Oh, and the game: it started out with two of the major's best pitchers, Pedro Martinez and Barry Zito cruising through the first five innings or so without breaking a sweat. Martinez is widely acknowledge to be baseball's best when he's on, and he was on Monday, with his hard, moving, two-seam fastball, good slider and paralyzing changeup. However, as dominant as Pedro was, Zito was better, dropping his big, sweeping overhand curve in for strikes, which left the Red Sox batters to choose between trying to flail at the ball as it dropped or hoping, usually in vain, that the pitch would miss the strike zone. 1-0 Oakland, after five.
Then, in the sixth inning, Zito inexplicably lost his control, and Manny Ramirez finally hit a ball hard, pulling it far over the leftfield wall for a three run homer, giving the Sox a 4-1 lead. At that point, the game should have been over...a three run lead, late in the game, Pedro on the mound. But these are the Red Sox.
And so it was that, after a scary moment in the 8th, when Johnny Damon and Damien Jackson collided with each other in the outfield, stunning both fielders and seemingly everyone in the stadium except for Nomar Garciaparra, who reached between his prone teammates, found the ball and nailed the Oakland batter at second to end the inning, the Sox found themselves in a jam in the bottom of the 9th with Oakland runners at 2nd and 3rd, one out, and a scanty one run lead. Enter Derek Lowe, the passionate sinkerballer who started his career as a closer but is now Boston's 2nd best starter. Lowe struck out the first batter, walked the second to load the bases, and then, with his team's season riding on every pitch, threw a backdoor sinker that caught the inside part of the plate, striking Terrence Long out looking and winning the series for the Sox. As Ami said to me, it was almost too much to watch. Too beautiful. God is good for making a game like this.
III.
Thursday, October 9
I was reading an essay today by Roger Angell about the 2002 World Series, the first all-wild card affair (which could happen this year, too), and stumbled across this bit about Ted Williams. The Splendid Splinter died last year, and Angell, the poet laureate of baseball, does a beautiful job memorializing him. One of the best parts of baseball is its history, and one of the best parts of its history is the batting stance and smooth swing of Ted Williams.The picture of Ted batting is burned deep into the collective New England memory: the youthful, intelligent gaze switching from his bat to the pitcher and back again; the loosening shrug he gave his limbs and shoulders as he stepped in; the lightly bent knees and tilted head; and the bat held well up behind, completing a tall vertical line at plate-side--from foot to knee to elbow to chin to bat tip--that defined for the pitcher the dimensions of the chilling task at hand. His right-front shoulder drooped as the pitcher's motion began (he batted left, of course), putting the bat still farther back, but your attention now swerved to his lead hip, which had cocked and turned even as he strode forward, so that his body, now moving swiftly toward the pitch, simultaneously coiled and twisted away. The extended swing (if he chose to swing) would start a fraction late but then catch up, reaching full power as his hands and arms drove through the ball. But that hip-cock was the whole trick: it made you smile even as you drew in your breath. It kept him loose--there was a touch of cha-cha-cha there--and it provided that extra beat of time which hitters call the prime ingredient of a sound swing. He'd given himself a chance.
He never sounded lofty about hitting, despite a lifetime .344 average, five hundred and twenty-one homers, and a .482 lifetime on-base percentage (the best ever), plus the ghostly speculative numbers that could be tacked onto his totals had he not missed the better part of five seasons while in service as a fighter pilot. He appeared to remember baseball at first hand, without sadness or sentimentality. I recall a mid-eighties Florida conversation of his with the eminent outfielder slugger Gary Matthews, then with the Phillies, who wanted to know the best response for a batter to a pitcher's backup slider after two fastballs up and in. "Why, take that pitch, then!" Ted cried. "Just let it go by. Don't be so critical of yourself. Don't try to be a .600 hitter all the time. Don't you know how hard this all is?"
IV.
Friday, October 10
After splitting the first two games in the Bronx, the Yankees and Red Sox are heading to Beantown, and a Saturday showdown between two future Hall-of-Famers--the Pedro and the Rocket. I watched both of the opening games, which were a near mirror of each other, score-wise, with the Sox winning 5-2 on Tuesday, and the Yanks coming back to claim a 6-2 victory last night. Both were well-played, but lacked the drama and intensity of the five game opening round series set, and I watched them that way; drinking coffee and reading and talking to Ami at the kitchen table as we watched.
In game one the Yankees were thought to have a decided advantage, with their ace, Mike "Moose" Mussina pitching on six days rest, while the Red Sox, because of the five game showdown with the A's, were forced to start only their third best hurler, Tim Wakefield. Of course, "hurler," usually a quite good descriptive noun for major league pitchers, is a misnomer for the 37 year old Florida native, who never throws the ball harder than 80 miles an hour, and most often throws a knuckleball that floats in at around the mid-sixties. "Tosser" would be more accurate.
The knuckleball really is a truly ridiculous pitch, slowly arching toward the plate like something you'd throw your eight year old son (pitchers throw sixty-five mph in the Little League World Series) before it dances up, down or sideways. Hitting a knuckleball is like "trying to hit a bumblebee with a boat paddle" I heard someone say one time; and I think what they meant is that it's difficult to do, and even harder to do very well. That was certainly the case for the Yankees on Tuesday, who were usually able to hit the ball, only striking out twice against Wakefield, but very rarely hit it hard, managing only two hits in six innings. The Red Sox got three home runs from their much ballyhooed and muscular lineup, but the game, and night, belonged to the knuckleballer.
Wakefield's pitching career is something of an accident; he was drafted in 1988 by Pittsburgh, after four record setting seasons as a first baseman at his alma mater, Florida Tech. But after a season or two in the minors it became clear that Wakefield wasn't big league material; until, presumably in a moment of desperation, the young, weak-hitting first baseman realized he could throw a knuckleball. Throwing the knuckler is truly a gift, a special vocation; like most things with the pitch, the ease with which it appears to be delivered is deceiving. Roger Angell writes about the pitch in his book, Once More Around the Park,The mystery of the knuckleball is ancient and honored. Its practitioners cheerfully admit that they do not understand why the pitch behaves the way it does; nor do they know, or care much, which particular lepidopteran path it will follow on its way past the batter's infuriated swipe. They merely prop the ball on their fingertips (not, in actual fact, on the knuckles) and launch it more or less in the fashion of a paper airplane, and then, most of the time, finish the delivery with a faceward motion of the glove, thus hiding a grin.
There's something deeply biblical about the absurdity of the knuckleballer; like David, he strides confidently to the mound armed with only a few pebbles to use against his much stronger and more athletic opponents' swords and spears--and on Tuesday, he got Goliath squarely between the eyes.
Last night's game two was dominated by the starting pitcher, as well, but this time it was the one on the opposing side. Just as in the opening series against Minnesota, Andy Pettitte was called upon to start the second game for the Yankees in somewhat desperate circumstances; if the Bombers had lost last night they would have headed for Fenway down two games to none, and knowing they'd have to beat Pedro to keep it from being a three-game margin, which no team has ever recovered from. The tall, lanky Texan is the quietest Yankee pitcher; surrounded by Mussina, Clemens and Wells, he's easily forgotten--though on most teams he'd be a left-handed ace, with his good fastball, changeup and sinker, along with a nasty pickoff move to first (even when Pettitte's not actually picking runners off, he's impacting the game; last night Gabe Kapler got such a bad break when he tried to steal second in the first inning that he was out by five feet, saving at least one run). Rumor is that Andy--who is engaging, though soft-spoken, in person (or at least on TV), had a lot to do with that other Texan taking to Yankees clubhouse the way he has.
Even though he gave up six hits in the first two innings last night, Pettitte allowed only one run, courtesy of two double plays and good situational pitching. Then, after the second frame, the lefthander got in a zone, pulling down the brim of his cap and holding up his black glove as he read Jorge Posada's signs, so that all you could see was were his two dark eyes peering out before he went into his delivery. Ami was especially struck by the intentionality of his windup, the way he slowly and deliberately raised his leg and then placed it down as he followed-through with his long left arm, and said so. He was working quickly, and well. By the sixth inning, the score was 4-2, and there wasn't even a hint of a BoSox comeback brewing; and with Jose Contreras, the rookie Cuban, and Mariano Rivera coming on in relief, the Yankees never even allowed them to consider it.
So now it's the best of five. One gets the feeling that this could be historic series, and if the Red Sox can only exorcise this demon, winning the World Series will certainly follow--after all, it is the curse of the Babe, so it would seem fitting that the Sox would have to beat his team in order to end it. On to Fenway, and destiny.
V.
Monday, October 13
With their backs against the wall on Sunday, down three games to one, the Marlins pinned their hopes on Josh Beckett. Born May 15, 1980, Beckett is some six weeks older than I am, and has been mostly inconsistent over his two year major league career, with a record of 17-17, though his ERA is better than that, at 3.32. His main calling card is a fastball that tops out around 98 mph, "high heat," as they say. But as with most power pitchers, Beckett is effective when he can rely on his other pitches, too--a big, overhand curve and a developing changeup.
I missed the first four innings hiking in the Shenandoah Park with Ami and Aaron and Nicole, but we heard the rest of the game on the radio driving home, and then caught the last few innings on TV. When we started listening in the bottom of the fourth, it was clear that there was a first-class pitchers' duel going on--both Beckett and Zambrano were throwing well, the score was 0-0, and it was clear that whoever blinked first would probably lose. Zambrano had been in some tight spots, but had pitched out of them, while Beckett had yet to give up a hit.
The turning point of the game came in the top of the fifth, when Aramis Ramirez, who had already homered three times in the series, got into a dramatic showdown with Beckett leading off the inning, fouling off pitch after pitch on a 3-2 count until, on the eleventh pitch of the at-bat, Ramirez lined a high hard one down the left-field line, with only about 18 inches keeping it on the wrong side of being a homerun. It's hard to overstate the importance of this at-bat to the game; you've got two young starters facing each other in their most important game ever--the score's knotted at 0, and one the other team's best just smacked your best pitch, only barely missing a home run. And so, with all the naivete and stubbornness of youth, Beckett rears back and throws him the same exact pitch; a high, hard fastball--but this time, Ramirez swings and misses. Game over. The Marlins score twice in the bottom of the inning, and the Cubs don't come close to threatening again.
And the end of the game, Beckett's stat line was indeed impressive; nine innings (his first career complete game), two hits, zero runs, one walk, eleven strikeouts, only 115 pitches, and remarkably, only five balls hit out of the infield. But what I'll remember about that game is that one moment in the 5th inning, driving back from the mountains and hearing Josh Beckett give Aramis Ramirez exactly the pitch he wanted; and striking him out anyway.
VI.
Thursday, October 16
In contrast to the American league, this year's NLCS featured two teams that few would have predicted in April--the Marlins lost 83 games last season, the Cubs 95. But now, after seven breathless games that ended with exactly 26 happy human beings in Chicago (one very old manager and 25 mostly young players), I don't think anyone would have rather seen the Braves and Giants.
The series began with two teams peaking at the right time; the Marlins had beaten the Giants in three straight close games to upset the defending National League Champions, while the Cubs outlasted the Atlanta Braves in a tight, five-game series, winning almostly entirely on the pitching of their two fine young starters, Kerry Wood and Mark Prior. Game One featured Josh Beckett against Carlos Zambrano, but the drama came after both starters had hit the showers; down two runs, Slammin' Sammy Sosa hit one high and deep with one man on and two outs in the bottom of the 9th. As the ball floated into a crowd of raucous Cubs fans, one could feel nearly a century of angst being stripped away in one moment--the Cubs were playing for the pennant, and their favorite slugger had come through in with the game on the line. Mike Lowell eventually won the game for the Marlins with a home run of his own in the 11th, but the Cubs took the momentum from their near come-back and turned it into three straight wins, blasting the Marlins 12-3 in Game Two, winning another close, extra-inning marathon 5-4 in Game Three, and cruising again in Game Four to an 8-3 victory. The Cubs couldn't have planned it better--they would have to lose three consecutive games to miss the World Series; two of those games would be started by Prior and Wood, and both would be at Wrigley. It seemed impossible for them to lose. Not so, not so, Chicago.
The collapse began innocently enough. Josh Beckett, the young Marlins ace pitched the game of his life in game five, beating a weary Carlos Zambrano. No problem. The Cubs had Wrigley, Prior and Wood, and Beckett seemed done for the series. Game Six followed the script perfectly, Prior pitching his usual excellent game and the Cubs getting a run early and adding to the margin again in the 6th and 7th innings. Mike Mordecai ground to third to start the 8th, and the Cubs were five outs from history. Next up, Juan Pierre doubled to the gap, bringing up Luis Castillo, who worked a full count and then hit a high, foul, pop fly to left field, seemingly giving the Cubs their second out of the inning. But when Moises Alou leaped into the first rows of the seats to catch Castillo's ball he found himself competing with an oblivious clump of Chicago fans, every one regaled in sweatshirts and hats of the team they were dooming by their (understandable) enthusiasm. The ball fell harmlessly to the ground. Alou and Prior both yelled obscenities, Castillo walked on the next pitch, and the floodgate opened. After a string of singles, doubles, walks and errors, the Marlins found themselves ahead 8 runs to 3, and 39,577 fans ready to riot in the streets sat in stunned silence.
Much has been made of the fan's interference with Alou's attempted catch, but the blame truly must rest on the Cubs. If Mark Prior makes a good next pitch to Castillo on that 3-2 count, biting the corner with his curve, say, or blowing his fastball by him, everyone forgets about the fan's play and the Cubs mostly likely get to the World Series. But Prior, in striking contrast to Josh Beckett, showed his youth by not even coming close to the plate with his next pitch and then giving up a series of hard-hit balls. The Cubs unraveled when they had to keep their composure, and they lost the series because of it.
Game seven was an anti-climatic affair; the Cubs went up 5-3 in the 3rd, but after the Marlins scored three times in the 6th, the Cubs never mounted anything at all like a rally, meekly allowing Josh Beckett to shut them down the rest of way. Beckett was pitching on only two day's rest and further confirmed his new ace status by tossing four innings of one-hit ball, even though he obviously was tired and didn't have his best stuff. Then, in the 9th, when Paul Bako's soft fly to left landed in Jeff Conine's glove, pandemonium broke loose--hugs and high-fives and pounding mobs of players dancing on the infield. Jack McKeon, who at 72 had given up coaching his grandson's little league team in May to take over the floundering Marlins was thrilled, in a grandfatherly way--he had waited a long time for this moment, too. It would be his first World Series. And so, Florida was going to play for a World Championship for the second time in its decade long history. Chicago had failed to win the pennant for the 59th straight season. There were tears at Wrigley, but not of joy.
As I noted earlier, much will be made of "the play" in the months to come. It is likely that Moises Alou's failed catch will be placed in the same sacred area of memory as Bill Buckner's muffed groundball. Regardless of all that, it is certain that the best team won this series. The Florida Marlins found themselves on the brink of elimination in three consecutive games and won all three, coming from behind in two of them. When all conventional logic said that this was the Cubs' year, that they were destined to win, the Marlins simply put their heads down and kept playing, scratching out runs on singles and doubles, pitching well on two day's rest, never believing that the games were over until they'd had their last say. In contrast, the Cubs lost one out on an unfortunate play and still couldn't win a game they still led 3-0 with only five outs to go--and then were so shell-shocked in the next game that they couldn't mount even a whimper of a rally against a twenty-three year old throwing on short rest. After the events of the last 48 hours, it is abundantly clear that that most intangible of baseball qualities, heart, does in fact exist, and only the Marlins had it. Whoever wins tonight's game between the Red Sox and Yankees will be heavily favored to bring home the Series crown, but they will overlook the Marlins at their own peril. Indeed, they had better prepare for a war, and a team that doesn't know when they're beat, because that is what they will get.
VII.
Monday, October 20
With apologies to Red Sox fans everywhere who believe so desperately in the beauty of their own century long anti-Yankee angst, watching the Sox-Yank series was a bit like observing Hitler and Stalin duke it out on the Eastern front during World War II. Game 3 was where things began to turn for the worse; with Pedro and the Rocket pitching, the Saturday afternoon match-up had all the markings of a classic battle until it dissolved into an adolescent chicken fight. Trouble started brewing in the third, when Pedro nailed Karim Garica in the back and then got into a Spanish cursing match with Jorge Posada while jabbing his index finger at his head, communicating in a language that everyone involved could understand. Then, in the next inning, Manny Ramirez took loud exception to a high (not inside, just high) fastball from Clemons, and started out to the mound, bat in hand, to discuss it with him. Of course, both benches emptied, Don Zimmer forgot he was 72 and went after Pedro (who was the real culprit) and the game was delayed for at least 15 minutes before the umpires sorted everything out and decided, remarkably, not to eject anyone. From this point of view anyway, it's clear that Pedro and Manny were the root causes of the whole battle; Pedro for hitting Garcia and taunting Posada, Manny for going after Clemons for no reason than his own ego--if it were up to me, both would have been watching the rest of the game on TV (which probably would have been good for the Sox, since they lost anyway).
After the third game, Wakefield momentarily straightened things out by pitching splendidly again in Game Four, tying the series at two apiece. The teams split the next two, leaving them knotted at three wins and forcing a Game Seven that featured a rematch between Pedro and Clemons. The pitching matchup turned out to be slightly overrated, as Clemons was knocked out in the fourth and Pedro blew a three run lead in the eighth, enabling Mariano Rivera to come in and throw three sparkling innings and hold the Red Sox long enough for the Yankees to score the winning run in the 11th. Aaron Boone's homer off Tim Wakefield (who, incidentally would have had three wins in the series if the Sox had managed to score) was a lovely thing to watch, and was a wonderful example of the kind of drama only those sports not tied to a clock can offer. The pure joy on his face and in his pumping fist as he rounded the bases was a beautiful, blessed thing; for one moment, the million dollar salary didn't matter, he was just a man celebrating hard work done well.
As the scruffy Boone's hit soared into the upper deck of left field, I have to admit that, even though I'd pulled for the Red Sox the entire series, I wasn't that disappointed. As I watched the Yankees mob Boone at the plate, Derek Jeter jump at least three feet in the air for joy, and Mariano Riviera crumple to the ground in delight, it was clear that, for all their sins, the Yankees play, and win, with class. For a team of superstars, the Yankees are surprisingly quiet; much of this owed to the leadership of players like Jeter and Pettitte, but it's difficult to imagine a Yankee pulling the same kind of self-interested antics Pedro and Manny did last Saturday, and harder still to imagine any of them needing the same kind of ego-massaging that the Red Sox's stars seem to require on a regular basis. Case in point--Ramirez took himself out of a crucial weekend series with the Yanks in August because of an "ankle injury." After being caught by the media in a bar late Saturday night, Ramirez didn't even show up to the game on Sunday and was AWOL until sometime Monday morning. Incidentally, the Yankees, who are often accused of "buying championships" start six "home-grown" regulars in their everyday lineup (Johnson, Posada, Jeter, Soriano, Williams, Rivera), while the Red Sox have only three (Nixon, Garciaparra and Varitek).
In the end, curses withstanding, the series came down to this: Grady Little sticking with his ace and de facto team leader, Pedro Martinez in the eighth inning with a two run lead and runners at 2nd and 3rd with only one out. The batter, of course, was the same Jorge Posada who Pedro had threatened in Game Three, who now flared an inside fastball in-between the shortstop and centerfielder to score both runs and tie the game the Yankees would later win, sending Pedro to the showers. The three games the Red Sox won in this series were started by Tim Wakefield, Tim Wakefield and John Burkett. If Pedro had held only one of the leads he was given in Game Three and Game Seven (two run lead in Gm. 3, four run in Gm. 7), the Red Sox would be playing in the World Series.
But I'll let Roger Angell have the last word. As he puts it,The top of the eleventh went away, to noisy, exhausted accompaniments; the latest Boston pitcher was Tim Wakefield, the tall knuckleballer who had embarrassed the Yankees with his spinless stuff, twice beating Mussina in close, low-scoring games. Mo was done: the balance had swung the other way. I looked at my scorecard to confirm the next Yankee batter—Aaron Boone, who had come into the game as a pinch-runner in the eighth—looked back, and saw the ball and the ballgame fly away on his low, long first-pitch home run into the released and exulting and rebelieving Yankee crowds. I yelled, too, but thought, Poor Boston. My god.
VIII.
Monday, October 27
The world series passed too quickly, seeming anti-climatic after the drama of the League Championship Series, which was a shame because there were some wonderful moments: Alex Gonzalez's 12th inning walk-off homer to win Game 4, Ugeth Urbina's brave stand in the 9th in Game 5, and, of course, Josh Beckett's masterful shutout in Game 6. The Marlins won in six, which didn't really surprise me; they were the younger, more resilient team--and besides, it was that kind of year. But twenty years from now, no one will talk of how Florida won, but how Boston and Chicago almost did. For one day, both Boston and Chicago will triumph; and their story will be all the better for the fall of '03 - like Odysseus, they had to come almost home and fail before they make that final journey.
"How lovely, how lovely, is the sudden death of the light / how long, how long, is the quiet dark of night?"
Joshua Anderson
October 2003
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