This week I delve into areas outside the pursuit of speed and BMWs. I venture into America's national pastime: baseball. For those of you who have been spending time on some other planet this summer, Mark McGwire of the Cardinals has been chasing Roger Marris' single season home run mark of 61. The race has been on essentially since the end of spring training. Last night he hit number 62, a screaming line drive just over the wall in left field. I think he'll crtank a few extra just for good measure. This was one of the longest standing records in baseball. Joltin' Joe Dimaggio's consecutive game hitting streak is one of the few remaining major records that has been with us longer. I have always been a big baseball fan. It isn't that I don't like other sports, it's just that there is something special about baseball. I grew up in Brooklyn, many will tell you that New York is clearly where my personality comes from, but that's an entirely different story. My mom was a huge Brooklyn Dodgers fan, they left the big apple in '57 to head west with the the Giants. Having a deep hatred for the Yankees it was simply not possible to switch allegiances simply because your team had left town, and the Yankees were the only major league team left in town. There were five dry years of no national league representation for New York then along came the Mets. They were housed originally in the Polo grounds left vacant by the Giants, but they were a national league team and that was good enough. I didn't get to see the first season, appearing on this earth in November of '62 I missed what some say was the most embarrassing season of all time. For the first few years they of course floundered. Then came the Miracle Mets of '69. Honestly, I don't really remember the series first hand, but for all of the early 70's I saw this series against the Orioles played again and again during every rain delay. The first series I can remember watching was when they did battle with the Big Red Machine for the National League Championship in '72, which they lost.
The baseball season is, to me, more genteel, more relaxing, yet all the while maintaining an excitement and anticipation unmatched by other sports. The season is contained from beginning to end in a single year. When you say the Mets were the World Champions in 1969. You don't have to think: "is that when the final game was played, or is that when the majority of the season was played". There is a warmth that you can feel when you think of baseball. The game is meant to be played on warm summer afternoons and in the blazing sunshine. Today there are of course night games, which give more people the opportunity to watch, but who among us can deny having pondered the thought of sneaking away from work to catch an afternoon game at the ballyard. No other sport offers the opportunity to take a break from the work day like baseball. Baseball was the last major sport to give in to the concept of a wild-card, before this the World Champion in baseball was guaranteed to be one of the four teams that stood atop their division at the end of the regular season. Unlike sports such as hockey, where they play an 80 game regular season, and then as many as 26 more games to crown a winner. This champion can easily complete the season in as low as third or fourth place, march through the playoffs and take the title. Unfortunately we have now added the wild-card to our hallowed sport, and with all of the playoffs we now often see cold weather before the World Series can even begin. In my opinion taking just a little bit away.
More so than in any other sport, the moments: the game ending strikeouts, the game winning home runs, the final play always seem to stick in our minds. The moments seem to be forever frozen in time. Carlton Fisk, waving his home run into fair territory in the World Series. Tom Seaver mowing down batters on his way to 19 in one game. Darryl Strawberry hitting the ball out of the park and now there is Mark McGwire.
Who can watch The Natural and not remember the light shattering home run. Who can not remember the line: "I want people say: 'There goes Roy Hobbes, the best there ever was'". Baseball has a heritage, a heritage which is preserved when we see Ken Griffey Jr. surpass the exploits of his father. Baseball provides the dream. Sons will continue to follow their fathers, and young boys will continue to surpass their heroes as they work their way through the minors to one day make it into the show.
P.S. This is really from 1998 but the post factory won't handle 1998.
