STRONG ADVICE #1

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THE GLOVEMAN PART 2

Mr. DiPierro's Gloveman-restored mitt and Maris signed ball!

by Daniel DiPierro

Throughout the decades my glove has remained, much like an old friend.  We still go to A’s or Giants games together whenever I head out to the yard (especially whenever the Yankees are in town).  I’ve always tried to pack it when I travel back east during baseball season, with hopes of getting to Yankee Stadium on the trip. But of course, after more then 25 years of hard use, my glove showed its age with numerous scuffs and scars and it developed a few rips, along with several broken laces, and the leather had become dried and cracked in a quite a few places.

About 20 years ago I came across an article, “A Man Who Rebuilds Worn Mitts” by Michael Robertson, while reading the San Francisco Chronicle, which initiated a wonderful new chapter of my story. The newspaper article introduced me to a man in the Bay Area who had dedicated himself to preserving old baseball gloves just like mine: The Gloveman.   I called the number and then took a drive to his little shop in an industrial park in Fremont, where I met a gentleman (and I do mean a gentle man) by the name of Lee Chilton AKA The Gloveman.  I shared my story with Lee, showed him my glove, and then left it with him.  He proceeded to meticulously overhaul the entire glove, taking it completely apart, replacing the padding and repairing the rips, adding new leather where it was needed and stitching it all back together again with new laces.  As a finale, he reconditioned the entire glove with a magical concoction that made the leather smell and feel virtually brand new again.  When I returned to his shop a few weeks later I was overjoyed to see my old glove again, with the makeover, sitting on his work table.  I immediately picked it up and slipped it onto my right hand, rhythmically pounded my fist into the pocket as I’d done seemingly a million times before, and let me tell you, it felt just as good as ever (or maybe even better)!  My glove was truly reborn!

I've had many new and exciting life experiences since that visit to The Gloveman in the early 90's.  I've gotten married and my two sons were born, certainly three of the most wonderful milestones of my life.  Also, during this same period both of my parents and a few close friends have passed on, so I’ve come to truly know and understand some of the deeper aspects of life’s full circle.  I find it absolutely fitting that during this most recent decade my glove and I have taken on new and different roles as well: I take it out into the back yard or to the park to play catch with my son Vincent, who was born in 2002.  I get to teach him how to use two hands to skillfully catch a fly ball, or show him how to turn it to the backhand or gracefully scoop up a short-hop when fielding an errant throw, and while we’re having our catches I share with him many stories about baseball and history, about Roger Maris breaking Babe Ruth’s record in 1961, or about my visits to old Yankee Stadium, and about life, people, places and things.

It is so genuinely warming to realize that I was 10 years old when I first got this glove, and now Vinny is 10 years old, and my glove continues to be a living part of our shared experiences today. There’s such a perfect symmetry in all of this!  And I know at least for me, each and every time I put the glove on my hand I’m back in Mr. Levine’s classroom, or in my old room in 1961 breaking it in, or watching Roger Maris #9 hitting home runs at old Yankee Stadium, or in the outfield myself, tracking down a fly ball in some sandlot game.  I could be heading off to college or to California with the glove packed in my bag, or at the post-season game in Oakland where I witnessed Jeter making “the flip” to Posada to get that important out at the plate, or perhaps best yet, hearing Vinny shout to me, “Hey Dad, where’s your mitt, can we go out and have a catch?”

I thank you very much, Gloveman.

THE GLOVEMAN

by Daniel DiPierro

I love history.  It’s all about people, places and things, and certainly, one’s personal history is a collection of the people, places and things that shape who and what you are.  I feel fortunate to have held on to a few important things that enrich and enhance the memories I have of some of the people and experiences that I’ve shared at various times and in various places throughout my journey in life for 61 years now. One of these special items is my childhood baseball glove, which I’ve owned since 1961.

The number 61 (without an asterisk) also has an important place within this reflection.  It provided significant inspiration for my choice of this particular baseball glove, a Spalding “1961 Roger Maris MVP” model, which I chose in large part because of the 61 home runs that Roger Maris hit that year as a member of the New York Yankees,

breaking the almost mythical single-season record of 60 set by Babe Ruth in 1927.   It seemed as if all of New York was captivated by the intense competition between Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle as they both challenged the Ruth record throughout that summer.  Mantle’s bid was stopped short at 54 home runs by a late season injury.  However, Roger Maris was able to achieve the historic feat in dramatic fashion on the very last day of the season, October 1, 1961.  It did not occur without controversy: there has always been an unofficial asterisk accompanying the Maris record because he hit his 61 home runs in a season of 162 games instead of the 154 games of the Ruth era.

I had just entered 5th grade, at the age of 10 years old, and I was as swept up in the frenzy as anyone.  To honor the new “Home Run King” I responded by buying my very first brand new baseball glove.  I selected the “Roger Maris MVP” model (I needed the left-handed version; although Maris did hit lefty, he threw with his right hand in the outfield).   I used all of my savings from summer lawn-cutting money to purchase the mitt, and it immediately became my most prized possession.  It also became my constant companion, year after year, on the sandlots and streets where I played hundreds of pick-up games with neighborhood friends, from the moment the last snow melted in early spring until the chill of the autumn air turned our thoughts to football (after the World Series ended). 

It had been just one year earlier at school when I had a teacher named Mr. Levine.  I can vividly recall listening to the radio in his classroom on an October afternoon, when Bill Mazeroski of the Pittsburgh Pirates hit the walk-off home run which ended the 1960 World Series; the underdog Pirates had defeated the mighty Yankees (a particularly heartbreaking moment for Yogi Berra as well as for all Yankee fans).  Mr. Levine instilled a celebration of baseball in me, for sure, but I’m forever thankful for a practical lesson he also taught me: how to break in a new baseball glove by treating it first with neatsfoot oil, then wrapping string around it tightly with a hardball stuffed inside to form the pocket, placing it under the mattress and sleeping on it for a month.  I methodically went to work breaking in my glove with loving care and it soon grew to fit my right hand comfortably, like a friend’s handshake.  It was all ready to take the field by Spring Training, 1962.

This baseball glove has accompanied me through many wins and losses in my life over the past 50 years years, along with an equally loved old Yankee cap that I got in the Bronx on “Cap Day” at the original Yankee Stadium in 1965.  Although the glove remained at the bottom of my closet for a few years during my high school days, I happened to grab it from its hiding place one day before returning to college after a visit home, and it began a new life with me as a young adult, always faithfully by my side at many rollicking beer-softball games during those wonderful carefree days in my 20’s.  I remember making sure to pack it carefully among the few things which I brought along with me when I made the big move from Long Island to California in the early 1970’s.

TO BE CONTINUED

OH VILLAIN, VILLAIN, SMILING DAMNED VILLAIN!

By Richard Rosen

There used to be a thrift store on Folsom Boulevard I’d stop at almost weekly when I lived in Sacramento. Mostly I was looking for old clothes which, back in the late 60s and early 70s when this incident took place, were in high demand with the hippie crowd. But I also usually made a quick run through the book section to scan the spines, just in case. I say "just in case" because usually all I found were an assortment of bodice-rippers, war stories with swastikas on the cover, and cook books, but it was a good idea to take the time each week, just in case something good had been dropped off, and since the pricers at the thrift store hadn’t the slightest notion how much certain books were worth, every now and again I’d hit the jackpot and pick up a rare volume for just a few bucks. Well one day I came across a box, sitting on the book shelf, with a bunch of colored-coded cards in it that turned out to be a dice baseball game, the kind where you’d throw three dice and look up the number combination on one of the player’s card. Depending on the numbers, the player would get some sort of hit, or a walk, or make an out, reach on an error, there was even a slim chance that the player could get injured. I had two house mates at the time, and all three of us were big baseball fans, so I plunked down a few dollars and went home, prize in hand. 

As I imagined, my house mates were ecstatic, and we immediately decided to organize a three-team league, I would be the Highlanders, the original name of the Yankees, and my friends would be the Superbas and the Trolley Dodgers, two of the original names of the Dodgers. When draft day came we were all buzzing with excitement. The available players were a mix of old and new, on the one hand Babe Ruth, on the other Sandy Koufax, Rogers Hornsby over there, Whitey Ford right here, you could get Pie Traynor, or Duke Snider. We drew lots to determine who would go first, and happily I won. Now dear reader, put yourself in my shoes, I’m about to build a baseball team from the ground up and I can choose ANY player EVER (or almost ever) to anchor my franchise. Who would you choose?  There are some very logical choices.  Ruth suggests himself immediately, or Ty Cobb.  How about pitching, I could have grabbed Christy Mathewson or Walter Johnson.  I could take my childhood hero (way before I read The Last Boy), Mickey Mantle.  (Was there ever a more perfect name for a baseball player?  Mantle at a news conference after his liver transplant, recounting a dream he had while under, said he dreamed he died and went up to the Pearly Gates. St Peter checked the big book in which all our life deeds are recorded, and said, "Sorry, but you can’t come in," but then quickly reached under the desk and holding out something in his hand, continued, "But as long as you’re here, can you sign this baseball?").  But in the end I had to go with a shortstop, the position I played all through Little and Pony League, and I had to have the greatest one of all, yes, the Flying Dutchman, Honus Wagner (he was actually German).  O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay! He chortled in his joy.

But then something very very strange began to happen. As the draft proceeded my house mates, momentarily my despised rivals, again and again chose what were obviously second- and third-tier players, and left me with no choice but to draft one Hall of Famer after another. I don’t now, some 40+ years later, remember exactly who the players were they took, but when the dust settled my roster consisted of perhaps—no, undoubtedly—the most fearsome team ever assembled in the history of the universe. How’s Ty Cobb, Tris Speaker, and Babe Ruth for a starting outfield? Mantle? Yeah, he was on my bench, and I’d start him every now and again for old times sake, but I had another outfielder by the name of DiMaggio, ever heard of him? And not Dom either, but Joltin’ Joe, the Yankee Clipper. Infield? Pie and Dutch on the left side, Rogers Hornsby and Lou Gehrig on the right (once they asked Hornsby why he didn’t play golf. "When I hit a ball," answered the Rajah, "I want someone else to chase it"). And if the Iron Horse, slumped I had Bill Terry waiting in the wings. Catcher? Just Bill Dickey and Yogi Berra (I was very heavy on Yankees). I don’t now remember much about my pitching, by the time I put together my everyday line-up I could started Charlie Brown on the mound and still win by plenty. I do recall I had Koufax and Ford, but after that it really didn’t matter. See, my EIGHTH PLACE hitter was Bill Dickey. 

Then the season started and ... and ... and ... the loses started piling up. The greatest collection of hitters ever to gather together on the same table top were failing miserably, Cobb was in the .290s, Ruth homerless, while Johnny Evers—JOHNNY EVERS, for God’s sake—of the Superbas was leading the league in hitting. At first I just laughed it off, just you wait, the law of averages will out, these guys CAN’T NOT hit, the hits were built into their cards, but no, day after frustrating day, week after heartbreaking week, the Highlanders sunk deeper and deeper into the cellar, the league doormats, while the Superbas and Trolley Dodgers battled for first plane. I began to lose sleep and resent my room mates, what once had been a chummy rivalry between guys became an ugly mud fight, I even tried cheating in subtle ways (Lee Marvin to Paul Newman in Pocket Money: "If ya ain’t cheatin’, ya ain’t tryin’"), nothing worked. OH the horror, I had become Casey Stengel, my team wasn’t the ‘56 Bombers though, it was the ‘62 Mets, all I lacked was Marvelous Marv Throneberry. 

Then one day, back at the thrift store, the skies opened and light poured down. There on a shelf was the same exact baseball game, but ... THIS ONE HAD THE ORIGINAL THREE DICE. You see, the house league had been using standard dice all along, and as it turned out, THAT WAS ALL WRONG, standard dice would SKEW THE NUMBERS, turn the world upside down. So I stole the dice, figuring the store owed it to me, and rushed home to share the good news with my house mates. But for them the news was anything but good. "We’ll have to draft again," one of them said. "But why?" I asked incredulously, and he answered, "Because with these dice, YOU’LL KILL US." And then, and then, they showed me the charts they’d made for the draft, charts I had no idea they had, charts they worked out BASED ON THE PERCENTAGES OF STANDARD DICE THROWS, charts they made because they were both experienced gamblers (and the last time I played cards was when I was 6, and it was Old Maid with my grandmother). THAT’S why I ended up with the team I did, because using standard dice my players were lousy, while Sonny Boy Williamson was leading the league in homers. They knew all along why I was losing the way I was, AND THEY NEVER TOLD ME, AND NOW THEY WANTED TO "DRAFT AGAIN" BECAUSE I’D "KILL THEM."  O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain!  My tables—meet it is I set it down. That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain!

Well, I finally gave in and drafted again, but I just wasn’t the same, and it wasn’t the same with my house mates either. One of them I only had known casually, but I knew he was a fierce competitor, so I wasn’t too surprised he’d let me suffer. But the other one had been a close friend for years, and now in retrospect it seems silly, but I never trusted him again, and eventually the relationship ended poorly. I’m not sure this story has a moral, I’m not even sure I wouldn’t have done the same thing had I been in their shoes going up against someone naive like me. So sorry, BD friends, this one has a rather sad ending. 

THE DAY I MET TOMMY LASORDA (AND HE MET ME)

by Dave Wesley

I had the privilege of attending Spring Training for the first time in 2011.  My wife had gifted the trip on Christmas much to my surprise and we figured out all the logistics and actually went much to my surprise.  The Giants had come off an unlikely yet exciting World Series win (finally) and Arizona was abuzz as they say with Giants fever.  Heaven for a Giants fan.  Heaven for a baseball fan.  

We had tickets for six games and saw some wonderful baseball facilities, including the one that quickly became my favorite: Camelback Ranch, home of the White Sox and the Dodgers.   The training facilities are state of the art: baseball diamonds everywhere, neatly split by a walkway, Dodgers on the left, Sox on the right.  Why, they even have exact dimensional replicas of both Dodger Stadium and U.S. Cellular Field to make the practices that much more realistic.  Looks like they thought of everything.

Anyway, we were attending a White Sox game and got to Camelback early, which is always a good idea for Spring Training.  I wandered down the public path drinking in the sights and sounds of rookies, veterans, coaches - baseball.  At the very end of the path I became intrigued with an intra-squad practice game on the White Sox half of the facility.  I stood by the right field foul line.  As the players came in I noticed the right fielder had ended up with a ball.  Seeing no kids in my vicinity I made the universal sign for "throw me the ball if you don't mind and won't get in trouble for it" and much to my surprise, I had my first Spring Training ball.  It turned out to be my only Spring Training ball.  I'm double proud of the fact that, according to the label, it's a very rare (I'm sure) "Minor League Practice Ball".  

Which brings me to Lasorda.  Tommy Lasorda.  Baseball icon.  Baseball legend.  Walking back to the actual ballpark where the game was to be played I saw a sea of blue.  Youngsters mostly, playing catch, hefting equipment bags, doing what I took to be Spring Training Baseball training drills.  And there, in his golf cart (complete with driver) sat Tommy.  Tommy Lasorda.  Giant fan or not you can't pass up a chance to meet the great Tommy Lasorda, and there he was, busy at the moment, busy with something, but busy.  

Sights and sounds of Spring Training are mostly predictable.  But occasionally one gets that unexpected candid insight into the game that only an overheard conversation between two rookies can provide.  Rookie one: "I just saw Tommy Lasorda.  I wonder if he would talk to me; I don't know what I would say."  Rookie two: "I used to feel the same way.  But then one day he did talk to me, and thirty minutes later he was still talking."  I settled for a long-shot photo of Tommy and went my way.

But after regaling my wife with my Minor League Practice Ball and my description of 80 or 90 Dodgers all practicing together I somehow convinced her to accompany me to see for herself, and that's where we saw Tommy again.  Driving right past us in his golf cart.  (Well, being driven, technically, but you get the drift.)  She has the better camera and I asked if she could get a better picture.  We edged closer, and that's when the driver came out to the crowd (which consisted of my wife and I) and said, to no one in particular "Tommy Lasorda is here.  He loves meeting fans if anyone wants to talk to him."  I saw my chance, and sauntered up to baseball legend Mr. Lasorda.  Summoning up my best baseball line I said something like, "Hi Tommy".  Nothing.  "How's the team look this year?"  Grunt.  Grasping at straws now for anything, I came up with, "Sure is hot today."  Tommy (looking somewhat disdainfully in my direction:  "It's Spring Training, it's supposed to be hot!"  

Figuring the conversation at an end, I ended with, "Mind posing for a picture with me, Mr. Lasorda?"  Tommy:  "Sure."  The proof of his photo acquiescence is above., a thrilling moment for a baseball fan at his very first Spring Training.

Postscript:  I notice I had an orange shirt on that day.  Almost looks like Giants orange.  Unintentional, I assure you, Tommy, if you're reading this. 

I Give Up - I Just Don't Know

By Spencer Kimball

As I read Meredith's post, it was very quickly apparent that her point of view and mine were not the same - and I was thinking as I read about the elements of that disparity.

First, of course, there's the history. I was a casual A's fan in high school, enough so I knew the typical starting lineup now and then, and had an idea of their rank in the standings. When they were in the postseason, I would listen to or watch a game, but it was likely to be background-ish, along the lines of Meredith's description of some of the River Cats attendees. But I already had, even then, some fundamental orientation points that would provide the drama that the game is about: the fast base stealer on first; the long ball hitter in a sacrifice situation; the pitcher's escape from the bases-loaded quagmire; the pursuit of a record, and a key inflection point on the way. I don't know when I acquired them, but definitely by Senior Year I could talk with others about them with some confidence. And it wasn't because I had any athletic talent myself. I was almost always last chosen for anything.

In the years between my 20th and 30th birthdays, I paid little attention to baseball, for a variety of reasons. But in 1981, I attended my first game, a Dodgers game as they entered the postseason, after watching a few games in the leadup. And I found myself fairly disoriented; the park at Chavez Ravine seemed gargantuan, seemed to have its own sort of microclimate, haze, noises. And the players seemed quite distant, and it was hard to figure out where to look.

The directors and cameramen involved in broadcasts are really good - it's very rare that they miss even a bulletlike liner to some fielder. They can switch on an instant from the "default" behind-the-pitcher view to wherever the action is, and from double play to long bomb they are right where they need to be - so much so that you don't really think too much about what you missed until they make a point of bringing to your attention, say, how nice a jump the runner at first got to make it home, or how the second baseman was overshifted a bit too far. And so with their coddling, you lose track of how hard it is to get the long view that allows you to see something coming once the ball's in play. So I found that half the time something interesting happened on the field, I completely missed it, even though I wasn't really particularly distracted, and I was interested in keeping track.

After going to a few more games in SoCal, I found I could sort of get a handle on things - and then came a hiatus of twenty years or so. And so the same kind of disorientation applied again when I went to Oakland for an A's game, but less so a couple of years later at AT&T park, and really very little on my last visit there, when I actually was watching as the first base umpire sent the runner on a balk.

But there was more to it, my engagement in the game, than just figuring out how to watch. The inherent drama was a result of, in particular, those few years in the 80's, watching the Royals, or the Dodgers, or the Phillies march through the postseason. Watching sometimes three complete games in a row if the timing was favorable, that sort of sag associated with an offensive mismatch, the high-scoring game unpredictability, the building tension of the pitching duel (that last, I suspect, is what some football fans refer to in saying that nothing happens in America's Pastime.) And in the middle of this season, I realize as I watch a game that, my disgust with a bad outing notwithstanding, there is something going on pretty much every inning.

And I imagine it's more so with those more involved. I mean, I can't name the teams on a league or division. I typically only know what's happening with a handful of players not on the SF roster, and I tend not to remember ERAs, streaks, and batting averages even vaguely. How much more engaged would the viewer be who knows the history between pitcher and batter, or which outfielder has the "cannon", or which shortstop the knack of making the off-balance play?

And in my case, does it have something to do with being less interested in NFL or NBA? The fact that it uses a bat? The peculiar skills required of a pitcher? The "game face"?  - I give up, I just don't know.

IF BASEBALL IS BORING, THEN WHAT ABOUT SOCCER?

by Richard Rosen

My daughter, now 19, bless her heart, started her sporting career out in front of the house here on our quiet street in Berkeley.  I bought her a white Wiffle Ball, the plastic kind with the holes in it that, if thrown hard enough with just the right twist of the wrist, will break like a Major League curve ball, something you were never able to achieve growing up. I also bought her one of those big fat hollow plastic bats, the kind which you can well miss hitting the pitched ball on the meat of the barrel, and still make significant contact. She would stand at the foot of our rather steep driveway (which had the advantage, on a whiffed cut, that the ball would then easily roll back to the me, the pitcher), I would stand a few feet away and, for the first few months at least, lob her the pitches underhanded. We followed the Mickey Mantle technique of creating a natural switch hitter: when he was a kid he’d take five cuts right handed and five left, alternating back and forth as his dad and granddad pitched. So my kid, after a few months, was a natural switcher who, like the Commerce Comet, made better contact on the right side but had more power from the left. The house across the street was the target, and before long she was routinely putting them in the front yard, mammoth blasts when you consider she was only five. 

Then, and I don’t remember how it happened, she joined a soccer team and the budding baseball career was at an inglorious end. Ever watch a team of 6-year-olds play soccer?  It’s a lot like those wildlife pictures from Africa, showing a leopard chasing after a herd of gnus, the prey running for their lives packed together like sardines when common sense says, hey let’s split up. Except of course in the case of the soccer gnus, it was them in a tightly packed, um, pack chasing down the poor battered ball, while the frustrated coach, who thought she’d made the concept of field positions perfectly clear in practice, hollered from the sidelines, hey, split up. 

Well, this went on for the next 12 years, until her senior year in B-High, as the Berkeley high school is aptly known, when she was captain of the girls’ varsity that went undefeated in league play for the third straight year, outscoring opponents 98-4, and made first team all-league. And oh, did I mention the club team she played on in the spring and fall, the Mavericks (which oddly had a logo of a horse on the uni), coached by the head coach of the Ghana female national team, who spent part of each year in the Bay Area? Are you getting the picture yet? Soccer all year round, even in the winter when she played indoor at a converted military hangar on Alameda island, weekend after weekend, month after month, for 12 weary years without a break. 

Now when I was growing up in Sacramento in the late 50s, nobody, as my grandmother would say, knew from soccer, some weird-o foreign sport; we all played proper American games like baseball and football. So when my daughter started her soccer career I had no idea what was happening; it just looked very much like another boring game, i.e., basketball, two teams back and forth, back and forth, but without the scoring, in fact, for much of the time, NO scoring. Some people, like her mother, who also knew nothing about the (cough) sport, eventually cottoned to it and became a rabid fan, but me personally could never quite get the point, particularly of a game that didn’t make much use of hands and arms, and kicked the ball with the INSIDE of the foot, unlike the real NFL kickers I remember growing up with, like Lou the Toe Groza and my favorite player of all time Paul Hornung, who used their toes to kick a ball as God the Big Toe in the Sky intended. 

Why do I bring this up? Because my daughter and many of the kids of her generation, think that BASEBALL is boring. Puh-leese. Baseball is quite possibly the most perfect game ever invented by the human mind, but its very perfection makes somewhat demanding, um, demands on the spectators. Oh sure there are people who go to games only to socialize and work on their tans, but these are not real baseball fans. Real baseball fans understand that watching a game is akin to meditation, that it requires a good deal of concentration, which means it’s beyond the capacities of the average individual. Real fans actually don’t just watch the game, they’re vicariously playing along with the players, making decisions on pitch selection, keeping track of pitch counts, guessing along with the hitter, strategizing with the manager. One common criticism of baseball, as compared to, say, football, is that it’s too slow.  (Heard the one about why baseball is better than football? Because you can wear the hat backwards).  Friends, that’s exactly the point, baseball HAS TO BE SLOW, it takes time to make life-and-death choices, to survey the field, to set things up, to move things around, to stall for a few precious minutes to give the relief a few more warmups in the pen. No offense here, but people who say baseball is boring are just revealing their ignorance...about baseball. Tell you what you need to do. Is there a batting cage in your vicinity? Go there this weekend, pay the entrance fee, get your bat and helmet, then have the pitch speed adjusted to, oh, 60 mph, way slower that the slowest pitch any major league pitcher will throw. Then step up to the plate and take your hacks. I can almost GUARANTEE that you won’t make ANY contact for the first dozen or so pitches, and maybe not even beyond. Then go watch Steven Strassburg’s next start and keep an eye on the radar readings of his pitches. Baseball is boring? Have you seen Robinson Cano swing a bat? Jose Bautista hit a dinger or make a throw from deep right to third on the fly? Have you ever watched a no-hitter? Josh Hamilton, Joey Votto, Derek Jeter, Giancarlo Stanton, that new kid, Bryce Harper?  Baseball is boring?  Have you ever watched a, yawn, soccer match?

SACRIFICE: GIVING UP TO GET BACK PART 4

by Richard Rosen

As for the Sacrifice Fly, with fewer than two outs, a runner on third can score on a fly ball to the outfield, the only requirement being he keep one foot on the base until the ball is cleanly caught by the outfielder. Then he can run home for dear life. There is a modicum of judgment involved with certain SFs.  The factors here include: the inning and score of the game, the depth of the fly ball, the strength and accuracy of the involved fielder’s arm, and the runner’s foot speed. There’s no question with fly balls to the farthest reaches of the outfield’s expanse: the runner on third, even the most sore-kneed lumbering catcher, can more or less trot home. Issues arise on the short to medium fly balls to outfielders whose arms are dubbed "cannons," aye, there’s the rub. To go or not to go, that’s the question. Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to stick to the base and give the next hitter up an opportunity to drive in the run, or to risk it all and charge home, preparing yourself for the worst: a possible collision with a 220 pound catcher wearing a virtual suit of armor. 

Like its bunted cousin, the SF is recorded as a team out, not a personal out for the batter, who in addition gets credit for an run batted in (RBI). There is one big difference though between the Sacrifice Bunt and the SF. In the vast majority of cases the former is intentional, while the latter may or may not be. That is to say, the batter in question may have been, with a runner on third and fewer than two outs, actually trying to hit a long fly ball to score the runner.  In this instance the sacrifice is intentional and admirable. But a different hitter in the same situation may have been selfishly trying for a hit, and happened instead to transport a lazy fly to the outfield, essentially lucking into the SF and yet still reaping the RBI and the patty-cake accolades of his teammates. 

Now there is one thing about this fly ball business that’s very odd if you ask me. A runner can advance from any base if he’s tagging while the outfield catch is being made. In other words, on a deep fly a runner on first can potentially advance to second, or a runner on second can potentially go to third. But should this happen, the batter doesn’t get credit for a sacrifice; it’s marked down as an At Bat and an out, and his BA suffers accordingly.  Friends, I ask you: does this seem fair? You could say that the bunter’s sacrifice is intentional, and so he deserves a reward for a job well conceived and carried out. But what about that unintentional SF?  That hitter wasn’t trying to move the runner along with an out, he was lusting after a hit and just backed into an RBI with no harm done to his BA.  

What would you say to a rule change here?  What if we distinguish between a run-scoring "sacrifly" and a base-advancing SF?  Let Baseball Diary hear from you on this important matter.

AN INDEPENDENCE DAY SPECIAL: What is My Problem with Baseball?

By Meredith Linden  

Last season, I was prompted to expand on my comment that I had an Astros Buddy as a kid.  The prompt followed my assertion that I am not a baseball person, my impression of baseball people being those who follow the game and teams and actually go to games on occasion.  Upon receiving this season’s opening Baseball Diary email from the Editor, a certain baseball thought squiggled through my neurons at odd times, one in particular being at the library a couple of weeks ago. 

After finding the specific book I had gone for, I scanned the shelves, always on the lookout for another must-read.  One jumped at me: A Short History of the Long Ball, a novella by Justin Cronin.  My first thought: ugh, reading about baseball is about as dull as going to the games.  However, the ever-present errant thought zoomed to the forefront of my brain.  “I wonder why I do not like baseball.”  I took the book thinking it might just help me answer the question. Even if I didn’t like the book, I might gain more insight into this little issue of mine.

Cronin opens with a ballgame between two friends but abandons the game for most of the book.  ‘Twas a true mirror of my life with baseball.  Of course I thought it was funny I was an Astros Buddies member at 9 years old.  I was linked to an Astros player, got a t-shirt and other memorabilia, and got tickets to home games.  I’m not sure if my induction into the Astros buddies was to create something for me to do with my dad or something I initiated.  Although I cannot remember who my Astros Buddy was (I always contended it was Willie Mays until I learned, much later, he never played for the Astros), but I do remember being excited to be a part of it, and I even enjoyed going to the games.

Several events in my life have given me cause to like or not like baseball.  At about the time I was in the Astros Buddies, I remember wanting to play softball. I walked home from friends’ houses through the park where I’d see goings-on I wanted to experience, and considering the teams I saw were girls, I thought it would make me cool.  My mother told me I could play softball if I was willing to give up piano lessons.  I made my choice.  I did play softball in college as well as flag football.  I have to say there was more camaraderie in the softball league, but I was better at football.

So, that was it for me as far as baseball.  I did my own sports, hung with non-baseball fans, and created a life, much as Cronin’s main character did.  About nine years ago, I attended the only other baseball game in my life, a River Cats game (does that count?).  We sat on the lawn in the Sacramento sun with small children.  I understood why I didn’t follow baseball.  All around me people were buying food, talking, running around on the lawn, not watching the game, watching the game and clapping when appropriate, and asking other people what just happened.  The game requires great concentration but not because it’s fast and hard to follow. If you blink, you might miss it.

Focusing on why I feel I don’t like the game has opened up a new perspective on it. Much like in Damn Yankees, baseball is often the backdrop for life, an anchor for the people involved.  When I thought about being at a baseball game, I realized that proportionately speaking, very little baseball is actually going on compared to the socializing and general camaraderie.  I can see how baseball could very much be about more than just the game and that may be the draw for many.

I recognized while writing this piece that just because I am not a baseball person does not mean I don’t care about baseball.  I do believe in the importance of passing this game on to our future generations at least here in America, as it is an American institution.  I did teach my children to play and my daughter played T-ball at 5.  There’s something in our DNA regarding baseball.  We can embrace or ignore it. But even ignoring it will eventually cause little fissures in our thoughts because baseball is just too big.