Mr Selig. (woman’s voice outside the door.)
Yeah.
Mr. Spielberg is on line one.
(Bud picks up the phone.)
Steve, talk to me baby. What do you have scripted for Wednesday night? (Bud picks up a pen and proceeds to jot some notes on a pad of paper.)
Ok, so you got St. Louis destroying Houston to start off the evening. All right, doesn’t seem too thrilling, but I see the hint of realism. Houston has lost a few games this year. Ok – what’s next?
(Bud starts writing really fast as he nods his head a couple times.)
Whoa whoa Stevie slow down. Can’t keep up with you – this is insane. So you want a rain delay in the Sox game, a sawed off single by Pence. Ok, you’re saying Boston should definitely choke. Yankees blow a 7-run lead. You got not one, but two Evan Longoria homers.
Well Steve here’s the thing. Boston in the postseason would really help out with our numbers. Huh, you said what? Yeah, I know you made Star Wars. You’re saying America will embrace this team? Who? The Rays? (Selig sighs) Okdokie Mr. Spielberg. I will get my people to work.
Did anyone else feel like that’s how things went down Wednesday? I mean how ridiculous was all of that? I was screaming for joy and sobbing a little bit at the same time. And I’m a Tigers fan. The Tigers didn’t have anything to do with all of that last night.
I must of heard how baseball is the romantic game three or four times in the last couple of days. I didn’t disagree, yet I couldn’t wrap my head around it either. That was until last night.
With baseball, the taste of victory is like the girl. Win the game get the girl. Simple metaphor right? Well, why doesn’t this saying apply to other sports? There’s winning in other sports right? Let me try and explain.
Just like with romance, there’s the waiting game. To be a fan of baseball, you have to have some patience, which is true with love. It’s a 162 game season, and some games feel like they last an entire week. Also baseball players are singled out from the rest of the game. Pitchers throw one at a time on the mound, as batters hit one at a time in the box. Ultimately, someone will become loved by an entire city, and someone else will taste bitter despair (rejection.)
I present to you Freddie Freeman. Freddie made the last out last night in Atlanta. As a matter a fact, he made the last two. Freddie took his swing at love last night, and it was actually a decent swing. His ball found Ryan Howard’s glove though, and one double play later, Atlanta was done for the year. Freeman slammed his helmet down on the ground and keeled over, completely heartbroken.
Meanwhile in Tampa. Evan Longoria was a total pimp. Last year he was swinging at Cliff Lee fastballs out of the zone in a game seven in a losing effort. So he knows about the rough side of the romantic game. Last night though, things went differently for Evan. For somebody to say legendary in the same breath as Longoria today, I don’t think it would be that far off. I mean, he cranked two homers last night, and one of them was a walk-off in the 12th.
As I was reading what a lot of baseball writers have been saying today it was obvious to me how special last night was for another reason. There are a lot of people expressing their love for the game today, many of whom are doing it with elegance. When I was a kid, I thought it was a kid’s game. That’s it. But today, I think a lot of us would agree at the very least, there is something more to it then that.
Maybe, it’s the fact that it is a romantic game to an extent. Maybe it is because it does seem at times like it’s scripted by Steven Spielberg. Whatever it is, I’m just going to go with it and enjoy myself. Cheers to October baseball, at the end of September.