M's, A's Pitchers Meet at High Noon on Main Street

SEATTLE--Sport, at its finest, allows us to sample the greater emotions not usually found in our quotidian lives, to order off the children's menu the feelings of pride, nobility, heartache, and despair.  Nowhere, I believe, are these emotions more finely threaded than in a true Pitchers' Duel, decided by one run: our man against all of theirs, their man against all of ours.  Baseball is a team sport and yet a battle of individuals, and in such a Duel as transposed last night in the rain-washed yard of SafeCo field, the two pitchers stood in and delivered.

Felix Hernandez was recently presented with Cy Young's old trophy by the American League, more recently presented with a Loss by the Kansas City Royals with a matching set of 6 hits and 2 ERs over 5 innings.  Felix fits his name on the mound, he is expansive in body and spirit.  He mutters in frustration when a close ball is called against him, he shares a laugh with the catcher in conference, he covers first, he pumps his fist to see his teammates make a saving play in the infield.  He is broad-shouldered, with a bad haircut and scruff under his chin.  I can picture him--if he were not throwing elusive, freight-train-like pitches past spectating Oakland batters--working in an auto shop or putting together airplanes with the same mix of seriousness, exuberance, and commitment to excellence.  Last night, every mechanism of his pitching rhythm was in gear; he struck out eight.  He inspired his teammates to sharp defense behind him, highlighted by a double play on a sharp line to Figgins outing Sweeny, then throwing to first to stomp out Willingham and his lead-off single.  When Felix walked off the field for the last time, the Seattle crowd stood on its feet, able to recognize Good Baseball when they see it, and the King humbly ducked and touched his cap.

Brandon McCarthy, after missing all of last season with an injury, appears more tightly controlled than Felix.  His jaw is set, his motion to the plate is lean, economical, and spare.  His expression is intense and unchanging.  He methodically struck out six last night, and like Felix, his infield sprang into defense behind him, turning a classic 6-4-3 double play, catching Peguero trying to steal, catching pop fouls to convert them into outs.  McCarthy was disciplined, only allowing a single walk, and facing just two batters over the minimum.  If he had been in the Oakland Stadium, he too would have likely received a standing O as he trod off the field.

In the end, it was a single swing of the bat, a single pitch from McCarthy in the Fourth, left up too high for First Baseman Kennedy; and Kennedy sent it up higher, up up and over the right field wall, and that pitch made all the difference in the game.  

Both men's lines are worth listing here:

FHernandez, 7.2IP, 4H, 0R, 0ER, 8K, 3BB, W

BMcCarthy, 8IP, 3H, 1R, 1ER, 6K, 1BB, L

An Inkling of Spring

KEIZER--Driving down by the local ballpark with a few extra moments to spare this morning.   If Yankee Stadium is the St. Peter's of ballparks, then this is a strip-mall church-front.  Plenty of parking, blocky cement construction, and rather uncomfortable aluminum bleachers sloping lazily.

But it's all the same inside, right?  Without the banners from the local Painless Dentist's office, et al, hanging on the outfield fence, I can see the elements of this homely park patterned together to make a ball field: the mathematically precise corner at home base; the pitcher's hill sixty and one half feet away; the flag pole, empty today, upright next to the scoreboard; the short porch in left field with a picnic slope behind it; the on-deck circles and the casual, unfenced bullpens along the foul lines.

There is plenty going on in the world today: riots in Egypt are toppling the world's oldest country, the first twenty-five miles of road is paved in South Sudan, the world's newest country.  Earthquake refugees homeless in their homeland in Haiti, a congresswoman in hospital, shot, while I imagine her cold-hearted, pallid assailant languishes in the pink stripes usually reserved for captured Mexican immigrants.

And though its permanence doesn't fix any of those things, the ball field doesn't change.  Still ninety feet to first.  Still a loose-armed swing of the batter warming up as he looks down to the pitcher and reads the infield.  Still a cheerful hum from the stands, a pattern of licorice and popcorn sold, shirt numbers called over the loudspeaker, batters cheered.  All together, a soft summer sound like the breeze in the trees or a brook over stones.  I can hear it in the memory of my ears.

The world is not perfect today.  Baseball will never be as important as riots, infrastructure, or earthquakes.  Indeed, there is a strong argument to be made that sport is unimportant, petty, a simple diversion for the little-minded.  But here at the ball park, the lines will be precise, the measurements on the outfield walls exact, the chalk lines bright and square.  The umpires will be just and impartial.  The grass will be bristling and full green, the lights will come on, children will clap and smile, players will dream of bigger things and bigger parks.  The world will be no more perfect tomorrow, though perhaps this ball park, and a hundred others—school yards to Camden Yards—can encircle some small spheres of near-perfection in the midst of it all, just for a few hours at a time.

This morning was cold and bright, a sunny anomaly that we Northwesterners recognize as a false prophet of summer, a week of pseudo-spring that belies the rainy months yet to come.  The field was still patchy and yellowy-green, the infield dirt was crumbly and pitted.  The parking lot was empty.  The digital billboard blasted ads for an upcoming RV show.

But.  But the sky is blue, the sun is shining (coldly yet) on the grass, and pitchers and catchers report in two weeks.