M's Try to Brake Skid Against Jays

SEATTLE--The Ancient Mariners slouched onto SafeCo Field last night with the ugly stench of seven straight losses swirling around them.  Even King Felix, Slayer of Dragons, was affected by the smog of defeat, and was harshly treated by his guests the Toronto Ten (DH included).

For those Maple-bedecked, lovable lugs from the North were playing Socialized Baseball for the first seven innings (“Line up here in an orderly fashion: everyone will get at least one run and one hit paid for at public expense”), and their portly hurler Litsch was moving at the pace of a Canadian hospital: slow but cruelly efficient.

Or were Our Seamen just that inefficient?  There were signs of life in the First, with consecutive hits by the Itchy and Figgy Show, plus a two-out walk to Smoak to load the bases.  But then the catcher Olivo stepped in and bounced one right over to Lind manning first: full stop.  Fast forward to the Thrifty Third, and the bases were loaded again, this time with Figgins, Bradley, and Cust.  Now it’s Smoak and Olivo who partner to leave our noble base runners picking bright teal lint out of their navels, as Smoak fanned and Olive Oil flew out to left.  (Throughout the night, Catcher Olivo singlehandedly stranded a batting order’s worth of base runners in various and lonely positions among the bases.)

Manager Wedge was overheard in the dugout after the Third explaining through The Moustache to our young Mariner team the concept of What Is Home Plate and How Do I Score Runs With It.  (This isn’t Junior High any more, we should be getting past third base, he may or may not have scolded.)

In the Fourth, Luis Rodriguez came in for an injured Figgy, who had rolled wrong chasing a sharp grounder the previous inning.  Luis is clean cut and broad shouldered, and even as he was introduced I hoped he might be the Secret Sauce that would turn the tide for this obviously wallowing Mariners offense.

Meanwhile, the Birds spread the hits around to manufacture seven very blue-collar runs over six innings against Hernandez, and all of them but Lind earned a hit.

In the Stinky Seventh, as the Jays had already begun their walk down Bullpen Lane, and the Mariners, down 7-0, were coasting along a trajectory easily recognizable to any Seattle fan as Hopeless Defeat, Left Fielder Bradley hit what seemed at the time to be a freak home run, the clutch at the straw.  7-1.

But wait, what’s this?  With Reliever Laffey facing only four batters in the Toronto seventh, and Wilhelmsen pitching himself out of a jam in the eighth, this was starting to smell suspiciously like Solid Relief Pitching.

Then in the Easy Eighth, the M’s scored not one, not two, but five more runs!  Mind you, they didn’t so much score them, but were more so taken by the hand and gently guided around all the bases by three consecutive bases-loaded walks issued by an international alphabet soup of Canadienne relievers: Purcey, Dotel, Rzepczynski.  Oh, home plate, says First Baseman Smoak, and singles two more across for the 5-spot.

For those of you scoring at home, that’s 7-6 now, with the Good Guys’ eighth brought short by Catcher Olivo’s GIDP. 

Please, go the prayers of thousands of Seattleites who have seen all this before, Don’t let the bullpen fuck this up!  But Lueke came out looking sharp and throwing sharper, and sat down Toronto’s 5-6-7 batters in order.

Bottom of the ninth, and Saunders leads off with a beautiful double that pinballs into the RF corner.  Shortstop Ryan moves him over to third with a sac bunt neat as a pin.  Kennedy, batting for Wilson, grounds out to short.  Now Ichiro is the winning run, and they walk him on purpose to face Third Baseman Rodriguez, who is 0 for 2 with a walk on the night, and who subbed in mid-game for Figgins.  Rodriguez stands in against Toronto’s Camp, bottom of the ninth, two outs, down by one with two men on.  He works the count to 2-2, then starts fouling pitches, making Camp give him something.  Anything.

This is baseball.  This is why you don’t leave after the seventh inning, even when they’re down 7-0, so you can beat the rush to the parking lot.  This is why you don’t flip the channel to see who’s dancing with which star or who gets voted off the island--that’s all been decided before the season begins.  This is baseball.  This is Camp, shouldered with the responsibility of ending his bullpen’s slide tonight.  This is Rodriguez, shouldered with the responsibility of ending his team’s seven game embarrassment.  Both teams’ hopes rest on the outcome of a single pitch; the world narrows down to a sphere three inches across, and its potential intersection with a well-swung bat, and anything can happen.  Anything.

Finally, Luis reaches down low, out of the strike zone, and sends that ball deep and fat into right center, right where Nobody is standing.  Saunders around to score(!), Ichiro around to score(!), and Rodriguez walks off the field.  Secret Sauce.

Somewhere the sun is shining bright, the band is playing and hearts are light.  Tonight, that somewhere is Seattle; final score: M’s 8, Foreigners 7, and that, says The Moustache, is what we call a “win.”

Stand Up When You Sing

This is intended for all my friends, goodhearted as they may be, who just don't care for baseball. So I would ask all of them to please, take a moment to stop punching your own mother, extinguish your American flags, and put down your copies of the Little Red Book, before you read on. Frankly, I find myself trying to convince these friends to like baseball, which is like trying to convince someone to like steak, or convincing the pope that Martin Luther had a few good ideas.

Of course when I undertake to convince my Maoist friends of baseball's charms, I end up struggling to define what exactly it is that I love about baseball so much, and why it is that I love it. And of course, the more I try to put together a legal brief in support of the game, the more I realize that it's like trying to prove the existence of a sunset. But there are reasons I love baseball, reasons hard to spell out into black and white, but I'll give it a go:

Baseball is like taking a walk through your old neighborhood: sometimes, if you're lucky, there will be something--a window pane, the light through the trees, the smell of mowed lawns and hot asphalt, something--that will remind you of when you were a kid. Sometimes all you'll see is how much everything's changed.  


Baseball is like playing a good game of chess with your dad. You sit through everything, all the pawn moves, watching him spinning his wedding ring while he thinks, listening to the tock-tock of the old clock, slowly advancing your pieces. All for that one move when his eyes flick up to yours and he smiles, genuinely, and says, "Shit, I didn't see that." And you offer to let him take his last move back and he doesn't. Then he still beats you.

Baseball is me, six years old, sitting on the living room floor; even at that age I understand that Fenway Park is the bright burning heart of a neighborhood, the hearth for an entire city. Baseball is a six-year-old seeing but not fully understanding the contrast between Bill Buckner's downcast shame and the Mets celebrating in a writhing mass on the field.

Baseball is like watching a rocket launch. You can wait all day for that but, boy, you better not miss it.

Sometimes baseball is like going to a casino: the lights are bright, everyone is sweaty, and all they're after is your money. But sometimes, baseball is like going to church, the same church you went to your whole life and your parents too. Maybe you don't quite understand everything that is going on in front of you; maybe you can't, maybe you never will and should stop trying. But if you pay attention and believe for just a little while, it can send your heart soaring. Plus you should stand up when you sing.