Innings One Through Three: The Meaning of Meaningful Games
“Forty years ago today, it was a Friday also, I broke my heel in seven places. For the rest of that summer, only Giants games were more painful.” It’s Cuzco Lou in my inbox, chiding me for letting professional sports divert my attention from more important things in the world like the war, my job, two wars, Lou’s unemployment running out, crazy children, crazier parents, indigenous land rights….
Thousands gather at Willie Mays Plaza as once again the fog descends on Mission Creek Ballpark, the wind kicks up and the temperatures drop. People didn’t come to protest the war or the lack of jobs; they didn’t come to debate global warming, but because the Giants open a crucial three-game series against the league-leading San Diego Padres. Thousands pour into the park, but they are wearing more black than orange: a seriously suspicious omen.
As they try to warm up, Padre players seem anxious for the game to start, if for no other reason than to divert themselves from tonight’s numbing edition of a San Francisco summer.
Andres Torres sparks the Giants, who kick things off with a two-run bang. Pitching for the Giants, Jonathan Sanchez opens the second inning with a different kind of bang: hitting the Padres’ catcher, Yorvit Torrealba. Replays make it appear a mistake, but the man selling foam fingers in front of me loudly swears that Sanchez acted purposefully and that Torrealba deserved it, based on something he did last year — or in a previous life. Once on first base, Torrealba starts toying with Sanchez’ concentration by threatening to steal. Even though the thought of Torrealba stealing second defies reason, the tactic works. Sanchez noticeably starts losing control, and his changeup becomes predictable.
Worse, in the bottom of the second, with Giant runners on first and second, no one out, Sanchez muffs a bunt and the inning unravels. At the end of three, the score remains tied, 2-2.
Innings Four Through Six: Murder on the Basepath
Lou’s right about the diversionary nature of sports, probably more so than he knows. According to the Greek historian Herodotus, excerpted in the current Lapham’s Quarterly on “Sports and Games,” the Lydians invented ball games to divert themselves from severe and persistent famine. They used the games to endure hunger, eating one day and playing the next — for 18 years.
There’s real action, not just head games, on the basepaths tonight. Not only are two guys caught off base and run down for outs, two attempted steals result in throwing errors and extra bases. In the fourth inning with two outs, Chase Headly on third and Scott Hairston on first, Chris Denorfia hits a sharp ground ball right back to the mound. Too hot for Sanchez to handle, the ball ricochets off his glove toward second baseman Freddy Sanchez. As Freddy comes forward to get the ball, Hairston cuts in front of him; they almost collide and a run scores. But the umpires call Hairston out on an obstruction charge. Padres’ manager Bud Black delays the game with pointless argument, then files a formal protest. Another diversion?
In the sixth, things get even weirder. Pablo Sandoval suckers Adrian Gonzalez into running home from third base, then runs him down, leaping like a great orange whale to tag Gonzalez out, hurting himself in the process and allowing Ryan Ludwick to safely make it to third. On the next play, Headly bounces a grounder to Juan Uribe, who fires immediately to catcher Buster Posey. Ludwick’s toast, but manages to get a hand down on the plate a micro-instant before Posey tags him. At the end of six, 3-2 Padres.
Innings Seven Through Nine: Far Left
In the far left-field grandstand I discover a small community of Padre fans. Marie and Suzanne drove up today, leaving San Diego at 5 a.m. They want to get married — ha ha, they’re already married, their husbands are in Iraq. I ask them how the military treats the families. “What kind of question is that?” asks Marie. “A dumb question,” answers Suzanne. “Hey, how come there aren’t any big antiwar protests up here?” Marie thinks that’s hilarious. “Don’t you care about the troops?”
Over the past four games against the Cubs, the Giants worked late-inning heroics. I’m waiting for that lightning to find its way through the fog again tonight. And with Emmanuel Burriss on first, here it comes. Aubrey Huff lashes a screaming liner to left center. It could go all the way! Chris Denorfia, giving chase, reaches up in a desperate gesture, and just before the ball, and the ballplayer, hit the wall, it falls into his glove.
The Giants won’t come close again. It’s party time in the far left-field grandstand. Suzanne and Marie invite me out for a drink. Alas, I’m a sportswriter on deadline. People need their diversions. Said Blaise Pascal: “However sad a man may be, if you can persuade him to take up some diversion, he will be happy while it lasts, and however happy a man may be, if he lacks diversion and has no absorbing passion…he will soon be depressed and unhappy. Without diversion there is no joy; with diversion there is no sadness.”
Oh yeah? Padres 3, Giants 2.
Blaise Pascal, who I recall played for the 60s Dodgers, would have brought in the winning run and tagged out the Pads runner at home plate and taken those San Diego gals clubbin after the game. Now, there was a player.
x/pat