One: The Moment Will Arrive Soon
Giants left fielder Pat Burrell says in the Chronicle’s account of last night’s game, “It’s a hard thing to calm down and to play for the moment.” Though the joy, abandon, spontaneity and fun have been removed from the professional game (“It’s a business”), nonetheless, to be successful, to win, a player, a team, must play not for the contract, the record books, not even for the playoffs, but for the moment and only for the moment.
Two: The Game Before the Game
This is not the moment. This is the last game with the last-place Arizona Diamondbacks. Fortunately. We are tired of coming up with synonyms for “snake,” and tired of their owners’ venomous anti-immigrant politics.
North Carolina country boy Madison Bumgarner starts for San Francisco. Overlooked on a pitching staff loaded with stars and overshadowed by the spectacular rookie year of his battery mate, Buster Posey, Bumgarner has acquitted himself exceptionally well. Unlike most young pitchers, he doesn’t try to overpower hitters, but relies on location and deception. Which is to say, he’s learning how to pitch.
Like Bumgarner, Arizona pitcher Barry Enright doesn’t depend on pure speed. If anything, he’ll throw far more off-speed pitches than Bumgarner, featuring a sinking fastball, a nasty slider, and when you least expect it, a curveball. In his last outing at Mission Creek, he turned the Giants into tabby cats flailing at a ball of yarn.
Three: Splash!
No one has a more elaborate routine when coming up to bat than Pablo Sandoval. He kicks the bat four times with his feet, then taps his head twice with the bat. You can see it here.
He takes Enright’s first pitch, a curveball that misses wide. Enright returns to his sinker, which has been driving the Giants nuts. Sandoval fouls one off, then another. He steps out of the batters box, taps himself on the head with the bat as if to say “How could you have missed that one?” Happy to help Sandoval figure it out, Enright throws another sinker.
If there has been a more vicious, more violent, more beautiful swing this year at Mission Creek ballpark, I haven’t seen it. Sandoval’s bat did not merely connect with the ball, sweet spot touching sweet spot, it ignited, exploding the ball well over the promenade, into the mouth of Mission Creek.
Four: The Masses
“It was so beautiful,” she said. Rue tells me about the Panda’s splash home run she just witnessed from far right, last row Section 302. “I saw it before I heard it; you know….” Yes, I know, and I know how it got bigger – and faster – as you watched it come closer to the wall, and then finally a white blur and….
It was also the loudest cheer she’d ever heard. Her friend Jason agrees; the stands were vibrating. How can something so trivial as hitting a ball with a stick provoke such a rush of elation in so many people who don’t even know each other? “Everybody’s drunk,” laughs Jason.
Who knows? This is the moment for many if not most fans – the home run moment when 40,000 people rise up as one, without plan, without thought, a moment of beauty, and terror. At one o’clock in the afternoon? Why aren’t these people working?
Five: Don’t Try This at Home
Less than three weeks after his appendix was taken out, Andres Torres singled to open during last night’s game. Would he try to steal second? Probably not. Why take chances now?
Torres took off and slid head-first under the tag. He had to slide on the right side, the side operated on. Tonight is a repeat. A first-inning single, followed by a steal, head first, on the side where he had been cut open. How long will he stay in the game?
With two out in the bottom of the fifth, the score tied 1-1, Torres hits Enright’s first pitch, a sinker of course, onto the promenade. It doesn’t travel quite as far as the Panda’s earlier homer, and even though this game has a long way to go, it still seems decisive. I am high-fiving with a guy I don’t know. The slap of our hands feels like a punctuation point, a period – it’s done.
Six: Willie Mac
“It’s Torres hands down,” says the rabbi of Section 218. He’s talking about Andres Torres being presented with the Willie Mac Award Friday night. Players and coaches vote for the Giant who they believe best exemplifies the inspiration and competitive spirit of former Giant Willie McCovey. “Who else could it be? Posey?”
I had not seen the rabbi for some time and had begun to think he wasn’t a real rabbi – maybe not even a real person, but a character caused by indigestion after eating a Hebrew National hot dog.
“No way for Posey,” I say. “He’s only a rookie. Aubrey Huff?”
“Only if the sportswriters could vote.”
Seven: Rookie of the Year
Huff draws a walk to open the bottom of the sixth inning. With Buster Posey batting, he steals second. Two steals in one game for the Giants?
Posey’s gone hitless this series. As a rookie, the team’s starting catcher and leading hitter, the pressure and the sheer mental and physical grind of major league baseball may be getting to him.
Wrong. Buster fouls off Enright’s sinkers, but Enright won’t stop throwing them. Maybe he’s the one who’s tired; maybe he’s still wondering how the less-than-fleet-footed Huff could steal on him. With the count 3-2, he throws an inside sinker and Posey belts it into the bleachers. The Giants lead 4-1. Game over.
Eight: Taking Care of Business
Are professional baseball players Zen warriors, shutting out all distraction so as to be fully immersed in a diversion? Or are they actors, workers who pretend to play?
Whatever, this must have been a more difficult series for the Giants than it appeared – difficult to keep focused on one game, one pitch, one moment at a time. They’ve done a solid, workmanlike job, playing like they hadn’t a care in the world.
Nine: The Moment is Coming Back
San Diego lost this afternoon; San Francisco has one more game to win.