Innings One Through Three: Paint it Black
On August 4, 1775, the Spanish sailed into San Francisco Bay for the first time. Rounding the peninsula, they saw three Ohlone on the shore of Mission Bay who appeared to be weeping. According to one version of the story, their bodies were painted with a tar-like substance or wrapped in black animal skin. The Spanish had no idea what to make of the sight.
Flash forward 235 years. A cool fog envelopes the city as tens of thousands descend on Mission Creek to watch a ballgame between the Padres from San Diego and “your” San Francisco Giants. The Giants beat the Padres yesterday, so why is it so quiet, and why are most fans wearing black?
If it’s cool and gloomy outside the ballpark, inside it’s warm, buzzing and bright orange. Thousands of little kids zip around, all wearing orange jerseys with the number 55, the number worn by their hero, the Giants’ starting pitcher, Tim Lincecum. To the baseball backward, Lincecum appears to be an undersized and underfed hipster-wannabe from post-grunge suburban Seattle. But to the kids, who know better, he’s The Freak, best pitcher in the league and keystone to Giant hopes for the playoffs – until two months ago.
That’s when The Hipster started pitching and The Freak began to disappear. The Hipster, into music, meditation and melodrama, works on developing his mental toughness; The Freak prefers to play catch. So who takes the mound in the first inning today? None other than The Freak himself, fastball humming around 92, even 93 mph, and a changeup that seems to fall off the edge of the earth. The Freak strikes out the side.
Leading off the second inning, Chase Headly draws a walk on five pitches. What happened to the Freak? Don’t ask. The Hipster has taken the mound and he can’t locate his fastball. His speed slows and the fastball, his core pitch, becomes increasingly unreliable. The changeup works alright, but without a fastball, changeups get old. He throws a few curves, but they’re nothing to write home about.
In the press box, as in Bob Dylan’s “Ballad of the Thin Man,” sportswriters know something is wrong, but they don’t know what. Psychological explanations, wild speculation and crackpot conspiracy theories abound in sotto voce. Here’s a sampling:
- He’s injured.
- He’s burdened by the weight of his huge contract.
- He’s angry his contract doesn’t weigh more.
- He’s being blackmailed by the Trafficantes.
- He’s rebelling against his father.
- He’s listening to Barry Zito.
- He can’t take the pressure of being “The Franchise.”
- He wants to be traded to Cleveland.
- He can’t get his mind off sex.
- He thinks too much about his pitching mechanics.
- He doesn’t read. (Actually my mother’s opinion.)
- He’s growing up.
Twenty-six pitches later, the inning ends. Giant players try to pump up their ace’s confidence, but four runs down, they try too hard. Pablo Sandoval, wanting to turn a double play, throws the ball into right field and another run scores.
Buster Posey, on the other hand, hits a huge two-run homer into deep center field. The Giants can make up a three-run deficit — if only the Freak would return.
Innings Four Through Six: A Lesson from the Wizard
But the Freak is finished; Lincecum gives up yet another run and gets the hook. Hope springs fleetingly when newcomer Jose Guillen hits a shot into Triple Alley. But he runs funny, like a limb isn’t working right, and he gets thrown out at third. Andres Torres makes another exciting catch in center before the Padres score another run.
Too nice a day for media criticism, I head for the bleachers, where I meet a guy who went to the basketball camp run by UCLA’s coach John Wooden, the famed Wizard of Westwood. Certainly the Wizard would have an insight into what’s up with our Ailing Ace. “Gentlemen,” the old coach would address his 11-year old campers on day one, “I am now going to teach you the most important lesson in all of sports: How to put on your socks and shoes.” Great, but what’s that got to do with Lincecum?
“I’ll bet Timmy’s got a blister on his big toe,” the guy says.
“I want my money back,” a guy in another section yells, and gets a cheer. Still, we wait, in the bleachers, for lightning to strike on a clear, sunny day. We wait for the Giants to hit.
Innings Seven Through Nine: Play Ball
The New York Times ran a feature on the Padres-Giants showdown this morning. Like most Times reporting on the Bay Area, the article kept its distance in time and space. For example, it said the Padres and the Giants “are trying to win using the same formula, emphasizing pitching and defense….” That was true at the beginning of the season, and it still holds true for the Padres, but the formula hasn’t been working of late for the Giants, who increasingly rely on hitters as their pitching sputters (today the defense also contributed two errors and one bonehead play). Unfortunately, Giants hitters are not Bronx Bombers. Pat Burrell, hero of the Cubs series with big clutch hit after big clutch hit, strikes out to end a game that was over in the second inning.
Walking home via Mission Creek Park, I spot The Freak, eternally pre-adolescent, sitting by himself, looking dejected as he pounds a baseball repeatedly into his glove. I sit for a while, then ask him if he wants to play catch. We throw the ball back and forth, back and forth, until the fog slowly drifts back over what the Spanish once called “La Ensenada de Los Llorones” – Weepers’ Bay.