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April 2002
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Bottom of the third, the home team, our team, the Giants, down 4–1 to the Dodgers, for whom we all bear vestiges of symbolic hatred and dread. Our pitcher looked strong in the first; theirs threw hard yet wild, and a walk and wild pitch capped off by a single gave us the first run of the game. In the second they managed to put together a string of weak hits to tie the score, while we reached their pitcher with a screaming double and a fly ball caught against the fence, driving him back to wildness, another wild pitch and walk that put runners on the corners, the Dodgers only getting out of the inning unscathed with a sharply turned double play. But the top of the third, two outs and bases empty, brought a rent in the fabric of baseball, a run against the odds—a checked-swing dribbler that stayed fair down the line, followed by a bad hop on an infield hit and a bad call on a full count—leaving the bases loaded. Our pitcher, rattled, walked the next batter for one run, then gave up a frank line drive that put two more on the board.
So now we’re up to the plate, and what has to be resolved is whether we can strike their pitcher for serious runs then ours settle down and put the small chaos of the second behind him before the game is out of reach. And it’s early in the season, the first meeting between the two, both teams contenders last year, so what is established today may have consequences later as to who comes out on top.
And more, not just this game, but any game, what the game itself might represent, if baseball represents anything, what it means to the players, how it affects their lives on the field and off, where it leaves them later.
And not just them but those of us watching, how it affects us, what it might mean, this game, the next games, any game, the game itself, what it might establish for us here, now, elsewhere, later, what it says about skill and strength and determination and luck, about coming out on top or losing, about strikes and hits and errors and probabilities and long odds and sure things and misses and near misses and close calls and bad calls and bad breaks and bum deals and screaming blows, about how these might be managed or endured.
And still more, not just these but what lies behind and moves them, what that might mean for those of us who watch or play, if it means anything and anything lies behind them.
There is something about sitting in the stands at a baseball game by oneself, late afternoon on a Monday, that moves one to commentary.