Alert: Rare and Lengthy Baseball Rant!
Oct. 24th, 2002 09:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sdelmonteSo once in a while, I put on my hat - a fairly battered old Met cap, or maybe a nice Norwich Navigators (a minor league team in CT) hat - and talk baseball. Be warned if you don't care about the game. Be warned, also, if you are interested in the current World Series. That's not my topic. No, my topic is history.
Over the summer, a credit card company - one I'm not giving more free ad space to - ran a poll to determine what baseball fans thought were the 10 most memorable moments in baseball history. The results were announced in a long time-wasting ceremony before the 4th game of the Series. And once again, the fans who vote in these things showed amazing disinterest in the history of baseball and in what I think matters within that scope.
I am of the opinion that the most memorable moments come when the game is on the line, which is to say in the playoffs and the World Series. Only on rare occasions does an individual achievement become memorable, and sometimes that achievement has little to do with baseball. So when I saw what was on this list, I was not happy.
Only one World Series or playoff game was mentioned on the list, and the immortal "Shot Heard 'Round the World" that brought the Giants to the 1951 World Series, so famous they built an episode of MASH around it, wasn't there. Instead, we got a lot of broken records and two moments that while noteworthy had nothing to do with the game as something played on the field. Not to take anything away form Lou Gehrig's "Luckiest Man" speech, but that was just a speech. And while Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier was a very important event in American history, can it really be called a "memorable moment?" Has anyone ever said they were there the day he first started in a real game? His accomplishment was not a moment but a lifetime.
And the rest of the list? Records falling, except for Gibson's stuning 1988 homer against the A's. The winning moment? Ripken setting the consecutive games record, which was years in the making and not exactly unexpected by that point, and which was a great accomplishement for him but not necessarily great for a team distracted by the hoopla.
So with just these examples, I decided I know better. Which is the right of sports fans everywhere. And I decided to make my own list. If anyone cares, pleae debate it with me. Tell me why I'm wrong and what you would include instead.
Here is my top ten list, in no real order:
1. 1908 - Fred Merkle's "Bonehead" play - an otherwise talented player makes a doozy of a baserunning error, ultimately costing his team a pennant.
2. 1920 - Babe Ruth makes his debut with the Yankees, soon revolutionizing baseball as a home run hitter, propelling the Yankees to the top of the game, and helping to place the "Curse of the Bambino" on the Red Sox. A rare off-the-field moment which perhaps changed everything.
3. July 17, 1941 - The Indians stop DiMaggio's hit streak. As great as the streak was, the journeymen ptichers and sterling defense remind me that baseball is not about personal achievement alone, but about how teams work as one to do things better.
4. Last day of the season, 1941 - Ted Williams plays. He could have sat it out and be declared a .400 hitter do to math rounding his average to the closer whole number, but he played. And he hit and finished at .406. That he hit .400 is remarkable, but what matters to me is that he didn't take the easy way out.
5. 1951 - "The Giants win the pennant" - The Giants, having come from 12 1/2 games behind the Dodgers, mount one last comeback as light-hitting Bobby Thompson homers off Raplph Branca to win the game in the 9th. One of the most exciting games ever played, in one of the most exciting pennant races of all time, and perhaps the one moment that exemplifies baseball at its best.
6. Game five of the 1956 World Series - Larsen's perfect game. An otherwise unremarkable pitcher is perfect when it counts most, at the time when baseball was king in America and the Yankees were kings of baseball. The prefect game is the pinnacle for a pitcher, and to reach it in the World Series is just amazing. I doubt anyone will ever do this again.
7. Game six of the 1975 World Series - the seesaw battle ended in the bottom of the 12 inning with Carlton Fisk's just-barely-fair home run. The footage of Fisk trying to wave it fair and then of him celebrating is still quite bracing.
8. Game six of the 1986 National League Championship Series - 15 brutal innings between a heavily favored Mets team and an Astros squad that needs to win to force game seven. I goes all the Astros way until the Mets mount a late comeback, and then the tension begins. Opposing managers play chess with their teams, and when the Mets score in the 15th and just barely hold on, you can feel the gasp in the air in NYC as Jess Orosco gets that last out. A better game than even game six of the '86 World Series (aka the Red Sox blow it).
9. Game one of the 1988 World Series - Gibson - OK, maybe the Dodgers got by the Mets, but the A's were dominant that year, and they have Eckersley on the mound, and Gibson is hurting. The Dodgers can't come back. But they did. And that homer, despite being in the first game, gives the Dodgers all the momentum they need. A great moment to watch, over and over.
10. Game seven of the 1991 World Series. Twins beat Braves 1-0 in ten innings. My idea of the perfect game. Unending drama. Gerat pitching, great defense. I was on the edge of my seat the whole time. Nothing since has grabbed me quite the same way.
Have there been great moments since 1991? A few, but not as great as these. There's too much emphasis on records now, and not on the teams. The pitcher's duel has given way to the slugfest. And maybe I am not quite the fan I was when I was single. But that I can spend so much time and effort coming up with a list like this, it makes me say that I still love the game. And that I suspect there are great moments to come that make these seem like just the warm-up act.
Over the summer, a credit card company - one I'm not giving more free ad space to - ran a poll to determine what baseball fans thought were the 10 most memorable moments in baseball history. The results were announced in a long time-wasting ceremony before the 4th game of the Series. And once again, the fans who vote in these things showed amazing disinterest in the history of baseball and in what I think matters within that scope.
I am of the opinion that the most memorable moments come when the game is on the line, which is to say in the playoffs and the World Series. Only on rare occasions does an individual achievement become memorable, and sometimes that achievement has little to do with baseball. So when I saw what was on this list, I was not happy.
Only one World Series or playoff game was mentioned on the list, and the immortal "Shot Heard 'Round the World" that brought the Giants to the 1951 World Series, so famous they built an episode of MASH around it, wasn't there. Instead, we got a lot of broken records and two moments that while noteworthy had nothing to do with the game as something played on the field. Not to take anything away form Lou Gehrig's "Luckiest Man" speech, but that was just a speech. And while Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier was a very important event in American history, can it really be called a "memorable moment?" Has anyone ever said they were there the day he first started in a real game? His accomplishment was not a moment but a lifetime.
And the rest of the list? Records falling, except for Gibson's stuning 1988 homer against the A's. The winning moment? Ripken setting the consecutive games record, which was years in the making and not exactly unexpected by that point, and which was a great accomplishement for him but not necessarily great for a team distracted by the hoopla.
So with just these examples, I decided I know better. Which is the right of sports fans everywhere. And I decided to make my own list. If anyone cares, pleae debate it with me. Tell me why I'm wrong and what you would include instead.
Here is my top ten list, in no real order:
1. 1908 - Fred Merkle's "Bonehead" play - an otherwise talented player makes a doozy of a baserunning error, ultimately costing his team a pennant.
2. 1920 - Babe Ruth makes his debut with the Yankees, soon revolutionizing baseball as a home run hitter, propelling the Yankees to the top of the game, and helping to place the "Curse of the Bambino" on the Red Sox. A rare off-the-field moment which perhaps changed everything.
3. July 17, 1941 - The Indians stop DiMaggio's hit streak. As great as the streak was, the journeymen ptichers and sterling defense remind me that baseball is not about personal achievement alone, but about how teams work as one to do things better.
4. Last day of the season, 1941 - Ted Williams plays. He could have sat it out and be declared a .400 hitter do to math rounding his average to the closer whole number, but he played. And he hit and finished at .406. That he hit .400 is remarkable, but what matters to me is that he didn't take the easy way out.
5. 1951 - "The Giants win the pennant" - The Giants, having come from 12 1/2 games behind the Dodgers, mount one last comeback as light-hitting Bobby Thompson homers off Raplph Branca to win the game in the 9th. One of the most exciting games ever played, in one of the most exciting pennant races of all time, and perhaps the one moment that exemplifies baseball at its best.
6. Game five of the 1956 World Series - Larsen's perfect game. An otherwise unremarkable pitcher is perfect when it counts most, at the time when baseball was king in America and the Yankees were kings of baseball. The prefect game is the pinnacle for a pitcher, and to reach it in the World Series is just amazing. I doubt anyone will ever do this again.
7. Game six of the 1975 World Series - the seesaw battle ended in the bottom of the 12 inning with Carlton Fisk's just-barely-fair home run. The footage of Fisk trying to wave it fair and then of him celebrating is still quite bracing.
8. Game six of the 1986 National League Championship Series - 15 brutal innings between a heavily favored Mets team and an Astros squad that needs to win to force game seven. I goes all the Astros way until the Mets mount a late comeback, and then the tension begins. Opposing managers play chess with their teams, and when the Mets score in the 15th and just barely hold on, you can feel the gasp in the air in NYC as Jess Orosco gets that last out. A better game than even game six of the '86 World Series (aka the Red Sox blow it).
9. Game one of the 1988 World Series - Gibson - OK, maybe the Dodgers got by the Mets, but the A's were dominant that year, and they have Eckersley on the mound, and Gibson is hurting. The Dodgers can't come back. But they did. And that homer, despite being in the first game, gives the Dodgers all the momentum they need. A great moment to watch, over and over.
10. Game seven of the 1991 World Series. Twins beat Braves 1-0 in ten innings. My idea of the perfect game. Unending drama. Gerat pitching, great defense. I was on the edge of my seat the whole time. Nothing since has grabbed me quite the same way.
Have there been great moments since 1991? A few, but not as great as these. There's too much emphasis on records now, and not on the teams. The pitcher's duel has given way to the slugfest. And maybe I am not quite the fan I was when I was single. But that I can spend so much time and effort coming up with a list like this, it makes me say that I still love the game. And that I suspect there are great moments to come that make these seem like just the warm-up act.
