It's Okay
I needed a real Mother’s Day hug yesterday, especially from my late mother. She was always my biggest fan. This past week I thought a lot about how her kindness extended to my world of sports. About 50 years ago I was playing shortstop in a youth baseball game when a hard hit ground ball took a wicked hop and hit me right in the Adam’s apple. I recall being on the dirt infield looking up at my Mom with a wet wash cloth in her hand. The last thing a 10-year old boy wanted to see was his mother on the playing field, but I do remember her words, “It’s okay.” I think we could all use that reassurance right now.
With the baseball season delayed, I watched Ken Burns’ wonderful documentary on “Baseball” for a second time. I was struck by a quote from writer Roger Angell in “Inning 8” of the series. Angell was a Mets fan in 1962 following one of baseball’s all-time worst teams, while many New Yorkers around him adored the winning ways of the Yankees. Angell said this: “There’s more Met than Yankee in all of us. What we experience in our lives, there’s much more losing than winning.” My Mom couldn’t have said it better. Winning is easy; it’s the losing that makes us better.
Many of baseball’s winning numbers can also be thought of as losing ones. Think about those Hall of Fame hitters with .300 batting averages; they failed 7 out of 10 times at the plate. 96 wins in an MLB season mark a playoff appearance and perhaps a championship run. Yet, those teams lost 40% of the time, and most found the key to success by playing .500 on the road. A pitcher needs to get three strikes by a batter, and even then foul balls keep the batter in the box until that one fat pitch results in the bat solidly meeting the baseball. Yes, indeed, it only takes one! In Josh Pinkman’s 2008 article, “Moms and Baseball: One Son’s Story”, he sums up the game with a lesson from his mother: “Above all baseball teaches you persistence, the value to endure.”
Oh, the lesson of persistence, keeping your head up knowing that there is always the next game, the next season. As a youth I made a critical throwing error in a city tournament game that contributed to my team being eliminated. On the way home the car was silent until my Mom said, “You really had a nice hit in the third inning.” Yes, there would be many more games, nice plays, and hits for me ahead, but at the time that one misplay seemed devastating. I recalled this moment last May when the baseball world lost Bill Buckner, a great hitter who had won the NL batting title in 1980. In his playing days, he was most known for a ground ball that went through his legs as he played first base for the Red Sox in the 1986 World Series. Upon his death though, we remembered how graciously he handled all the grief he took in Boston about the play.
The 1986 Buckner error was considered for many years to be just another example of the “Curse of the Bambino”. After the 1919 season Babe Ruth, aka “The Bambino”, was traded from the Red Sox to the Yankees for $125,000. Prior to the trade Boston was a perennial power in the American League, winning five of the first 15 World Series, the last one in 1918 over the Cubs. After the trade Yankee teams led by Ruth dominated baseball. The Red Sox had many failed attempts at the world title as the years went by – 1967 loss to the Bob Gibson led Cardinals in the seventh game; another 7th game loss in 1975 to the Reds; and perhaps the most devastating blow, Bucky Dent’s home run in the 1978 AL East playoff game capping the arch-rival Yankees comeback from 14 games down in the race. The 86-year curse ended in 2004 in remarkable fashion as Boston came back from a 3 games to 0 deficit to win the ALCS with 4 wins over its New York nemesis. Add another 4 wins in a World Series sweep of St. Louis and the curse was over. As for Buckner, the Boston fans had endured and could finally let go and embrace him.
An even longer drought, 108 years, ended recently for Cubs fans. The Cubs, also a dominant force in early World Series matchups, winning in 1907 and 1908, endured the heartache of many losing seasons, and another curse, “The Curse of the Billy Goat”. During game 4 of the 1945 World Series, William Sianis, a local tavern owner who had brought his pet goat, Murphy, to the game, was asked to leave Wrigley Field. While there are various accounts of what happened, the legend is that Sianis cast a curse that the Cubs would never win the World Series again. The Cubs lost the 1945 Series to the Tigers and did not return to post-season play until 39 years later, another playoff loss. In 2003, the Cubs led the Marlins 3 games to 2 in the NLCS and held a 3-0 Game Six lead in the eighth inning. That’s when Cubs fan Steve Bartman “disrupted” Moises Alou’s attempt to reach into the stands to catch a foul ball. Bartman, too, caught the wrath of Cubs fans for years until finally the Cubs endured, a thrilling, 10-inning seventh game win over the Indians in 2016.
After the 2016 Series victory Cubs management presented players and others with celebratory rings. One ring went to Bartman, the Cubs way of asking for forgiveness. Cubs employees received rings too, including Don Costello, who worked as an elevator operator at the ballpark. Costello’s recent passing hit the national news in the last week when his son found letters Costello had stored in his garage. In 1981, Costello, a lifelong Cubs fan, couldn’t take the losing anymore and apparently wrote other MLB teams offering his fandom. Costello received several letters in response, the best one coming from the then Montreal Expos VP of player development, James Fanning, who replied, “if I also know anything about being a long time and loyal Cubs fan – you will not only REMAIN ONE – you will withdraw your free agency threat and re-dedicate yourself to the Chicago Cubs.” Costello endured, and he was able to witness his Cubs claim a world championship before his death.
My lasting image of the Cubs 2016 celebration is seeing the tears of joy of the passionate fans. The persistence in following the Cubs throughout generations had finally paid off. 11 years earlier on the south side of town the White Sox provided their fans with those same joyful tears in ending their own 88-year championship drought. The 2005 Sox, led by manager Ozzie Guillen and first baseman Paul Konerko, finished the season with the top record in the American League. Their 2005 playoff run was one of the best ever – a sweep of the Red Sox in the ALDS; a 4-1 series win over the Angels in the ALCS; and another sweep of the Astros in the World Series. The only downside to the White Sox wonderful season was that my father in-law, a lifelong Sox fan, died two months before the World Series and did not see his beloved Sox win a world title.
Persistence continues to be the word for another AL Central team, the Indians. Despite dominating the division for over two decades, Cleveland can’t seem to find a way to end its drought, currently 72 years since its last World Series championship. And while it would be difficult to convince an Indians fan of this notion, I’m not so sure the ultimate success of winning the title is all that matters. There is also the absolute joy of experiencing the next game, the next season. Perhaps John Pinkman’s view of “Moms” in his 2008 article is the best way to think about it: “Success to a mom is not the fact that their child went 3-3 or pitched a 1 hitter, or even whether his team won. It doesn’t matter to a mom whether her child won or lost. She knows it’s only a game. What matters to a mom is that he had fun doing it and that he gained knowledge about his life.” Maybe, just maybe, baseball can also be about how experiencing losing makes us better.
About 25 years ago my Mom lost a much bigger battle, one with cancer. The last weekend of her life I spent a lot of alone time with her. We watched part of a Reds game but mostly we quietly talked. I reminded her what she said to me when I came home one day from school unexpectedly because I was cut from the seventh grade basketball team, “there’s more time for baseball now.” She smiled at the memory, and I believe she is smiling now, knowing that despite all of the anxiety around us, “It’s okay”. It’s going to be okay.
Until next Monday,
your Baseball Bench Coach