Baseball is life ...
We're sitting behind home plate (rear of the loge, not field level) at the Mets-Yankees Subway Series game Saturday. The Mets are on the field. Pedro Martinez is ready to throw the first pitch to Johnny Damon and someone signals time out. The umps? A Met? A Yankee? No, it's a TV technician - with a wire running from over his shoulder to the dugout -- with his hand raised. He's like that for a minute, two, three. The sellout crowd figures it out: It's Fox Sports waiting for a commercial to end. The response: a Bronx cheer in Flushing.
You'd think a Mets-Yankees game would have the crowd -- about 50-50 for each team -- loudly hanging on every pitch. Not so this Saturday, except for a Martinez-Derek Jeter confrontation with Damon on third in the third. "Pedro,'' "Derek," "Pedro,'' "Derek'' ... He struck out. With the Mets dominating through eight innings, at times you'd think there were no Yankees fans there. All you could hear were Mets fans. But when Billy Wagner melted down for the Mets bullpen in the ninth, it was all Yankees' noise through the end of the game in the 11th.
As a baseball romantic, the redemptive spirit of the game was never more evident than this weekend. Mariano Rivera loses in the ninth Friday night and then is vintage Mariano in winning Saturday. Wagner is unhittable Friday, can't throw a strike Saturday and is unbeatable Sunday. Go figure!
You'd think a Mets-Yankees game would have the crowd -- about 50-50 for each team -- loudly hanging on every pitch. Not so this Saturday, except for a Martinez-Derek Jeter confrontation with Damon on third in the third. "Pedro,'' "Derek," "Pedro,'' "Derek'' ... He struck out. With the Mets dominating through eight innings, at times you'd think there were no Yankees fans there. All you could hear were Mets fans. But when Billy Wagner melted down for the Mets bullpen in the ninth, it was all Yankees' noise through the end of the game in the 11th.
As a baseball romantic, the redemptive spirit of the game was never more evident than this weekend. Mariano Rivera loses in the ninth Friday night and then is vintage Mariano in winning Saturday. Wagner is unhittable Friday, can't throw a strike Saturday and is unbeatable Sunday. Go figure!
posted by Larry Benjamin at 2:15 PM
1 Comments:
Baseball's redemptive aspect is inspiring, since baseball -- like life itself -- generally has more failure than success. One thing I do wish would change is the players' and managers' attitude toward the game. All of the writers interviewed Joe Torre and Willie Randolf and lots of the players prior to the series, hoping to get a line that would add kindling to the fire of the rivalry. Those guys would say "It's just another game. "You know, they're all equally important." "We can't worry too much about what goes on in May." What's with those guys? Don't they get it? Baseball is much more than scoring runs and signing big contracts. I could go on and on about this topic .... sorry for the lengthy comment.
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