Read Online The Roger Angell Baseball Collection by Roger Angell - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Roger Angell
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lucky; last year they were jinxed.
Watching baseball at the Polo Grounds this spring has made cruel demands on my objectivity. The perspiring earnestness of all the old and new Mets, their very evident delight in their own brief flashes of splendor, their capacity for coming up with the unexpected right play and the unexpected winning game, and the general squaring of shoulders visible around the home-team dugout have provided me with so much fun and so many surprises that my impulse is simply to add my voice to the ear-rending anthem of the Met grandstand choir—that repeated, ecstatic yawp of “Let’s go, Mets! ” backed by flourishes and flatted arpeggios from a hundred dented Boy Scout bugles. Caution forces me to add, under the yells, that this is still not a good ball team. Most surprising, in view of the Mets’ comparative new success, is the fact that nobody is hitting. Last year, when the team trailed the entire league in batting (it also finished at the bottom in club pitching and club fielding, stranded the most base-runners, gave up the most home runs, and so forth), its team average was .240. So far this year, the Mets are batting .215, and a good many of the regulars display all the painful symptoms of batters in the grip of a long slump—not swinging at first pitches, taking called third strikes, lashing out too quickly at good pitches and pulling the ball foul. The batting will undoubtedly pick up someday, but Casey Stengel may not be able to wait. If the team begins to lose many close games for sheer lack of hits, he will be forced to insert any faintly warm bat into the lineup, even at the price of weakening his frail defense. This desperate tinkering can lead to the sort of landslide that carried away the citadel last year.
The Mets’ catching is embarrassing. Choo Choo Coleman and Norm Sherry, the two receivers, are batting .215 and .119 respectively. Neither can throw, and Coleman, who is eager and combative, handles outside curve balls like a man fighting bees. He is quick on the base paths, but this is an attribute that is about as essential for catchers as neat handwriting. The Met outfield, by contrast, is slow. Duke Snider, although in superb condition, is thirty-six years old and can no longer run a country mile with his old pounding élan . Jim Hickman may be spryer, but he can be frighteningly uncertain in the field. More than one shallow fly has dropped in front of him because of his slow, thoughtful start in center field. (In a recent night game against the Reds, on the other hand, he got a fine jump on a line drive hit by Vada Pinson and thundered in at top speed; then he had to stop and thunder out at top speed as the ball sailed over his head for a triple.) Finally, to conclude this painful burst of candor, I must add my impression that the Mets’ base-running is deteriorating—another indication of the character-sapping effects of low base-hit nutrition. A hitter who seriously doubts whether the man who bats behind him can get the ball out of the infield is tempted to try stretching a double into a triple in a close game, and quite frequently succeeds only in shooting a rally right behind the ear. I witnessed three such assassinations in the final days of the Mets’ home stand.
The sun’s brightest rays this spring have shone around the middle of the infield. Ron Hunt, a skinny twenty-two-year-old second baseman up from the Texas League, and Al Moran, a rookie shortstop snatched away from the Red Sox farm system, are the most impressive inner defense perimeter in the team’s young history. Hunt has quick hands, excellent range to his left, and a terrierlike eagerness for a moving ball. Moran has made some dazzling stops at short, and his arm is so strong that he can almost afford his cocky habit of holding the ball until the last moment before getting off his peg. Together, they have pulled some flashy double plays and messed up some easy ones; more familiarity with each
Watching baseball at the Polo Grounds this spring has made cruel demands on my objectivity. The perspiring earnestness of all the old and new Mets, their very evident delight in their own brief flashes of splendor, their capacity for coming up with the unexpected right play and the unexpected winning game, and the general squaring of shoulders visible around the home-team dugout have provided me with so much fun and so many surprises that my impulse is simply to add my voice to the ear-rending anthem of the Met grandstand choir—that repeated, ecstatic yawp of “Let’s go, Mets! ” backed by flourishes and flatted arpeggios from a hundred dented Boy Scout bugles. Caution forces me to add, under the yells, that this is still not a good ball team. Most surprising, in view of the Mets’ comparative new success, is the fact that nobody is hitting. Last year, when the team trailed the entire league in batting (it also finished at the bottom in club pitching and club fielding, stranded the most base-runners, gave up the most home runs, and so forth), its team average was .240. So far this year, the Mets are batting .215, and a good many of the regulars display all the painful symptoms of batters in the grip of a long slump—not swinging at first pitches, taking called third strikes, lashing out too quickly at good pitches and pulling the ball foul. The batting will undoubtedly pick up someday, but Casey Stengel may not be able to wait. If the team begins to lose many close games for sheer lack of hits, he will be forced to insert any faintly warm bat into the lineup, even at the price of weakening his frail defense. This desperate tinkering can lead to the sort of landslide that carried away the citadel last year.
The Mets’ catching is embarrassing. Choo Choo Coleman and Norm Sherry, the two receivers, are batting .215 and .119 respectively. Neither can throw, and Coleman, who is eager and combative, handles outside curve balls like a man fighting bees. He is quick on the base paths, but this is an attribute that is about as essential for catchers as neat handwriting. The Met outfield, by contrast, is slow. Duke Snider, although in superb condition, is thirty-six years old and can no longer run a country mile with his old pounding élan . Jim Hickman may be spryer, but he can be frighteningly uncertain in the field. More than one shallow fly has dropped in front of him because of his slow, thoughtful start in center field. (In a recent night game against the Reds, on the other hand, he got a fine jump on a line drive hit by Vada Pinson and thundered in at top speed; then he had to stop and thunder out at top speed as the ball sailed over his head for a triple.) Finally, to conclude this painful burst of candor, I must add my impression that the Mets’ base-running is deteriorating—another indication of the character-sapping effects of low base-hit nutrition. A hitter who seriously doubts whether the man who bats behind him can get the ball out of the infield is tempted to try stretching a double into a triple in a close game, and quite frequently succeeds only in shooting a rally right behind the ear. I witnessed three such assassinations in the final days of the Mets’ home stand.
The sun’s brightest rays this spring have shone around the middle of the infield. Ron Hunt, a skinny twenty-two-year-old second baseman up from the Texas League, and Al Moran, a rookie shortstop snatched away from the Red Sox farm system, are the most impressive inner defense perimeter in the team’s young history. Hunt has quick hands, excellent range to his left, and a terrierlike eagerness for a moving ball. Moran has made some dazzling stops at short, and his arm is so strong that he can almost afford his cocky habit of holding the ball until the last moment before getting off his peg. Together, they have pulled some flashy double plays and messed up some easy ones; more familiarity with each
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