Read Online Triumph and Tragedy in Mudville by Stephen Jay Gould - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Stephen Jay Gould
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game—God (who must support the Sox if the poor shall inherit the earth) became distracted, and chose this worst possible moment to shell a peanut.
And now these greatest rivals meet for the first time in a full postseason series (impossible previously, because two teams in the same division could not face each other in full postseason play before the recent introduction of the otherwise abominable “wild card”). Pedro Martinez vs. Roger Clemens on Saturday marks a promotion to reality of such fictional dreams as a poetry slam between Shakespeare and Marlowe, or a composition derby between Bach and Handel—as good as it gets in our imperfect world.
The first-round victories that have brought these teams together followed the scripted route for this quintessential drama. The Yankees, with the ruthless efficiency of baseball’s greatest and most frequent champions, dispatched Texas in a minimal three games, allowing the Rangers one paltry run in twenty-seven innings. (This year’s team features a wonderfully likable group of players—not always a hallmark of Yankee history, to say the least—but their personal amiability does not reduce the deadly force of the team’s juggernaut.)
I grew up in New York, now live here again, and have loved and followed the Yankees all my life. I would, moreover, never break a fealty of three generations extending from my immigrant grandfather who learned to love America by watching Jack Chesbro win a record forty-one games for the Yanks (then called the Highlanders) in 1904, to my father who worshiped Ruth and Gehrig, and who cried when Alexander struck out Lazzeri in the 1926 World Series. But after living in Boston for thirty years and holding season tickets in Fenway Park, the most captivating of all intimate bandboxes, how can I not love the Sox as well?
In maximal contrast to the Yankees’ smooth sail, the Sox lost the first two games in their best-of-five first round to the Indians in Cleveland, as their only two genuine stars, pitcher Pedro Martinez and shortstop Nomar Garciaparra, both went down with injuries. At Fenway for the third game, I sat with my seatmates of so many fruitless years, Jeff, Jay, Rob, Leo, and Jenny, all anticipating a wake but acknowledging the duty of our presence. The Sox won, 9–3. On Sunday, we enjoyed an even more improbable party as the Sox fractured the postseason record for runs, winning by a football score of 23–7. On Monday, back in Cleveland, Pedro Martinez, still hurting and unable to throw his best fastball, pitched six hitless innings, while Troy O’Leary’s two homers powered Boston to the most improbable comeback of recent memory.
Logic and reason dictate a swift Yankee victory in this second round, but such noble principles cannot buy a ticket to Fenway Park, where God may again shell peanuts at the crucial moment, or may not care enough even to attend, or may not give a damn about baseball, or may not even exist. This spectacle—the first postseason series ever played between baseball’s two oldest and greatest rivals—lies well beyond rationality. As Red Smith wrote, in the second greatest one-liner of sports literature, following Bobby Thomson’s series-ending home run in the 1951 playoff between the Brooklyn Dodgers and the victorious New York Giants: “The art of fiction is dead. Reality has strangled invention.”
Nothing can explain the meaning and excitement of all this to nonfans. No sensible person would even try. This is church—and nonbelievers cannot know the spirit. One can only recall Louis Armstrong’s famous statement about the nature of jazz: “Man, if you gotta ask, you’ll never know.”
I can only experience this Yankee vs. Red Sox series as eerie, for a rooterless benignity has descended upon me within an activity that demands partisan passion. I cannot abandon my lifelong fealty to the Yankees, but how can one live with Sox pain for thirty years and be unmoved or unattracted by the hope of
And now these greatest rivals meet for the first time in a full postseason series (impossible previously, because two teams in the same division could not face each other in full postseason play before the recent introduction of the otherwise abominable “wild card”). Pedro Martinez vs. Roger Clemens on Saturday marks a promotion to reality of such fictional dreams as a poetry slam between Shakespeare and Marlowe, or a composition derby between Bach and Handel—as good as it gets in our imperfect world.
The first-round victories that have brought these teams together followed the scripted route for this quintessential drama. The Yankees, with the ruthless efficiency of baseball’s greatest and most frequent champions, dispatched Texas in a minimal three games, allowing the Rangers one paltry run in twenty-seven innings. (This year’s team features a wonderfully likable group of players—not always a hallmark of Yankee history, to say the least—but their personal amiability does not reduce the deadly force of the team’s juggernaut.)
I grew up in New York, now live here again, and have loved and followed the Yankees all my life. I would, moreover, never break a fealty of three generations extending from my immigrant grandfather who learned to love America by watching Jack Chesbro win a record forty-one games for the Yanks (then called the Highlanders) in 1904, to my father who worshiped Ruth and Gehrig, and who cried when Alexander struck out Lazzeri in the 1926 World Series. But after living in Boston for thirty years and holding season tickets in Fenway Park, the most captivating of all intimate bandboxes, how can I not love the Sox as well?
In maximal contrast to the Yankees’ smooth sail, the Sox lost the first two games in their best-of-five first round to the Indians in Cleveland, as their only two genuine stars, pitcher Pedro Martinez and shortstop Nomar Garciaparra, both went down with injuries. At Fenway for the third game, I sat with my seatmates of so many fruitless years, Jeff, Jay, Rob, Leo, and Jenny, all anticipating a wake but acknowledging the duty of our presence. The Sox won, 9–3. On Sunday, we enjoyed an even more improbable party as the Sox fractured the postseason record for runs, winning by a football score of 23–7. On Monday, back in Cleveland, Pedro Martinez, still hurting and unable to throw his best fastball, pitched six hitless innings, while Troy O’Leary’s two homers powered Boston to the most improbable comeback of recent memory.
Logic and reason dictate a swift Yankee victory in this second round, but such noble principles cannot buy a ticket to Fenway Park, where God may again shell peanuts at the crucial moment, or may not care enough even to attend, or may not give a damn about baseball, or may not even exist. This spectacle—the first postseason series ever played between baseball’s two oldest and greatest rivals—lies well beyond rationality. As Red Smith wrote, in the second greatest one-liner of sports literature, following Bobby Thomson’s series-ending home run in the 1951 playoff between the Brooklyn Dodgers and the victorious New York Giants: “The art of fiction is dead. Reality has strangled invention.”
Nothing can explain the meaning and excitement of all this to nonfans. No sensible person would even try. This is church—and nonbelievers cannot know the spirit. One can only recall Louis Armstrong’s famous statement about the nature of jazz: “Man, if you gotta ask, you’ll never know.”
I can only experience this Yankee vs. Red Sox series as eerie, for a rooterless benignity has descended upon me within an activity that demands partisan passion. I cannot abandon my lifelong fealty to the Yankees, but how can one live with Sox pain for thirty years and be unmoved or unattracted by the hope of
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