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Cheerfulness

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In the recently published The Keillor Reader, Garrison Keillor begins the book’s final essay with these insights:

Cheerfulness is a choice, like choosing what color socks to wear, the black or the red. Happiness is something that occurs, or it doesn’t, and don’t hold your breath. Joy is a theological idea, pretty rare among us mortals and what many people refer to as “joy” is what I would call “bragging.” Bliss is brief, about five seconds for the male, fifteen for the female. Contentment is something that belongs to older cultures: Americans are a hungry, restless people, ever in search of the rainbow, the true source, the big secret. Euphoria is a drug.

Keillor wrote the essay on cheerfulness after his mother died at age ninety-seven. He noted that she possessed cheerfulness, as did his father, but that it was a new topic for him. Yet as he realized in the writing, he is a cheerful man.  Later in the essay he notes:

Cheerfulness is a great American virtue, found in Emerson, Whitman, Emily Dickinson, even in Mark Twain: Don’t be held hostage by the past, the bonehead mistakes, the staggering losses, the betrayals of trust. Look ahead. Improve the day. Grow flowers. Walk in the woods. Be resilient. Clear away the wreckage and make spaghetti sauce. Power and influence are shadows, illusions. As Solomon said, the race is not to the big shots nor the battle to the tall nor success to a guy with connections.

I got to thinking about this as I realized how I chose to be cheerful — and how I chose to spend my time (and yes, the two may be related) — on the Saturday of the Columbus Day weekend. This is the last three-day weekend before what appears — on my calendar — to be a grueling stretch of meetings and travel. Columbus Day is a three-day weekend without a focus, and I like that. We don’t gather around a big turkey dinner or give gifts on Columbus Day weekend. There is no Columbus Eve special liturgy at St. Albans. The closest thing I have to a commitment this weekend is that we bought tickets to drink craft beer and listen to Frank Solivan and Dirty Kitchen play marvelous bluegrass in Arlington on Sunday afternoon. Without realizing it, I had specifically scheduled a cheerful weekend.

When we are home, our Saturday’s always begin with a 9 a.m. run to the farmer’s market, to ensure that we arrive in time to secure our two dozen eggs from Evensong Farm. This could be seen as a chore, but Candice and I have chosen to see it as pleasurable, even on a rainy day. As we buy our four bags of the bounty of the earth, we chat with our favorite farmers, catch up with Sue on Mel’s health, sample some apples and cheese, and take a stroll through the market. That’s followed by a spur-of-the-moment decision to have a chi latte at Kefa Cafe, our favorite independent coffee shop in Silver Spring.

I had some things on my to-do list, but not too much. Idleness was really the point. Writing was on my list, but it was not related to work.  I had reconnected recently with a wonderful couple – retired professors at Andover – who I met on a National Trust tour of the Black Sea about ten years ago.  Ed and Ruth love baseball, and one of their sons works for the Red Sox. Ed has been reading my recent posts about the Nats season and wrote with some encouragement about the writing and — eventually — with condolences about the Nats. I confided to Ed that I had a fantasy about how this year’s World Series played out, and that email exchange became the rough draft of a Saturday afternoon blog post. I chortled (literally) as I wrote and edited my fantasy and loved spending time watching an old clip from 1985, as the hated Cardinals lost the argument with Dan Denkinger (again) and also lost the game and the Series (again).

Keillor suggests that cheerfulness is a “habit you assume in the morning and hang on to as best you can for the rest of the day.”  It is, he says later in describing his mother’s cheerfulness, “that spiritual awareness that Buddhism holds up as enlightenment, in which one does not covet more than one’s small lot, one is free of animosity, and one lives in the immediate present, day by day, without dread of what might befall.” That sounds right to me.

So yesterday I finished the Keillor book (uneven but recommended); read a short book on idle pleasures (Philosophizing:  Sometimes you have to talk to find out what you think); sang and played guitar for an hour or so; sat with Candice over a fall dinner and together watched the last five innings of the Orioles/Royals game; read Joe Posnanski’s wonderful blog and learned a new word:  Yostify*; checked out some music of the people on the wonderful Fiddlefreak web site; and had a nice scotch on the rocks before heading to bed.

(*Yostify (yo-stah-fy), verb: give an explanation that is more irrational than the irrational decision.

[In speaking about the 7th inning of Game 4 of the NLDS] Matt Williams yostified that he didn’t use Clippard because it was the seventh inning, which is not Clippard’s inning — this is bizarre yostimony that Ned Yost [manager of the KC Royals] himself has used.

The reason he didn’t use Strasburg, it seems, had something to do with his plan to not use Strasburg except in case of an emergency [and facing elimination in the 7th inning doesn’t, I suppose, qualify as an emergency].)

Was any of it earth-shattering? No. Did it lighten my work load next week? Well, no…but that wasn’t the point. The work will be there, and I am prepared to do that work and welcome it, in its own time. I’ll get the job done and will enjoy it, in its own way. But I’ll do so with a bit more cheerfulness of heart because of farmer’s markets, mushrooms, books, baseball writers, good friends, and the most amazing version of John Hardy you’ll ever hear, played by the incomparable Bryan Sutton and Michael Daves (thanks to Fiddlefreak for the tip).

More to come…

DJB

Image: Dale Chihuly artwork from his boat house in Seattle by DJB

My 2014 World Series fantasy

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I know I’m now expected to cheer for the almost-hometown Orioles to make the World Series, as the Nationals have succumbed to the Giants.  The O’s have a good team this year, and I’d be happy to see them in the Series.  They deserve all the positive things that may come their way (although that Game 1 loss wasn’t a good start.)

But…I keep having this recurring fantasy about the 2014 World Series. It goes back to my hatred of the St. Louis Cardinals after the 2012 NLDS, when we were one strike from winning and couldn’t put it away.  This year’s loss to the Giants hurt, but not like that, since 2012 was so gut wrenching coming as it did at home in Game 5.

No, for my fantasy I’d like to see a replay of the 1985 World Series. You remember the “Show-Me Series” (or the “I-70 Series” depending on your preference): the only World Series between Missouri’s two baseball teams – the regal Cardinals and the expansion Royals.  In Game 6, with the Cardinals leading the series 3 games to 2, they were three outs away from taking the championship, when umpire Don Denkinger intervened. Here’s the synopsis from Real Clear Sports:

St. Louis was leading Kansas City three games to two in the 1985 World Series. And with a 1-0 lead in the ninth inning of Game 6 the Cardinals were on the verge of claiming the title. Then, Jorge Orta of the Royals led off the inning and hit a high hopper to the right side of the infield. First baseman Jack Clark moved over to field it and threw to pitcher Todd Worrell covering the base. Orta was clearly out but umpire Don Denkinger ruled that Worrell had missed the bag and called Orta safe. St. Louis argued vehemently, and fruitlessly, and the Royals went on to score two runs and win the game.

In Game 7, Denkinger had home plate duties and the Cardinals were off their game, getting crushed by Kansas City as the Royals took home the crown with an 11-0 rout. For a while Denkinger received threats over the call, but managed to maintain a sense of humor about it. He now owns a painting of the play and often autographs photographs of it, usually photos that show Worrell holding the ball with Orta’s foot about to come down on the bag. Of all the calls on this list, this is perhaps the most influential as it potentially changed the outcome of a World Series.

So my fantasy:  it is Game 7 of the World Series in 2014.  The critical game is in Kansas City (thank you Bud Selig for screwing up the World Series home field advantage in order to boost a meaningless All-Star game).  The series is tied 3-3 and it is the bottom of the ninth.  The Cardinals are ahead by one run. The Royals have runners on second and third.  A bloop single to right plates the runner on third, and the speedster on second motors home, resulting in a play at the plate.  Ball and runner arrive at the same time. The ump calls the runner out.

Pandemonium erupts in KC, as the fans boo.  But in 2014 we have VIDEO REVIEW!  So Ned Yost (who has probably made about 10 bad managerial decisions already this series) comes out and asks for a second look.  The video crew in New York takes a looooong time to review the play. And then the call comes back to the umpires on the field.  They take off their headsets…and give the call.

The runner was safe!

The Royals win the series! Joyful pandemonium erupts again in KC. George Brett runs around the field with the team pulling out his hair for joy.

The Cardinals get to swear about how unfair it is to have lost without video review in 1985 and with video review in 2014.

And everyone else smiles.

Wouldn’t that be delicious?

Enjoy the blown call in 1985 in the video below. It shows the entire bottom of the 9th, and it is a delightful way to spend 13 minutes. (If you want the cliff notes version, there’s a one minute video if you click on this Real Clear Sports link.)

More to come…

DJB

Image by Cindy Danger Jones on Pixabay.

Nats Forget Basics and Lose a Season

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Baseball/BasketballCrash Davis said it best.

Baseball is a very simple game. You throw the ball, you catch the ball, you hit the ball…

Last evening and early this morning as they faced an elimination game, the Nats forgot how to throw the ball, catch the ball, and hit the ball. And so – no surprise – their season ended.

Throw the ball.  A simple task.  Unless you are Gio Gonzalez and can’t throw a strike with the bases loaded. Unless you are Aaron Barrett, and can’t find your catcher on two consecutive tosses (including an intentional Ball 4). Unless you are Adam LaRoche and you throw home when no one is actually coming home.

Catch the ball.  Another simple task.  Unless you are Gio (there he is again), and you do your best Billy Buckner impersonation and can’t pick up a gift of a double play ball that dribbles through your legs.  Unless you are Gio, Anthony Rendon, and Wilson Ramos who converge on a sacrifice bunt – a gift of an out – and no one catches the ball.

Hit the ball.  A not so simple task, but something that professional baseball players are paid to do. Unless you are…oh, hell, unless you are everybody in the lineup not named Bryce Harper (and Anthony Rendon earlier in the series).

The Nats lost a series they should have won, because they didn’t do the basics while the San Francisco Giants did.  Their by-the-book manager tempted the baseball gods in Game 2 and lost that bet, and then last night he stuck by “what we’ve done all year” and got beat in the 7th with less than our best pitchers on the mound.  Ryan Zimmerman was 1 for 4 as a pinch hitter, but he stayed in the dugout the entire series instead of coming in for the totally ineffective LaRoche at first base. It was pretty clear by Game 2 that LaRoche was not swinging the bat, but Matt stayed with him throughout the series. The Nats got very good pitching from their starters, but a couple of brain-dead plays in Games 1 and 4 negated that effort. (See LaRoche and Gio.) However, Matt Williams’ pitching decisions were questionable from the beginning, as Gio became the 4th starter over Tanner Roark – in spite of a so-so year and Gio’s tendency to (how shall I say this delicately) get “excited and do stupid things” in the playoffs.

Three Nats showed the type of smarts and resiliency in this series that the entire team will need to find to win. Jordan Zimmermann deserved a much better fate in Game 2 than the horrible no-decision he received after 8 2/3s innings of lights-out pitching.  Doug Fister demonstrated a professionalism in his task during Game 3 that other Nats pitchers (I’m looking at you Gio) can only dream about.

And Bryce Harper finally arrived.  Last night he hit McCovey Cove after barely missing in Game 3, but more than that he had professional at-bats and played sparkling defense in left field.  When he hits his 22nd birthday in a few weeks, Harper will be looking at the brightest of futures.  Would anyone have taken Mike Trout’s 2014 postseason over Harper’s?  I don’t think so.

In a couple of days I’ll write a post of appreciation to these guys for the great 2014 season they gave us.  Right now – less than 4 hours after the stinging loss that means the party is over – I have to agree with Tom Boswell that it should be.

The quote from the movie Bull Durham that I mention at the top comes from Ebby Calvin “Nuke” LaLoosh, quoting Crash Davis.  And the full quote goes like this:

A good friend of mine used to say, “This is a very simple game. You throw the ball, you catch the ball, you hit the ball. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains.” Think about that for a while.

Last night and this morning, while it was raining here in Washington, the Nats lost a game and a season.

More to come…

DJB

In Doug We Trust

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Nationals LogoSee you tomorrow!

The Nationals finally played a sharp, aggressive game; had a great effort from pitcher Doug Fister; and turned the tables on the Giants when Madison Bumgarner took a sacrifice bunt and made an errant throw into the left field corner. Two runs later the Nats had a lead that quickly grew to three, and all of a sudden it appears we have a series!

Bryce’s bomb in the 9th came tantalizingly close to McCovey Cove (how cool would that have been), but his sliding catch a couple of innings earlier was probably more important, as it helped keep the Giants scoreless at the time.

We’ll have another game tomorrow.  Can’t ask for anything else this time of year.

As Harper said to begin his post-game interview, “In Doug we trust.” Indeed!

More to come…

DJB

Matt, You Have to Trust Your Pitcher’s Heart

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NLDS Game 2

View from our seats for Game 2 of the 2014 NLDS

Last night was tough.  No doubt about it.

A sunny and cool afternoon turned into a cold and cruel evening at Nationals Park, as we were reminded that sometimes the best managers do nothing in critical situations. They trust their players.

Matt Williams is a rookie manager who has had a fine run in his first year, leading the Nats to the best record in the National League. But in what was close to a do-or-die game last evening, he over-managed.  And we were reminded that he is still a rookie.

Jordan Zimmermann was one out away from completing two of the most stunning back-to-back pitching performances in baseball history.  How to follow-up a no-hitter on the final day of the regular season?  Oh, how about taking a 3-hitter within one out of a complete game shutout when your team is down one game in the NLDS.  He had easily handled the heart of the Giants order the last two times he faced them, so who cares if their 3-4-5 hitters are coming up. Zimm had proven he could take them.

But he never got the chance. After one in a series of questionable ball-strike calls this series, he walked a man – his first of the evening.  He was at 100 pitches, which is 4 less than he threw last Sunday. Matt Williams pops up out of the dugout and signals for closer Drew Storen – he of the 2012 NLDS nightmare. He doesn’t even give Zimmermann the chance to talk him out of it, as he did with Doug Fister in the last week of the season.

And, you know the rest.  Storen gives up two hits that tie the game. The first nine was such fun, let’s play another nine – which takes about twice as long! Candice and I finally have to abandon the stadium after 11 because it was so cold and the winds were whipping through us.  (Plus, not being in our regular seats, we were tired of the beer from the “fans” (and I use that term loosely) behind us ending up on our seats, not to mention the rally towels hitting us in the head.)

We “watched” on my iPhone while taking the metro to Silver Spring and made it home for the 14th, where we turned on the radio.  (Don’t get me started about the stupidity of MLB putting postseason games on networks where you have to buy premium cable packages.  That’s no way to build up a fan base.)  And we were in bed “watching” again on the MLB app on the iPhone when Belt hit his home run in the 18th.

All of that never should have happened.  Matt should have pulled a Johnny Keane, who – when asked after the seventh game of the 1964 World Series why he stayed with Bob Gibson in the 9th although he was obviously tiring – said, “I had a commitment to his heart.”

Zimm, we were there with you.  Just wish your manager had been there as well.

More to come…

DJB

Congratulations 2014 International Bluegrass Award Winners

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Dear Sister It took 10 months, but the 2014 International Bluegrass Awards caught up with my Best of Bluegrass 2013 post from December. Turns out, my picks were prescient.

The International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) awards were presented on Thursday evening in Raleigh, NC.  Three of my five choices from the end of the year were winners at the IBMA showcase.

Let’s begin with congratulations to Claire Lynch for winning the “Song of the Year” award for Dear Sister.  I recognized this as a special song back in 2012, and have loved this tale taken from letters written before the Civil War Battle of Stones River in my hometown of Murfreesboro. Claire co-wrote this lovely tune with Louisa Branscomb. It is one of her best ever, and highly deserving of the award.

Claire Lynch with DJB

Thursday was a big night for banjo phenom Noam Pikelny. His Noam Pikelny Plays Kenny Baker Plays Bill Monroe – one of my picks in December – won Album of the Year at IBMA. This is not just a terrific concept album, it is a terrific album period. Fantastic music from a group of amazing musicians.

Noam Pikelney

Pikelny also took home a second IBMA award – Banjo Player of the Year – which is only fitting for a banjo master who takes a classic fiddler album and makes it his own.

Frank Solivan and Chris Luquette

Another pick from my Best of Bluegrass 2013 post – Frank Solivan and Dirty Kitchen – took away IBMA Honors as Instrumental Group of the Year. I wrote about their handling of the Tony Rice instrumental Is That So earlier this year, which convinced me they could tackle just about anything. Congratulations to this DC-area band, which is playing in Arlington on October 12th.

John Starling and Tom GrayFinally, I also want to congratulate bass player extraordinaire and my friend Tom Gray, who was inducted – for the second time – into the International Bluegrass Hall of Fame this time as a member of the original Seldom Scene.

The three surviving members – Tom, John Starling, and Ben Eldridge – were honored in Raleigh and then joined the current band to play Wait a Minute.  When I spoke with Tom’s daughter Julie this morning at the Silver Spring Farmers Market, it was clear she was so proud of her dad.

She should be…what a wonderful musician and gentleman.

So there you have it.  A wrap-up to a great year of music. There were many other terrific award winners you should check out, but I especially want to congratulate Tom, Claire, and those musicians who have touched me for years.

Let’s go out with the Claire Lynch Band performing the beautiful Dear Sister at WAMU’s Bluegrass Country, here in the nation’s capitol.  Well worth a listen.

More to come…

DJB

 

 

God, I Love the Wild Card

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BaseballFact #1: I love the wild card games in Major League Baseball.

Fact #2: I’m glad the Nationals are not playing in these “win or go home” games.

Last night saw the Kansas City Royals win a thriller from the Oakland A’s at Kauffman Stadium in 12 innings.  The K is a wonderful place to see a ballgame.  Tonight, I’m sitting on the couch waiting to see who will survive the National League Wild Card game and face the Nats on Friday night in the NLDS.  The game is at PNC Park – one of the great places to watch a ballgame.

If you look over to the right-hand column of my blog, you’ll see a link to the name Joe Posnanski.  Joe is among the best writers about baseball, and it just so happens that KC is his home.  His post on last night’s game had some of the funniest lines I’ve ever read from a sportswriter.

The first concerns the description of the bizarre double-steal attempt that went bad.   Here’s Joe’s description:

The Royals really are the closest baseball thing to a Coen Brothers movie. With two outs, the Royals tried some sort of double-steal with Billy Butler at first and Eric Hosmer at third. If I got the play right, and can write this without breaking down in convulsions, Butler was supposed to get hung up between first and second, distracting the A’s long enough to allow Hosmer to steal home. This, of course, ended in humiliation, with Hosmer being thrown out at the plate by 800 million steps, but as is often the case the spectacular ineptitude of the play was doubled or trebled by the Ned Yost explanation, where he explained that Butler left early and Hosmer left late and, otherwise, the Royals would have score a run.

Any comedian will tell you that you can’t explain comedy, and every effort to do so will just dig you deeper into anti-comedy, and maybe that’s why the straight-laced Yost always comes across so absurdly in these situations. Eric Hosmer is a generally lumbering first baseman, and Billy Butler might be the slowest player in baseball, and any complicated running play with these two is destined to become a Will Ferrell movie. It would have made me feel so much better if Yost had not given a considered answer on how that madcap scheme might have worked but instead said, “Yeah, that was crazy, right? Woo hop! Brain cramp! Hey, it’s the first postseason for me too!”

Posnanski has been a long-time Ned Yost critic…and there was a great deal of criticize last night.

The Royals, for many years, did not have anything concrete to believe in. They would talk the happy talk of spring training about how they believed they had better players, believed this pitcher would improve and that outfielder would build on last year’s success, and their defense would get better. But this was the misty kind of belief. There was no blueprint for winning that anyone actually could spell out, no clear line to victory like: “We will score more runs than other teams because we will hit more home runs” or “We will keep people from scoring because we have strikeout pitchers” or anything else like that.

The very best part of this year’s Royals team has been the replacement of that old bleary belief with a clarity of vision. It’s not an easy vision. But it’s clear. These Royals know what they’re up against. They can’t hit home runs. They don’t walk. They don’t have a starting pitcher who will get Cy Young votes. They have a manager who will occasionally just leave the planet. They don’t have as much money. They are not very deep.

OK – that’s something to work with. Now, how do you use all that? No power? Well, let’s steal lots of bases. No great starter? Maybe not, but let’s put together five really good ones and build a legendary back of the bullpen. Kooky manager? Maybe, but remember a manager can only hurt so much and, anyway, sometimes the nutty stuff will work. No depth? All right, have Alicedes Escobar play all 162 games at shortstop and Salvy Perez catch more games in a season than any Royals catcher ever.

The point is – if you actually can get people to believe these steps will lead to victories, they will do those things with vigor. And, as Patton believed, a good army is an army in motion. The Royals’ players and management believed the team could run and bunt and slice and dice their way to enough runs. They believed that their bullpen was invincible and a late-inning lead was a guaranteed win. The Royals believed that they could win games even if Ned Yost did stuff that made the head hurt. It all became a part of their chemistry.

And that was what I thought about after Yost left the farm in the sixth inning. The Royals trailed Oakland by four runs, 7-3, and it sure seemed like they would lose. After they fell behind, they did all sorts of unsound things like try to steal a base when down four runs and sacrifice bunt anytime a Royals player reached base and swing at baseballs that were only marginally in the field of play. But they did it all with such enthusiasm, with such force of will, with such optimism that chemical reactions were sparking again and again.

And, of course, they pull it out in the 12th.

Now it is on to two intriguing teams:  San Francisco and Pittsburgh.  I can’t wait to see what tonight brings.

More to come…

DJB

A Change in the Pecking Order?

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Nationals LogoLocal all-news radio station WTOP runs a segment entitled Core Values with commentator Chris Core.

Today, he had a segment that was music to my ears: a change in the pecking order of local sports teams.

In one minute, Core sums up why everyone is fed up with the Washington football team.  (Oops, I almost wrote their nickname, which many see as offensive.) There are multiple reasons to be tired of this team (e.g., Fed Ex Field, the team stinks, they mortgage their future for a perpetually injured quarterback), but the primary reason is that everyone despises the owner. I’ve made the same point before!

Then Core turns to the Nationals.  The owners are great (and they stay out of the way of the professionals).  They play in a beautiful park (and he could have added that it is accessible by Metro). They have a great chance to get to the World Series and they are primed to be good for years to come.

Then Chris Core does something really great…he let’s out the Section 313 cheer:  N-A-T-S, Nats, Nats, Nats, Woo!  (And yes, Kim, he does include the “woo.”)

How cool is that?

I’ve included the audio link below.  It only takes a minute to get into the Nats spirit.

Woo indeed!

More to come…

DJB

Punctuation Mark!!!

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Nationals LogoCould there be a better way to end the regular season?

Let me answer that for you.

Nope.

Jordan Zimmermann, the Nationals unassuming #2 starter who doesn’t do much except pour strikes into the zone pitch after pitch – and then more times than not come out with a win – throws a no-hitter in game 162 of the 2014 regular season.

For those lucky enough to be there (like a number of my friends) – what a memory.  For those of us watching on television, it was riveting baseball.

I have to admit, when the ball was hit to the left field gap with two outs in the 9th, I could only think of Souza’s dropping a fly ball on Friday evening. I thought the no-no was over.

But nope, Steven Souza, Jr. made an incredible catch, and history was made.

Thomas Boswell wrote that the game “felt like a fitting coda to the season but also a perfect prelude to the playoffs.”

I loved manager Matt Williams’ comment.  At his post-game interview, he ended with, “All in all, probably the perfect baseball day.”

Amen.  Bring on the postseason.

But before we do, let’s take just one more look at that last play..

More to come…

DJB

Score Book getting ready to go to the trash

This September 2014 call-up won’t make the postseason roster

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I gave this September call-up several chances. But I have my limits.

With tickets to three September games at Nationals Park in hand, I decided to break in my new Baseball Score Book to get it ready for the playoffs. The ring binder on my old score book had a “notebook malfunction” on our August road trip, so the timing seemed right.

The idea of the September call-up is standard in baseball.  Rosters expand on September 1st  and promising players come up to the big club from the minors.  On losing teams these rookies get to play regularly to show they should make the ball club next year. On teams going to the postseason, like the Nats, the call-ups may provide an occasional day-off for a regular, but more often than not they fill specialized roles.  (Need a pinch runner, turn to the speedy Michael Taylor.)

So I have now given my September call-up three chances.  If he was coming out of the bullpen, my score book would be 0-3 with about a 10.00 ERA.  If he was a batter, he would be well below the Mendoza line.

This kid isn’t going to make the postseason roster, and my first thought was to trade him to the Montgomery County Recycling and Trash Facility.

Why?

Soriano's Bad 9th

Well, let’s begin with September 5th.

I wrote about this debacle after returning home from the game.  Beautiful night.  I am there with my colleague Paul from work. This is the first night the new Section 313 cheer sign is unveiled.

Strasburg is cruising. He leaves with a 5-1 lead.  It grows to 7-2.

Then Soriano happens.  Again.

Oh my – take a look at that ninth inning score card.  The first batter – Dominic Brown – singles.  Then Soriano gives up a 2-run home to Carlos Ruiz.  It is now 7-6.  But Soriano gets the next two batters on a ground ball to second and a strikeout.  Just one out to go.

And Ben Revere steps to the plate.  He’s had one home run in 2014.  Shouldn’t frighten anyone. So Soriano promptly gives us…

…a home run that ties the game.  8 innings of great baseball wasted.  It breaks your heart.

And my score book captured it all.

Sept 5 2014 Meltdown

If you can’t read the note at the top of the page capturing the Soriano fiasco, I wrote,

“Soriano meltdown in 9th, giving up a 7-4 lead.  Paul Edmondson and I leave after 9.  Game goes 11.  Phillies win 9-8.“

Okay, everybody has the occasional O-fer.  They wear the collar.  Tomorrow’s another day. You play them one day at a time. The kid could bounce back.  I threw him back out the next day.

(Yes, I know my baseball cliches.)

He did better.  It wasn’t a complete meltdown, but it was also pretty lack-luster, especially against a team as bad as the Phillies have been this year. If you want to play in the postseason, my score book would have to play like he wanted to be there. At the end of the evening, the Nats had dropped a 3-1 game.  Once again, my score book captured it all.

Fifth Inning

So last evening was it. My friend Dolores – whose family is part of our season ticket group – and I were at the ballpark for our final regular-season game of 2014. It was a picture-perfect evening. I ran into Craig Albright and Jim Quigley from St. Albans – checking out the Albright’s new Section 313 seats and getting ready for the playoffs. The Nats were playing game 4 of back-to-back doubleheaders.  Most importantly, they had clinched National League home-field advantage up to the World Series earlier in the day.

Which meant we got to cheer for the Syracuse Chiefs last night – the September call-ups.

Jayson Werth – one of two regulars in the line-up – came within a home-run of hitting for the cycle. The Nats went up early 3-1. Pitcher Taylor Hill, making his first major league start, got his first hit.

But then Taylor Hill got hit by a fifth…inning, that is.

Just look.  Two quick outs. Cruising.  Just has to get through this inning and he has a chance to gain a win.

Then he hits Casey McGahee.  That is followed by a single, a double, an intentional walk, a triple, and another double.  (Perhaps the Marlins were trying to get their own type of cycle.)  Five runs and the floodgates were opened.  The worst was Craig Stamen, who was rocked from the first pitch he made. Soriano came on in his new role as “come in when it is safe to enter the water” reliever and actually should have had a 1-2-3 inning, except for a dropped fly by Steve Souza, Jr. (Another September call-up.)

Final score: 15-7 Marlins.

Sometimes the manager and GM have to make tough calls. It is like the lady sitting next to me (and scoring the game, I might note), said about one-time starting second baseman for the Nationals Danny Espinosa:  “I want to believe in Danny, but he makes it so hard.”  (Espinosa’s line:  HBP, 6-3, two Ks.  Not a great night and – after batting .221 – not a good year.)  I wanted to believe in my new score book. But after three looks,  I’ve made my decision.

Score book back to the shelf

This kid is going back on the shelf.  I can pull him back out and give him another chance in spring training, 2015.  But no way will this guy jinx the Nationals 2014 postseason run.  Everyone has to do their part to pull the Nats through.

N-A-T-S, Nats, Nats, Nats, Woo!

Bring on the postseason!

More to come…

DJB