Let's play ball!
09/20/2001
Codding Home / Sports Channel / Bullz-Eye Home
"I see great things in baseball. It's our game -- the American game. It will take our people out of doors, fill them with oxygen, give them a larger physical stoicism. Tend to relieve us from being a nervous, dyspeptic set. Repair these losses, and be a blessing to us."
~ Walt Whitman
Somehow, someway, we've moved on. It hasn't been easy and it hasn't been complete, but Americans have finally figured out that putting their lives on hold while watching the news every waking moment wasn't going to take back the terror of September 11, 2001. And we've moved on.
We all went back to work. Some of us picked up a book. Some of us went away for the weekend to clear our minds. Some of us rented a few movies -- comedies, of course -- and tried to cover up the painful memories with a few laughs.
And then some of us turned to sports.
Never before have I so anxiously anticipated a regular-season baseball game -- not even Opening Day. It didn't matter who was playing, where they were playing or even how they played this past Monday. Simply put, it just felt great to see someone playing a baseball game somewhere. Period.
So on Monday, with the Phillies hosting the Braves on TBS and the Brewers squaring off against the Cards on ESPN2, a buddy of mine came over to watch four teams play two baseball games that, under normal circumstances, we could care less about. But for a week Americans had been operating under anything but normal circumstances, and we'd been doing it without the joyful diversion sports offers its die-hard fans. On Monday, though, the silence that fell over a country and its sports arenas disappeared somewhat with two glorious words: "Play ball!"
On his way to my apartment Monday night, my buddy stopped to pick up a six-pack of beer and as he was paying, the cashier asked him if he had any plans for the evening. "Just going to watch a baseball game at a friend's house," he replied. "Oh yeah? Who's playing?" asked the cashier. "Not really sure," my friend replied. "Doesn't matter."
Instead, all that mattered was thousands of people were going to get together in one place, and it didn't matter if they were rooting for the Braves or the Phillies, the Brewers or the Cardinals, because every last person -- from the players to the umpires to the vendors to the fans -- was wearing the same colors: red, white and blue. And they were all cheering for the same team: the United States. Never before -- and perhaps never again -- has the singing of the National Anthem before a baseball game brought so many people to tears while in the same instant stirring up unwavering and indestructible national pride.
As emotionally uplifting as the games have been this week, though, there are several stories that baseball fans across the country should re-acquaint themselves with, the first being Barry Bonds and his home run push.
Bonds, playing against the Astros on Tuesday and Wednesday, has yet to leave the yard since play resumed, leaving him stuck at 63 homers on the year. The Giants, who currently sit two games behind the Diamondbacks in the NL West and two behind St. Louis in the wild card standings, have 16 games remaining on the schedule: six against San Diego, six versus the Dodgers and four with the Astros. Only seven of those 16 games will be played at PacBell Park, which may not sound too favorable for Bonds. However, on the season the 37-year-old left fielder has hit 32 of his 63 homers on the road, which obviously means he's not very discriminatory with his power numbers. Additionally, Bonds has gone deep seven times this year in 10 games against San Diego, but only twice in 13 games with L.A. Meanwhile, Tuesday and Wednesday marked the first time all season the Giants and Astros faced each other.
So breaking it down a bit, Bonds needs seven homers to tie Mark McGwire's record and eight to surpass Big Mac. Simple math says one home run every two games would give him the record, numbers that may seem a bit out of reach. But if Bonds can sneak out a couple against the 'Stros and Dodgers while continuing to light up San Diego pitching, 70 and beyond could still be a possibility.
Also in the National League, Sammy Sosa and Luis Gonzalez both have an outside shot at reaching the 60-homer plateau. Sosa, who currently sits at 54, has 17 games to hit six more, with the final 10 games of the year at Wrigley Field. Gonzalez, meanwhile, needs eight homers in 16 games to reach 60 on the year. If they both can do it, this would be the first year in history that three players hit at least 60 homers in one season (McGwire and Sosa each did it in 1998 and 1999).
The question, though, is can they do it? Like Bonds, Sosa and Gonzo will both need to get hot over the last few weeks of the regular season to even have a shot, especially considering both players have only two homers in their last 14 games. Looking at the schedule, the Cubs close the season against the Reds, Astros and Pirates, three teams against whom Sammy has accumulated 12 homers this year. The Diamondbacks face the Dodgers, Brewers and Rockies in the final weeks of the season. The Dodgers have allowed eight of Gonzo's 52 homers and the Rockies six, but Arizona has yet to face the Brewers on the season. It should be an interesting finish, but I'd say Sammy reaches 60 with Gonzalez falling a few short. Incidentally, if in fact Sosa does hit that magical number, he'll be the only player in history to have three seasons of 60 or more homers, an impressive feat indeed.
A quick peak at the NL standings also shows some interesting plot lines developing. In the NL West, the D-Backs, Giants and Dodgers are separated by only four games, while in the NL East the Phillies, coming off three-straight wins over the Braves, now stand a mere ½ game behind Atlanta with four more head-to-head match ups still on the schedule. The Central race has opened up a bit, with the Astros now standing 4.5 games above the Cards and seven ahead of the Cubs, but seemingly everybody's got a shot at the NL wild card, where the Cardinals lead the Giants by two games, the Cubs by 2.5 and the Phillies and Dodgers by four. And of course, with this unbalanced schedule these teams will battle it out against each other over the final few weeks of the season.
Speaking of the Cardinals, how about rookie Albert Pujols? Wednesday night he set a rookie record with his 120th RBI, and on the season this guy's hitting .338 with 35 homers, 43 doubles, 180 hits and a .627 slugging percentage, numbers that have him sitting near the top of every NL leader board. Then there's St. Louis pitcher Matt Morris, who also reached a milestone Wednesday night by notching his 20th win of the season. Considering Morris sat out the entire year in 1999 after undergoing elbow surgery and then made a grand total of zero starts last season, his Cy Young-caliber performance in 2001 is even more remarkable.
Of course, there are plenty of great stories in the American League this season, where another rookie has led his team to the best record in all of baseball. Ichiro Suzuki and his ML-leading .349 average and 221 hits helped propel the Mariners to the AL West crown on September 19. As for Seattle, who currently stands at 106-40 on the season, they only need to win 11 of their final 16 games to break the Cubs' single-season record of 116 wins, set in 1906. Considering the Mariners have an unreal 72.6 winning percentage this year, asking them to win 69% of their final games doesn't seem like a stretch.
There's nobody challenging McGwire in the American League but there are plenty of guys setting personal highs in the long ball department, with Cleveland's Jim Thome leading the charge. Thome's previous career-high was 40 set in 1997, but this year the left-handed hitting first baseman already has 47 dingers on the year, one ahead of Alex Rodriguez, who also has reached uncharted waters with his personal-best of 46 homers. In fact, A-Rod needs just two more homers to break Ernie Banks' single-season home run record by a shortstop, set in 1958.
Texas fans still wish their all-world shortstop could pitch, though.
Also in Cleveland, former MVP Juan Gonzalez has regrouped in his new surroundings following an abysmal 2000 campaign that saw the right fielder hit only .289 with 22 homers and 67 RBI, his lowest totals since 1994. This season, however, Juan-Gone is back in top form, hitting a remarkable .341 with 35 homers and 140 RBI. With a few more long balls, Gonzalez would be challenging for the Triple Crown -- he's already leading the league by 11 RBI and his .341 average is second to Ichiro's .349. And another AL middle infielder, Seattle's Brett Boone, already has set an AL mark for homers by a second baseman with 35.
But nobody is making more noise in the Junior Circuit than some 39-year-old Yankees pitcher named Roger. Defying Father Time -- and Boston GM Dan Duquette -- Clemens reached 20 wins Wednesday night for the sixth time in his 18-year, Hall-of-Fame career. Oh yeah, and he became the oldest 20-game winner in the AL since 39-year-old Early Wynn did it in 1959. Oh, and he's also only the third pitcher in history to win 20 games in three different decades -- two guys named Warren Spahn and Bob Feller were the others. Anything else... ? That's right, he also became the first pitcher ever to win 20 of his first 21 decisions. That's right, this 39-year-old pitcher who was dumped by the Red Sox five years ago because Duquette, Boston's moronic GM, said Clemens was in the "twilight" of his career, currently owns a 20-1 record. In fact, in the five years since he left Boston Clemens has won at least 20 games three times while going 88-32 with a 3.17 ERA and winning two Cy Young awards and two World Series championships. And he could easily be on his way to another Cy Young and another ring in 2001. Not bad for a washed-up pitcher, huh?
The bottom line here is, while we'll never forget what happened last Tuesday and the thousands of people we lost, we need to take some comfort in the pleasures our freedom offers. One of those pleasures, thankfully, is baseball. Even non-sports fans who happened to catch a couple minutes of that first set of baseball games had to be impressed. The unified strength displayed on the field and in the stands this week was something that would make any American proud. And while sometimes we forget, last week's events reminded us all of who our real heroes should be. They aren't the players who can hit a 98-mph fastball over the leftfield fence. They aren't the players who can turn a beautiful double play with the flip of a glove and a flick of the wrist.
But while Clemens, Ichiro and Bonds are just people playing a game, they also help remind us that, no matter how much hatred and ugliness exists in this world, there are plenty of things in life to cherish. Plenty of things to look forward to. Plenty of things to embrace, to treasure and protect.
Plenty of things to defend.
And I, for one, am grateful that they exist, that baseball -- and all other sports -- exist. As James Earl Jones said in "Field of Dreams":
"The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It's been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game. It's a part of our past, Ray. It reminds us of all that once was good. And it could be again."
Never have those words echoed so loudly.
In the Bullz-Eye
Denver Broncos RB Terrell Davis. Davis looked healthy in week one, rumbling for 101 yards on 21 carries against a solid New York Giants defense. But now it appears Davis, the former 2,000-yard rusher and 1998 MVP, will miss three to five weeks of action after having arthroscopic surgery to relieve some swelling in his right knee. In 1999, Davis tore the ACL in the same knee and he hasn't been the same runner since, and this set back appears to make it even less likely that Davis will ever be a top NFL back again.