Suffer the children

If you had told me that one of the starting pitchers in Game 3 of the World Series would WALK IN A RUN during the SECOND INNING (and assuming that whenever you told me stuff about what was going to happen you were usually pretty accurate in your prognostications), then I would have concluded that the team who put that guy on the mound was going to end up losing that game. Yet somehow just such a scenario unfolded on Saturday night, minus the costing-the-game part. And so despite Andy Pettitte’s wobbly early innings on Saturday and the fact that, as of Sunday, Utley can apparently still hammer dingers off Sabathia almost at will, the Yankees are now up three games to one in the World Series and could win the whole thing tonight. Which would be nice in both the sense of team-I-love-crowned-world-champs and also finally-I-can-stop-staying-up-til-midnight-every-night. (Also nice for you all in the sense of oh-man-finally-he’s-stopped-talking-about-baseball-for-the-love-of-CRAP.)

I have to admit it has been nice to gorge myself on televised Yankees games for the past month or so. For the past few years, ever since the legendary collapse in the ’04 ALCS, I’ve barely been able to bring myself to watch the Yanks’ playoff games, because it always seemed like they limped into the post-season (except last year, when they spared us even that) and were playing like the team who was scripted to roll over in the first round. I had a better feeling about this year (easy to say now, so I guess either you’ll believe me or not on that one) and it’s been a fun ride.

Of course it hasn’t all been unalloyed joy. One of the things I love about baseball is its relatively sedate pace, and whenever someone talks about how they need to speed up the game I tune out. Of course, when the playoffs are being televised it can be difficult to make that sedate pace into visually compelling spectacle. There’s only so many shots of the batter narrowing his eyes while the pitcher shakes off signals from the catcher that can be shown which haven’t already been shown earlier in the game. So I understand why the production crew has the cameramen feed through lots and lots of crowd shots. With 50,000 attendees, you’ll at least get different faces on screen every time they cut away from the mental dueling on the diamond. The thing that has been killing me about this is a recurring motif they’ve managed in these crowd shots: the small child on the verge of having his or her heart broken.

I know (meaning I’m dimly aware on some level) that a team can’t advance in the playoffs without sending another team home, and that every triumphant thrill I experience is balanced by a Twins fan or an Angels fan feeling the crush of defeat. But I tend to think of this in terms of being totally equivalent, me sitting in my home in front of my television happily hoisting a beer while another middle-aged guy in Anaheim drowns his sorrows and thinks about chucking the remote at the screen. I don’t think about the twelve year olds who feel the heartbreak a lot more acutely. And the thing is I was that kid (well, not in the sense of going to night ballgames when I was twelve, but aside from that) back in the day. The Yankees of the 1980s were not very good and I suffered plenty of disappointments as a young Yankees fan. (That’s honestly one of the ways that I maintain my sense of proportion when people start caterwauling about how the Yankees buy championships and are bad for baseball and their fans are bandwagoners etc. etc. – I paid my dues, man. I was a fan when they sucked and I think I’ve earned the right to enjoy being a fan of their successes now.) So every time the camera cuts to a little kid, holding his breath or biting her fingernails, looking a tiny bit shellshocked that the strong season of winning that got them this far is about to end in a loss, I feel for them, I seriously do. It breaks my heart a little.

So in a weird way I was really grateful for the bit of pint-sized misanthropy I witnessed last night. In his first at-bat, Alex Rodriguez got hit by a pitch. I don’t think for a second Blanton was throwing at A-Rod, and occasionally getting hit is just an unavoidable if regrettable part of the game. They replayed the incident several times making the point that it really was a pitch that got away from Blanton, but like I said, I was onboard with that interpretation from the beginning. What those multiple replays did, though, was allow me to see the little kid, maybe ten years old, sitting in the stands right behind homeplate who applauded when A-Rod got plunked. Applauded wildly and then waved his Phillies Phop kerchief (or whatever they’re calling those things) over his head like a lunatic. Pitches get away from pitchers. Batsmen get hit. It is really an asshole move to applaud when this happens, no matter how you feel about the batsman in question. If you are in the twelve and under set, that just makes you a little asshole. (In my own curmudgeonliness, as I saw that kid cheering for A-Rod getting hit I found myself yelling at the television, “WHERE ARE HIS PARENTS?” Because if my kid did that I would shut that shit down right quick.) So in that case, I was glad that particular little kid saw his Phillies rally back twice only to get stomped in the 9th inning, and I hope it broke his little asshole heart. Instant karma gonna get you, son.