March Musings

Musings on the month of March and its similarities to lions and lambs.

The Yankee Years has officially changed its name to “The Torre Book.”
I don’t refer to The Old Man and the Sea as “The Hemingway Book.”  So why has this piece, written primarily by Tom Verducci of Sports Illustrated, become known solely by its author?  Walk into a New York bar.  After paying ten dollars for a watered down drink and elbowing your way past seventy people all wearing the same “trendy” outfit, ask someone if he’s read The Yankee Years.  Then wait for the blank stare and awkward references to Bobby Murcer’s Yankee for Life .  Askabout “the Torre book” and be prepared to endure hours of gesticulations and obscenities.

I read the book.  It’s good.  It spends a lot of time explaining how the economics of baseball have shifted, how steroids were an unspoken part of the baseball culture, and way too much time explaining how the Yankees screwed Torre.  Reading the book was like speaking with your best friend’s longtime girlfriend after they just broke up.  Every few sentences, she’s going to badmouth him.  You know it.  You expect it.  But you also ignore it.  You know they had plenty of good times in those years they were together.  You were there.  The hugs, the kisses, the dancing, the tears of joy, you saw it.  The same holds true for Joe Torre, just with more tears.

Alex Rodriguez had surgery.  He’ll be out 6-9 weeks. I mention this only because I live in the New York area and am legally obligated to do so every time I write.  Seriously, I just read about the injury in an issue of Superman.  One of my students handed me a paper on the assigned topic of Ben Franklin’s desire to unify the American colonies. The student wrote on how the cyst in Rodriguez’s hip resulted from the malformation of the joint and not from steroid use.  I gave the kid an A.

The WBC Has Become Must-See TV.Have you ever woken up one morning, flipped on Sportscenter or checked the internet, seen the highlights of a truly outstanding, once-in-a-lifetime type game, and thought to yourself, “Man, that’s one I wished I stayed up for?”  Throughout the summer, on any given day, there are upwards of fifteen baseball games.  The law of averages says that you will simply not see every game or moment you want.  It’s natural.  My cable can simply not air eight games at once.  I watch the highlights, I marvel at the exploits, I get over it.  The kicker: I’ve never felt like I missed anything in early March.  Players injured in spring training stayed injured, bad outings faded away as the season approached, anything that happened down south on a baseball field could wait a few days for my attention.  Not anymore.

On Tuesday evening, an upstart Netherlands team met the talent-laden team of the Dominican Republic in a World Baseball Classic elimination game.  Despite the Netherlands’ early victory over the same team, a comparison between the two would lead one to believe that the Dominicans would simply outclass the Dutch.  Heading into the tournament, the Dominicans boasted a gaudy, star-heavy lineup featuring players like Hanley Ramirez, Robinson Cano, Jose Reyes, andDavid Ortiz.  If I were to enter a rotisserie league with the Dominican roster, I’d feel good about my chances in the league. Conversely, if that of the Netherlands was my lineup for opening day of the fantasy season, you would have found me wandering the streets of San Francisco, having not shaved for days and drinking warm milk like Ron Burgundy after Jack Black punted Baxter.

Guess what: the Netherlands won!  They beat the heavily favored Dominicans!  Twice!  In a row!  And I missed it! Instead, I chose to watch Jack Bauer violently berate all sorts of state officials and to marvel at the fact that most participants of the Amazing Race spelled “Chekhov” correctly in one try. There aren’t enough exclamation marks out there to adequately describe my frustration.

The game had everything you would ever ask of a baseball game: crisp pitching, passionate competitors, and plenty of tense moments.  Besides Pedro Martinez’s continuing audition for a major league contract (3 IP, 0 ER, 2 K) and Ubaldo Jimenez’s delight at not having to face major league hitters (4 IP, 0 ER, 2 H, 10 K), the game also included extra innings, and a final eleventh inning for the ages.  When the Dominicans scored in the top of the eleventh, established major leaguers—bona fide all-stars—danced, cheered, and hugged like they had pulled ahead in the eleventh inning of a World Series game.  When Eric Aybar mishandled that ball at first base and Gene Kingsale crossed home plate as the winning run, pandemonium ensued.  You see celebrations like that at the end of the World Series—be it Little League, NCAA, and MLB—not in March.

Say what you will about Major League Baseball over the last few years, it got this one right.  If the crowds are any indication, the world is watching this tournament.  I know I will.