Put Me in, Coach
Written by Nick Carraway on April 1 –
“Put me in coach. I’m ready to play today. Put me in coach, I’m ready to play today. Look at me. I can be centerfield.” — John Fogerty
Today marks a special day in American lore. It’s Opening Day. Opening day represents so many things for so many people. For some it is a signal of the beginning of spring. For others it is the renewal of hope that this year will be the year that everything goes right. Still others consider the routine of seeing box scores in the newspaper (or online) and a game on the tube (or radio) every single night. For many of us it is all of those things.
I’ve written four books about baseball and half of those have been related to the Hall of Fame. Independent of my love for the Astros or any other specific player there is the love for the game. Opening day should be a national holiday. When done right, nearly every team is opening their season on the same day. Fans can go into a collective coma with copious amounts of beer, peanuts, and other tasty treats seated in front of the television watching a triple header on ESPN.
I’ve spent all of those books talking about the history of the game and settling arguments within it, but I’ve rarely talked about why I love the game so much. For me, it brings order to disorder. There is a symbiotic relationship between cold, hard facts and the thrill of not quite knowing what will happen on any given day.
My cousin (an avid gambler) once asked me how you handicap baseball. I told him you don’t. You can look at pitching matchups, hitting lineups, career averages, and all kinds of numbers and lose every time. Yet, over a long enough timeline the numbers begin to level out and everything begins to make sense. That’s the paradox that brings you back every time.
Numbers fluctuate in every sport and yet the numbers in baseball have a magic all their own. The .300 batting average always means something. 100 runs and RBI always mean something. 20 wins, a 3.00 ERA, and 200 strikeouts always means something. Of course, those meanings become magnified when they turn into career sums. Then it becomes 3000 hits, 300 wins, 500 home runs, and so forth.
In no other sport are the numbers that magical. Running backs and receivers may gain 1000 yards and quarterbacks may throw for 4000 yards, but those numbers have waned in their importance over time. Offenses change and evolve. A yard just isn’t a yard anymore.
Similarly, in basketball scoring has changed dramatically as offenses have changed. The irony is that all three sports have embraced advanced analytics and the analytics have driven the strategy. Where did analytics get its start? You guessed it. Baseball.
I suppose it would be natural for a history buff to love baseball. The game goes back to the American Civil War. Football and basketball can’t possibly compete with that. Few really care about soccer in the United States and few south of the Mason-Dixon line care about hockey. So, baseball was the best opportunity to marry a love of statistics, history, and symmetry.
Today is a day to take a break from Matt Gaetz, Joe Biden, voter suppression, gun violence and anything else we might care about just about every day around here. It is a day to feverishly check the scores to see how my fantasy teams did. It is a day to marvel at individual performances that might or might not be a predictor of things to come. It is a day to hope that my team will be perfect for at least one day. It is a day to allow all of that other stuff to go far far away. It will all be here when we get back.
I’ve always thought of baseball as being “America’s Zen”. Very simple rules (nominally), but many permutations.
One of my favorite memories of my dad is of late summer, and walking into our old kitchen to find the radio on with the Giants game, and him sitting in his T-shirt doing the crossword puzzle as he listened.
Good times. Good times.
1As long as the Cubs lose, all is well with the world. The world being that area on the other side of Madison avenue.
2Have you read about the guy who teaches Shakespeare to fifth graders (Hobart Shakespeareans). he also teaches baseball. And in Lighting Their Fire. He writes about the moral lessons from the all-American game
3Amen.
For the first 24 years or so of my life (starting around 5, anyway) September was the real beginning of the year for me, just because I liked school and school was very good to me. September was the beginning of the New Year. then I moved to Boston, and became a Red Sox fan. After a few years I got season tickets to Fenway. A few more years and I started going to Spring Training. The first week of April became the real beginning of the New Year. Everybody’s in first place on opening day. Reality sinks in quickly most years, but every once in a while (sometimes a very very very long while) everything falls miraculously into place for a whole season, all the way to the end of October. There’s nothing like joining in the roar of the home town fans in the park when the winning home run of the World Series smacks off the bat of a Big Papi (or your local equivalent.)
4Baseball in spring brings promise, and hope.
5By autumn, as a boy, I remember the fathers in my neighborhood raking leaves, putting on storm windows and prepping for the cold weather ahead, always with a radio nearby, always with a ball game tuned in.
I still have my Milwaukee Braves ‘57 World Champions pennant, framed. Bless you Henry Aaron.
Astros? You mean the cheaters who still possess their unearned trophy and received a slap on the wrist from the so-called commissioner? Kennesaw Mountain Landis is spinning in his grave.
Or visiting Cooperstown and seeing the Hall of Asterisks?
Or the treatment of the Negro League players, Jackie Robinson, Hank Aaron, and others?
And yet, I look forward to Opening Day every year. Hope is renewed, a new start, a better outcome, all is possible. Even for the Orioles.
6Baseball is truly America’s game.
I got hooked on baseball back in the 1970s when the only team in town–so to speak–was the Baltimore Orioles. You know, back when they were good. If they won the night before, I was much happier at work the next day. Jonathan Yardley of the WaPo dubbed the period from the end of the World Series to Opening Day as “The Void”. I agree with that.
However, the need for baseball was never so urgent as in the years after January 2017. To spend 3+ hours every night not giving a thought to the Orange Moron was such a gift. Thanks to his complete incompetence, though, Opening Day for my beloved Nats has been postponed because of a Covid outbreak among the team.
Still I look forward to the day when I can jump on the subway and head to Nationals Park and take in all the sights and sounds of the game.
7Nick, being a lifelong baseball fan, I’ll have to check out your books. My son is also an avid baseball fan- of the Dodgers, like me, and his birthday is coming up.
8When I was 8, my Dodgers moved to LA, and I’ll never forget watching them in the coliseum. Unfortunately (or fortunately) we moved from LA when I was 10, but I still follow my Dodgers. That’s why I look forward to a rematch with the Astros- maybe this year.
Any distraction will do.
Nothing important happening anyway…
9Steve, I’ll have to find a way to clandestinely forward those titles to you. I can’t afford to break character.
10Hmmmm
11Now I’m really intrigued!
I started watching baseball when Tony Oliva, Rod Carew, Bob Allison, Harmon Killebrew, Jim Kaat, Zoilo Versailles, Mudcat Grant and the rest took the Twins to their first World Series against the incomparable Sandy Koufax. The principal of my elementary school put a tv in study hall and some teachers canceled classes so we could watch. It was wonderful! (Several games were in the afternoon.)
I don’t watch any more. Strike outs or home runs and endless pitching changes have taken the fun out of it. No bunts, double steals, hit and run, suicide squeeze, etc. I don’t enjoy the game now.
12I respect that. Some of those things will change with time and some won’t. I think the days of starters going nine innings is actually over, but I’m hoping small ball will return as strategies shift.
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