No crying in baseball?
“Going, going, GONE.” I can still hear Mel Allen’s legendary voice making the call as Bill Mazeroski’s 9th inning blast cleared the wall in Forbes Field. Yogi Berra, king of sports’ malapropisms had the best vantage point as he watched it disappear over the ivy, ending the Yank’s quest for a seventh championship in eleven seasons. For him “it’s never over ‘til it’s over” had a ring of finality that he neither wanted nor expected on that particular day in October 1960.
As I ran home from school on that long ago Thursday afternoon I hoped it wasn’t yet over. Taking my seat on our living room floor, my eyes glued to our 24” black and white TV, my hopes began to waver as the Yanks fell behind by two runs. But then my idol, Mickey Mantle spurred them to a rally as they tied the score in the top of the ninth. Spirits revived, I knew my Bronx Bombers would prove their invincibility once again. That’s when Maz, the sure-gloved but light-hitting Pirate second baseman decided otherwise, his blast putting an exclamation mark on Yogi’s dictum while giving its author certain witness that this one was really “over.” In the post-game locker room The Mick sat by himself, sobbing, the only time he was so moved during his entire 17 year All-Star career. He was not alone. Hundreds of miles away the nine-year old now penning this essay, a kid who once dreamed of playing alongside his pinstriped idols, wept with him. There is crying in baseball.
Rooting for the Yankees in the 1950s was as easy as it was good for the ego. Death and taxes might have been Franklin’s only certainties in life. But in the parallel universe in which baseball was once played, the Yanks winning the World Series was like money in the bank. In fact the unlikely prospect that the Yanks might lose a series served as the inspiration for the great Broadway musical, Damn Yankees, its Faustian plot offering a devilish bargain to ensure that the Yanks wouldn’t win another championship. Yankee fans back then, like me, did a lot of cheering and bragging about our diamond heroes who seemed larger than life. For us, there wasn’t much crying in baseball, 1960 notwithstanding. That bubble would burst a few years later, opening us to the experience of broken dreams and agonizing defeats that everyone who follows a favorite baseball team must endure.
In A League of Their Own, Tom Hanks played the manager of an all-female professional baseball club barnstorming America during those World War II years when the big leagues lost many of their stars to military service. In an especially memorable scene he chided one of his more emotional players with the classic line, “There’s no crying in baseball!” As much as I like the film, I beg to differ with the sentiment. The history of what was once called America’s pastime shows just the opposite. Not only is there crying in baseball, there is a lot of it.
How else would you describe the shame and tragedy that gripped the Chicago White Sox in 1919 after several of their stars gambled away both their season, and for several of them, their careers? And tears have flowed and continue to moisten the eyes of some of baseball’s most stellar athletes whose gambling and steroid abuses in recent decades have slammed shut the pearly gates to the Hall of Fame they so coveted, consigning them to a sportswriters’ purgatory from which they may never be redeemed. No crying in baseball? Tell that to the owners, coaches, and players on the 2017 Astros, Mets and Red Sox who lost jobs and reputations as a result of their stealing signs that gave their hitters an unfair advantage in winning over 100 games and the World Series. And who can begin to understand the tears of sadness and anger shed by those denied the opportunity to compete in America’s pastime because of the color of their skin. Jackie Robinson and others may have rectified the injustice, changing how the game is now played, but the wound on our national character has yet to be fully healed.
There is crying in baseball, because baseball mirrors real life—its ambitions, its challenges, its vanities, its opportunities, its triumphs and its failures. And each of these moves us to tears, because we are human and because we care.
I’m not suggesting that my baseball tears in 1960 were more than a child’s selfish disappointment when his hopes were dashed by the swing of a bat. In time my momentary sorrow helped me come to terms with how things really work in a world where happy endings are the stuff of Disney cartoons more than real life. Tears I’ve shed when overcome with embarrassment or even shame have helped redirect my moral compass when I was caught in a lie or when my abuse of privilege or power over others was exposed. Bad acting ball players have also cried such tears, and they are not alone. Our history is soaked with the sobs of politicians, entertainers, and others who have been called out for their intended or accidental lapses of integrity or decency.
Last Thursday home plate umpires across our land shouted, “Play ball”, launching an American drama that has been entertaining us since the 19th Century. While baseball’s claim to be our National Pastime has been usurped by football, it nonetheless continues to embody values that are more in synch with the American identity than any of its more lucrative big-time sports’ rivals. Why would I say that?
· Baseball is unique among team sports in that achievement, not time, determines when games and seasons are finished. Football, basketball, hockey and many other team sports are governed by clocks. When time runs out, the game is finished. But in baseball, games end only when a team scores at least one more run than the opposition, and only after 27 outs have been made. That may take an hour or it may stretch to lengths that defy sundials and late night urban curfews. Yogi was on to something, and not just about baseball. It’s really never over ‘til it’s over—‘til what must happen has happened, irrespective of what time it is.
· In baseball, every moment counts. Every action on the diamond has the potential to decide the game, from a wild pitch to an errant throw to a stolen base to a batter taking rather than swinging at a third strike. That is why baseball is so deliberately paced. Anticipation and preparation are as, if not more important to the outcome of the game as are reactions and responses. In baseball as in real life, every decision has meaning with far-reaching consequences.
· Talent is more than skin deep. In baseball the ability to throw, catch and hit a small, cowhide spheroid is all that separates All-Stars from utility players, irrespective of how big they are, how high they can jump, or how fast they can run. Success depends on what is inside of a person more than what his external attributes may promise. The broadway anthem actually says more than its tune suggests: “You’ve gotta have heart...miles and miles and miles of heart.”
· Perhaps most important of all, baseball forces one to cultivate a perspective that values patience and perseverance over easy and instant gratification. Is there a sport as sobering and true to life as one in which excellence is proclaimed for those who fail seven out of ten times at the plate? Can you imagine anything else we do in which a 30% success rate would engender adulation or trust? Yet isn’t this more reflective of the way life really is, where the best of our efforts falls far short of perfection, where we must learn to accept ourselves and others against the sobering reality of our inherent frailties and the inescapable errors of our self-directed judgment.
In so many ways, baseball—its rules, its pacing, its challenges and its gratifications—is about us, both as individuals and as part of this unique civilization. Being about us, it arouses some of our greatest passions and evokes some of our most deep-seated emotions. That is why there is, has always been, and forever will be crying in baseball. And inasmuch as our tears help release our loftiest sentiments and convictions, it is no surprise that crying sometimes brings out the very best angels in our nature.
