What is This Sorcery?

Did my eyes deceive me? I couldn't have seen what I thought I saw, could I? It's simply too outlandish to be true.

In Game Two of the National League Championship Series Yoshinobu Yamamoto threw a complete game! Oh yes he did! He pitched all Nine Innings! In a playoff game!

I wonder if Detroit Tigers manager A.J. Hinch is aware of this novelty, the idea of letting starting pitchers go all the way, or at least past six innings. He should take note of it. Hell, all of Major League Baseball should.

Mom Knows All

Mothers know everything. The old eyes in the back of the head? Moms. They have them. They even have an uncommon foresight which isn't always appreciated.

Me Mom passed away, sadly, in 2022. To me brother Phil came the task of clearing our her things. Oh, we all helped to one degree or another, but the bulk of the job fell on his shoulders. Even Mom seemed to anticipate that.

One day as he was sorting out stuff he picked up something, I don't remember what, and was just about to let it fall into the trash can. Yet a slip of paper caught his eye. Taking it out from its center in the object, it turns out that it was a note from Mom: "Phil, don't throw this away without giving the other kids a chance to see if they want it. Mom" 

I don't know whether to laugh or cry at that. But Mom, she knew he would toss it and didn't want that without a chance to see if it might be valuable to one of his siblings. I'm going to have to ask him what it was, and if one of us took it. 

Chesterton and Kreeft

A man was meant to be doubtful about himself, but undoubting about truth; this has been exactly reversed.

- G. K. Chesterton

Why, why, why weren't we taught Chesterton in schools? Why don't we hear him from the pulpits? The more I read of him, the more I wonder why he isn't better known. Or more well known than he is anyway.

This quote is from at least a century ago yet fits today perfectly. We should doubt ourselves but not truth. We should admit we are fallible and need help yet have no worries about where help lies. Yet we trust in ourselves while believing there is no truth. If that isn't an oxymoron, a contradiction in itself, then what is?

It reminds of a comment from one Peter Kreeft, a more recent, lesser known, yet astute commentator on human nature: "Religion is indeed a crutch, as the atheists argue. And until the atheist confesses that he is a cripple, he will not be in the market for a crutch." 

If our premises are poor our reason will be skewed. Until we each admit that we aren't the center of the Universe we will not see the Universe properly. Almost all human error begins in the hubris that we know best. Yet without an undoubtable truth above and beyond us we can't know anything. Even ourselves.

Lamenting Lions

I didn't see the play, nor do I care to hunt it up on the Internet this morning. But I did fall into the wormhole a bit and follow up on Detroit Lions' fans lamenting a procedure penalty against them which negated a touchdown. The locals lost to the Kansas City Chiefs 30-17 last night.

Complaining about the refs is nothing new to football, or most any sport indeed. It's about time we had robo-umps in baseball to call balls and strikes, quite frankly. Yet it sure seems to me that football fans are among the worst at railing against the officiating. I mean, isn't it possible, just barely on the radar, a shadow on the horizon, that, perhaps, the penalty was legit, maybe?

Can we still be friends, or should I just go now? 

Cousins Have Your Back

When me Pops graduated from High School in 1954, he and his cousin Jerry took a three week trip out west to celebrate. They drove an old station wagon, figuring to spend some nights sleeping in the back to save on hotel costs. Sometimes one of them would drive while the other caught a nap. 

Being young and naive, and consider too that it was the middle Nineteen Fifties, they occasionally picked up hitchhikers. They only had a scare once.

Pops had picked the guy up while Jerry was asleep in back, dozing under a blanket. Everything seemed all right at first. But then the man began talking out of his head. It was all nonsense stuff, me Pops recalled, yet the guy was getting himself all worked up and increasingly animated, throwing his arms around to emphasize this or that point, and growing angry.

"What am I gonna do?" thought the old man, traipsing across the barren landscape of I believe New Mexico. Glancing at the rear view mirror, he realized that an apparently awake Jerry was worried too. Dad had seen a hand reach out from under a blanket and stealthily grab an empty glass Coke bottle, sliding it back with him obviously for use as the weapon Jerry was increasingly convinced would be needed.

Thankfully nothing came of it. When they had reached the hitchhiker's destination the guy readily hopped out, said thanks to the boys, and went about his day. Yet they stopped picking up hitchhikers after that.

Silver Lining

Well, it was painful, I'm sure, for those who watched. I didn't, and am rather happy about that. My Detroit Tigers lost in a 15 inning marathon and are out of the baseball playoffs.

That has its advantages. I can watch the final three weeks of the season without anxiety as I have no horse in the race. I lean towards wanting Milwaukee to win it all now, as a tribute to the late Brewers play by play man Bob Uecker. But I can watch; I'd given up on watching Tigers games because it simply wasn't worth the emotional investment. Especially when they can't hit, as has been the trouble really all season. 

Get some bats, guys, please? And Riley Greene, I care about strikeouts. You fellas whiff too much. That's gotta stop. Far too many times this season we'd have two on and one or no outs and, strike three, strike three, inning over. It matters. We care. You're losing too many 3-2 games.

Hinch, stop trying to outmaneuver the other manager and just try to win games. I'm sorry, dude, I don't buy yanking a pitcher after three innings for a 'suitable matchup' against a particular batter in the fourth. It's too early in the game to worry about such minutiae, overuses your bullpen, and wastes a pitcher. I'm also tired of losing a good hitter for the duration of a game because you pinch hit for him early, again for a suitable matchup. All that in search of miniscule advantages? It's senseless. There. I said it. 

I'm tired of hearing about the great clubhouse chemistry. I'm tired of seeking mere sustainability. Make me want to watch rather than ignore your October baseball for fear of being let down. 

I'm okay, maybe, with sustainability. Sustainability seems a reasonable goal. But is it? Sustainability didn't mean much when we won four division titles in a row yet with painful playoff exists and a poorly contested World Series. I'll take a world championship once every decade or two over long stretches of simple winning seasons. The Yankees do that, as did the Moneyball A's. It has not left their fans happy.

But, I suppose, at least we've made the playoffs the last two years. We didn't play dead when in them, or at least didn't completely roll over. Yet it's time for more. Get. Some. Bats. And Stop. Striking. Out.

Special Moments

We're in October, and for baseball fans that means playoffs and the World Series. My Detroit Tigers play a winner take all game five in Seattle this evening. I don't know if I want to watch or not, these old nerves and all. But I have seen two playoff games live in my life. One was classic in its heartfelt salute.

In the 1987 Ametican League Championship Series at old Tiger Stadium here in Detroit Darrell Evans, a fan favorite, was picked off third at a critical moment in game 4. It was a bad play; he simply lost his concentration. Evans felt terrible. The team was rallying and that miscue killed it.

As it was I attended game 5 the next day. Evans came up to bat in the bottom of the first. As he approached home plate the crowd spontaneously rose, and gave him a standing ovation. It showed Darrell that while things happen, we were still with him.

Moments like that mean more than the game. They show respect and affection. They're what sports should be about.