Five [not so] Easy Pieces
My best from this season. A re-visitation.
For God’s sake, let us sit upon the ground
And tell sad stories of the death of kings — William Shakespeare
He reached the summit at 10:07pm on August 13, 2016. It was — and remains — a remarkable achievement, given that on May, 31st, a full two months into the season, he was still bivouacked at his own personal base camp, disoriented by muscles and memory rendered insufficient by opposing forces on the hill some sixty feet away. A .213 batting average, a .330 on-base percentage, not to mention a month of April that was the worst of his career weren’t just base camp for Joey Votto — this was the basement of a career that has seen him among the very best hitters in Major League Baseball.Continue Reading
I’m thinking it can happen at any moment. Picture yourself standing on the dock, everything stretched out before you all the way to the horizon. One moment you have the key in your hand. The next, it’s slipping through your fingers, falling into the gap between the weatherbeaten planks. Before you know it, it’s gone, and everything the key represents rushing out to sea with it.Continue Reading
I am a beginner. I am a plodder. I will win no races. My fingers find the Backspace key more often than they find the productive parts of a QWERTY keyboard. I could not have written years ago. I could never have afforded the cost of Wite-Out. I write. That doesn’t make me a writer. When Jay Mariotti went after what he considers the bottom of the bird cage in the sports writing profession, he probably was talking about guys like me.Continue Reading
This is the one you keep. As the season stretches on and the losses mount, this is the one you remember and hold close. Maybe you fold it up and put it away in that special place you reserve for such things because, after all, this is what makes Baseball special. 162 potential gifts waiting to be unwrapped.Continue Reading