Pulled from the comments. This, from the Chicago Tribune deserves to be read. Yes, it celebrates the Sox victory, but it also lovingly describes the glory of baseball.
"Baseball is played in the summer but ends in the autumn, when the light starts to fail and kids are called inside early, taken reluctantly from their games in vacant lots and dead-end streets. The moments are precious because they perish. The joy is special because it's temporary. 'Death is the mother of beauty,' wrote Wallace Stevens. What makes today so amazing--the first full day after the Sox victory--is that it is unique in the history of the world. And will remain so. Cherish it, because it is moving steadily out of your reach."
EDIT And here, thanks to BatBandwagoner, is the NYTimes article from the game Kirby Puckett singlehandedly won for us in the '91 World Series, another gorgeous piece of baseball writing.
NOTHING was happening, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing but increasing tension. The zeros on the scoreboard last night in the Metrodome were dropping inning after inning after inning, as if a row of hens were working overtime. It appeared that the best and concluding moments of this baseball season -- maybe the best of any baseball season -- might last forever.This was the seventh game of the World Series, and, after three, four, five, six, seven innings, nobody could score. People tried: The Minnesota Twins got a runner to third in the third inning; the Atlanta Braves did likewise in the fifth. But nothing happened. The pitchers, Jack Morris of the Twins and John Smoltz of the Braves, were matching sets of excellence, bookends of bravado.
It was preposterous. It couldn't get more dramatic. It did.
In the eighth, both teams loaded the bases with one out, but the Twins turned a double play to end the Braves' threat. In the bottom of the inning, the Braves did precisely the same thing to the Twins, behind Mike Stanton, who had replaced Smoltz.It went into the ninth inning, 0-0. That is, 16 zeros. Nothing had happened, and it just kept on happening. And into the 10th: zero, of course, to zero. The longest Game 7 with no score in the history of the World Series.
And there it ended. Dan Gladden hit a broken-bat double, and there was a sacrifice bunt and two intentional walks, and then with the bases loaded and a pulled-in outfield, Gene Larkin, a seldom-used infielder, stepped up to pinch-hit. He was facing Alejandro Pena, now on the mound for the Braves. The noisy home crowd of 55,000 was on its feet and creating a snowstorm by waving its white homer hankies. And Larkin responded. He looped a fly ball over the outstretched glove of left fielder Brian Hunter, for a single to score the lone run of the game.
Suddenly it was over. Suddenly the Twins had won. But the Braves did not lose. They just didn't win the World Series, is all.
Sometimes the gods are just. Sometimes even they, taking time from their flutes and lyres and various dalliances, will determine that we, too, down below, could use a bit more pleasure, especially in these times of gloomy national recession and despairing world affairs and the football season. And so they, along with Kirby Puckett, in the guise of a mere mortal, conspired to give us one more game of baseball.
Not just any game, of course, but a Seventh Game of the World Series. And not just any World Series, either. But one that has gone from the dramatic to the melodramatic, from suspenseful theater to the old Saturday afternoon serial thriller.
Four of the first six games between the Braves and the Twins had been decided by one run, and three had been determined only in the home half of the final inning, to break up a tie game -- one concluding in the ninth inning and one in the 12th, with plays at the plate, and, on Saturday night, in the 11th, with Puckett's game-ending home run.
But we needed this game, Game 7, and that's the simple truth. It was only fitting and proper. It was all so unlikely, all so upside-down, but this seems to restore the cosmic balance: Two teams that finished last in their divisions the year before win the pennants. Each team knowing in its heart that it cannot lose, that the fates have ordained that this is their season.
Each team understanding that it has come this far, that it has done it by coming from behind not only during the season, but in game after game, and thus overcoming all the odds fashioned by Las Vegas and Olympus.
Each team has had its improbable heroes: Mark Lemke, brought in for defensive purposes, hits a trio of triples, and is prominent in winning Games 3, 4 and 5; Scott Leius, who was only iffy on making the team in spring training, homers to win Game 2; and Jerry Willard, who had left baseball for a season a few years ago because he was going nowhere, is called in to pinch-hit and hits a sacrifice fly to win Game 4. And finally Larkin.
It just had to come down to the wire, to a photo finish.
The Twins went up two games to none, and then the Braves came back to take a 3-2 lead, and then the Twins tied it up, three games each.
The dream season would end on a dream: Game 7 of the World Series. "Every kid has dreamed about this," said Jack Morris on Saturday night. "When I was a kid, my brother and I used to play whiffle ball and I pretended that I was Bob Gibson and he was Mickey Mantle."
But since this is real life, we know that the gods can be cruel, and, using us for their sport, may turn dreams into nightmares.
Ask Charlie Liebrandt, who got knocked out of Game 1, and then in Game 6 was brought back in relief to start the home half of the 11th inning. He faced one batter, Mr. Puckett, and threw a total of four pitches. Two were balls and two were strikes, including the last, which ended up in the left center field bleachers.
After the game, a large group of reporters gathered around Charlie Liebrandt's locker. After a long period in the trainer's room and the shower, with most of his teammates gone, Liebrandt, lean, grim, a cup of beer in his hand, and his eyes looking only straight ahead, parted the crowd around his locker. "Nothing tonight, guys," he said to the newsy assemblage.
There was nothing tonight, guys.
Except, of course, for the memory, and the dream, and the nightmare.
And there was the tingling anticipation that all this set up: Game 7. It had to be. And better than anyone could have imagined.
As the scoreboard, in its way, had been reminding us: Oh, oh, oh yes.
That was beautiful - thank you!
Much love
Wonder Woman
This entire story was very well done, I thought--it was on the back page of the main section of the paper. I picked up 2 (free) copies of the Chicago Tribune this morning--one for posterity, and one that will probably end up being destroyed as a gesture of defiance.
Still, that article was well written (even if it was about them winning).
Posted by: goesboom at October 27, 2005 09:37 PMI like that poem. Especially the part about cockatoo.
Posted by: Kurtis at October 27, 2005 10:00 PMOh wow. That *is* a beautifully-written story. And that was in a newspaper? I'm impressed.
Posted by: annun at October 27, 2005 10:08 PMas a sox fan i've been happily trolling this blog for a year and a half and never felt the urge to reply before, but today i did...for some reason. at any rate, this article caught my eye also. niiiiiicely done.
Posted by: like a warlord at October 28, 2005 12:16 AMJulia Keller's right up there with Giamatti for season-cycle musings on baseball:
“It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come out, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone.”
I first read that on Giamatti's 1990 Donruss card (can you believe Commissioners used to have their own cards?).
Posted by: Kyle in Newport News at October 28, 2005 04:51 AMVery nice indeed, and so very true. I'm as unapologetically anti-BitchSox as anyone, but I would hope every Sox fan heeds that advice to cherish this moment. As a Twins fan since the age of 5 in 1961, I still get a lump in my throat when I think about those feelings I shared with my dad in 1987 when the Twins finally won it all. That emotion you're feeling right now is something unlike anything you will ever feel again.
Posted by: JimCrikket at October 28, 2005 08:39 AMThanks for the heads-up. It's a nice article.
The use of "Bobby Jenks" and "bodaciously" in the same sentence will keep me laughing all day.
Posted by: wildchild at October 28, 2005 08:51 AMI wish I had kept the NY Times piece that appeared the morning after Puckett's dinger in Game 6. The author was in awe of how the god's had somehow conspired to give us yet another game and what a precious gift that was. Great piece. Anyone remember?
Posted by: Duquephart at October 28, 2005 09:56 AMThanks once again - I had not seen that NY Times article - chills I tell you!
WW
The single best memory of my childhood.
Posted by: Ump47 at October 28, 2005 03:48 PMI was amazed that someone else not only remembered the piece but was also able to fetch it out. I shall not lose track of it again. Now, if someone can produce the Reusse article that told the TK vs. Morris "Oh, what the hell, it's just a ballgame" story, my day will be complete. Many thanks.
Posted by: Duquephart at October 28, 2005 04:59 PMMr DP -
I have every StarTribune concerning the ALCS and World Series from both 1987 and 1991. When I get home I'll look for Mr Reusse's column and see about posting it.
Posted by: heraldguy at October 28, 2005 09:12 PMIf the Twins never win a world series again I won't be sad because we had the 91 world series when I was 14. My only regret is that I was unable to appreciate at the time how perfect it was in every respect.
Posted by: Mark at October 29, 2005 11:12 AMThe Twins will win The Series again. You read it here. It may even be the Minnesota Twins. But I won't guarantee that.
Posted by: Duquephart at October 29, 2005 01:42 PMWonderful-enjoyed reading all of it. Thanks!
Posted by: Linda at October 29, 2005 07:34 PMHi all-
Long-time reader, but never posted before. Had to share this one, though. It's one of the two or three pieces of writing that I always make sure is taped up next to my desk. Like it was yesterday...
ps- I grew up in New Jersey during the 60s/70s as a Twins fan. Talk about being on your own... :-)
"Better Than This There Never Was"
Ira Berkow, New York Times
(I don't remember the date)
===================================
Wall to wall, someone was saying, this World
Series, this seven-game thriller between the
Twins and the Braves that finally ended 1-0
in favor of the Twins in the 10th inning of
the seventh game Sunday night, was the best
World Series he'd ever seen.
Wall to wall, your correspondent decided, it
might have been the best sustained sporting
event anyone has ever seen.
What was better in terms of baseball? Was it
1905, when Christy Mathewson pitched three
shutouts in six days as the Giants beat the
A's in the Word Series? Nah, great individual
performance, but it was a one-sided series.
Was it 1924, when old Walter Johnson, then
36, came out of the bullpen for Washington
against the Giants in the ninth inning of the
seventh and won it in the 12th, 4-3? That was
a gasser, surely, but only four games were
decided by one run, and only one game, the
last, went into extra innings. The 1991
Series had five games decided by a run, and
four went into extra innings.
* * *
Oh, you say, the 1975 Word Series between the
Reds and the Red Sox also had five one-run
games -- and wait!, the 1972 A's-Reds Series
had six (!) games that ended with a one-run
difference. But the '75 Series had only two
games go into extra innings, and the '72
Series had none. The '91 World Series,
meanwhile, had four games decided in the last
at-bat, also unequaled.
What about Bill Mazeroski's home run in 1960
to give the Pirates a last-inning,
last-at-bat Series championship over the
Yankees? Great, certainly. But one game. Most
of the others in that seven-game Series were
duds.
One may ruminate on World Series after World
Series for all 88 of them, and the conclusion
in this corner is that this one stands alone.
In my memory, there were numerous great final
series in basketball -- one could name
several involving the Celtics and the Lakers,
for example, and there were some stupendous
single events, like Loyola winning the
National Collegiate Athletic Association
basketball championship in overtime, or that
United States-Soviet Union Olympic hockey
game in '80. And possibly the single most
riveting sports event these eyes ever
witnessed was the first Ali-Frazier fight.
But for day after day pure-and-unalloyed
pleasure, this Series was unbeatable.
It had everything: drama and humor, heroes
and goats, great plays and blunders,
brilliant and bungled strategies, the North
against the South, the old-time virtues of
sky and grass in the Atlanta-Fulton County
Stadium versus a modern rug for a playing
field and Teflon for a sky in the Metrodome,
social issues, and a war between symbols, the
brandished tomahawk versus the billowing
homer hankie.
Besides the hits runs and errors, the Braves'
name and their fans' use of the tomahawk and
a related "chop" gesture and war chant
created controversy. American Indians said
these symbols perpetuated stereotypes and
demeaned their religious rites. Defenders of
the activities said that the fans were just
having a good time and meant no offense.
Besides, they were giving the Indians some
good publicity. That's generous of those
particular folks in Atlanta and environs, and
revoltingly nervy.
But so many people were running around
chopping the air with their foam-rubber
tomahawks and whooping and donning feathers
that it made one wonder what kind of
sensitivity these people possessed. One
homemade banner, through, hanging from the
upper deck in Atlanta, gave an indication. It
read: "We came. We chopped. We offended."
* * *
Meanwhile, the home folks in Minnesota, many
of them descendants of the hardy Vikings,
were never seen without hankies. it looked as
if the whole state was suffering from the
flu. Ah, but these were not just ordinary
hankies; these were the sacred homer hankies,
used to wave their heroes home.
In the mind's eye, there will be
unforgettable scenes: Brian Harper, the
Twins' catcher, jumping up and down at home
plate as the umpire said he didn't tag Mark
Lemke, who scored the winning run in the 12th
inning of Game 4. And the look of fierce
determination in the eyes of the
red-mustached Jack Morris, who at age 36
pitched 10 innings the win the championship
for the Twins -- the kind of determination
seen in the eyes of Frazier and Ali.
"You've done your part," his manager, Tom
Kelly, said to Morris after the ninth. "We'll
get someone else in." Said Morris: "I've
still got my stuff. I want to stay."
You couldn't blame him. The score was 0-0 at
that point, in Game 7 of the World Series,
and no one wanted to leave.
No one did. It was that kind of ball game,
that kind of utterly glorious Series.
BG--Who wrote the NYTimes game story on '91s Gm 7?
Posted by: fiesta at October 31, 2005 08:49 PMDear Mr. Fiesta,
The same as the article posted above--Ira Berkow.
Sincerely,
BG
I should have known. One of my all-time favorite Berkow pieces was one he wrote in '88, I believe. It was an open letter to Bo Jackson explaining why he should choose baseball over football. I'll have to dig it out for you.
Among the reasons: Baseball players have the good sense to come in out of the rain.
Posted by: fiesta at November 1, 2005 10:49 AM