Somewhere in the sixth inning of Phil Humber’s perfect game at Safeco yesterday, I started rooting for Humber and the perfect game and not
my Mariners. Not that the Mariners are much to root for these days, but I felt
a twinge of guilt, then it passed as I watched the most exciting and demanding
event at Safeco in a decade.
Why would I root for a team against my team?
Well, I did not exactly root for the White Sox. I rooted for
the pitching of a perfect game. A perfect game—no one gets on base and the
pitcher faces only 27 batters—often requires a miracle or two in the field, but
Humber supported by incredible pitch calling from A. J. Pierzynski pitched a
masterpiece. Indirection, off-speed, confusion and dominating expectations lead
to a 96-pitch game. He simply pitched a great game without the classic great
pitch arsenal we associate with perfect game pitchers.
I know I am supposed to root for my home time and have
invested 26 wonderful if futile years following the Mariners in games and on
obscure blog sites as well as infecting my children. I even wore my hat during
the game (On empirical evidence I may have to stop wearing my hate since the
Mariner’s have lost all seven games I wore it, but that is another story).
Why root for your
home team—I root for my home team out of loyalty and identification with
them. It affirms my affiliation with the northwest and the place I live and
where my children were raised. I root for them because winning makes me feel
good and casts a glow around the community of seven people who still follow the
Mariners. I root for them because I have grown to have a respect and affection
for some of the player such as Ichiro and Felix Hernandez and, God help me,
Brendan Ryan. The Mariner’s are woven into my family’s sense of continuity. It
gives us a focal point of conversation and common emotional loyalty even in
rough patches, “how about them Mariner’s?” when we may feel like killing each
other.
So rooting for a home team possesses strong emotional and
ethical roots. Why did I find myself edging towards rooting for Phil Humber and
his unlikely quest for a perfect game?
A sense of excitement grows inside you when you watch a game
like this. All the announcers mention it around the 6th inning, “no
walks, no runners, no runs, 18 up, 18 down.” I know common wisdom says don’t
talk about it, but Dave Sims brought it up front and center and enriched the
game and my watching by it.
Baseball humbles people. Most batters and pitchers fail more
than succeed even when a team wins. A perfect game defies the inexorable
humbling. Each pitch starts to matter more. Each batter has more responsibility
and pressure to end the quest. No team wants to be “no hit” or “perfect pitched;”
these are not badges of honor in baseball.
Good baseball plays out with a focused intensity that rises
with each pitch. A perfect game or no hitter just magnifies it all. So much can
go wrong, but watching such a game draws you in either hoping your team breaks
the cycle or hoping the pitcher gains baseball immortality by adding to the
list of 20 perfect games in 120 years.
Now if the game mattered to the Mariners, the ethical stakes
might keep my straying respect and excitement from migrating to Humber and Pierzynski’s
game calling which really was magnificent. A lot of “ifs” could keep my support
squarely with the Mariners. If a playoff place had been on the line; if the team
was locked in a pennant race; if they were in playoffs; if they even had a
chance of being a playoff team, when each victory really does matter in
September.
No stakes for my team—but
these are my Mariners. Playoffs lie several space-time continua away, and they are
hitting 232 this year. High stakes does not come to mind when rooting for them.
So rooting for them in this position becomes a negative, I want them to avoid
humiliation. But these are negative reasons that can motivate players, but the
draw of history and perfection really pull much more positively.
History unfolding
before me—wanting to be part of an historical moment can catch a person up
in the moment. It feels a bit selfish but also noble to be there and be a part
of something special. Sports is full of games of the century, we have several a
season in college baseball, but perfect games in baseball are really really hard
and rare and complicated—so hard that some pitchers have pitched nine innings
of perfect ball and literally lost the game in the 10th inning.
Being a minor character witnessing history that is enshrined is pretty cool and
slowly stole my allegiance.
Another aspect drew me to hope that Humber succeeded
especially in the eighth and ninth inning—respect for the game.
Respect for game and
athletes—Sport is hard work and winning involves skill, practice and luck.
Humber and the White Sox were winning this one on skill and practice, not luck.
This game was a pitcher/catcher in perfect sync with amazing results. I respect
most sports I watch and respect each game’s complexities and unique challenges
and beauties. Seeing a perfect game unfold, unless you miss the steroid
inflated home run 90’s, the perfect game reduces baseball to its essence—you
catch the ball, you throw the ball and you hit the ball in the immortal words
of Bull Durham.
It might seem boring to have no one on base and no runs
being scored—it does happen all the time to the Mariners—but to watch it unfold
each second and each pitch with each one a possible quest ender, that focuses a
fan and player’s attention upon the core activity.
I can also respect the athletes on the quest. Professional
sports offers so many games and baseball more than double anyone else. It can
become drudgery even for committed professionals. Good professionals keep
bringing it and can up their game when the moment requires. The quests are
season long for playoffs, total wins, batting averages etc. But here the quest
reduces to one game, nine innings, one pitch at a time, one play at a time. This is the game stripped to its core. The
players must rise to the occasion as it reduces the season to a magnificent nine-inning
quest.
Every sport has perfect moments—a great catch, a great
pass, and an amazing stop. Baseball itself has perfect moments such as a
perfect catch, perfect pass, perfect hit or perfect stop. A coach and team can
experience a play unfold just like it is drawn up in its Platonic perfection. The
skill and artistry and demands of the situation combine for an exquisite never
to be repeated moment that any sport can deliver at any time. This moment of
perfect achievement keeps us going back to watch the same games over and over.
But only baseball permits a perfect game, not just a moment.
Here the form of perfection breaks through the permeable layers separating our
world from other worlds of form and beauty. Every perfect moment breaks that
barrier and reveals the mystery and possibility of our lives and makes us glad
to be humans.
Only baseball extends that ecstatic moment to an entire
game.
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