Baseball '09, Volume IX: Remote From Hawaii Edition

The last live game I attended, back in June, I accidentally noted that Barry Zito was throwing a no-hitter through six innings, which of course ruined the whole thing. Tim Lincecum has come close in a couple of starts this year, including a no-hit-through-seven-innings effort on Thursday, July 9th.

There is something magical about no-hitters. That notion of mastery, defense over offense, one pitcher with help from the defense doing exactly what they are supposed to do for nine innings and 27 batters, which is a lot harder than it sounds like it should be, because the offense is always trying to do what they are supposed to do, i.e., preventing the pitcher from succeeding at what he is trying to do. Usually when two opposing forces meet, there is a little bit of give and take, a little bit of destructive interference going both directions.

I've never considered the possibility of a Giants no-hitter. It has never happened while I have been alive. It seems like one of those magical realms that I'm too pessimistic to believe the Giants can reach.

Then Saturday night, we turned on the TV in our hotel in Waikoloa, and Jonathan Sanchez, relegated from the starting rotation three weeks ago because of pitching struggles, only starting due to an injury to Randy Johnson, pitching in front of his father, had thrown a no-hitter.

I love this game. This season, irrationally perhaps, is really getting me excited. The Giants are now being mentioned as wild-card contenders, against all expectations. This no-hitter, the first of the year, in which Sanchez walked no one and overcame a Juan Uribe error that was the only blemish in an otherwise-perfect game, seems to bring a little bit of charm and fantasy into the air.

The season is now half over. Where do we go from here?

Of course, after that bit of perfection, the pessimist in me doesn't want to think of there being nowhere to go but down.

Baseball '09, Volume III: Radio Edition

Fresh off a triumph in LA, taking two of three games from the Dodgers and gaining the motivational spark of Dodgers third baseman Casey Blake mocking Brian Wilson's end-of-game crossed-arms sky point, and after coming home to the Bay and knocking in a prodigious number of runs last night against the Washington Nationals, the Giants take the field again tonight at 7:15, just in time for the radio to click on in your apartment, the steady conversational tones of the announcers filling the air against the backdrop of the soft roll of the stadium noises, the rise and fall of the crowd's vocalizations.

Matt Cain takes the mound for the Giants, and continuing a trend started this year, the Giants hitters are able to knock in runs for him, quickly building a 2-0 and then 5-1 lead.

Baseball on the radio lets you dip your attention in and out, giving you short bursts of narrative, broken into easily navigable stretches by commercial breaks, and the nature of the game lets you visualize everything while remaining at home. The perfect framework for being productive.

At the first ad break, you eat your sandwich, pour a small glass of dinner wine, catch up on news headlines.

The game progresses. The Giants seem to be playing steadily, racking up hits and runs and one by one depleting the Nationals' allotted 27 outs. You will notice, later, after the game, that what the writers at CNNSI describe as a baserunning blunder by Randy Winn in the first, getting tagged out trying to stretch a double into a triple, is praised by the Giants broadcasters as a good job not being tagged out until after Bengie Molina scored the Giants' second run. And of course, the Giants broadcasters don't comment on Pablo Sandoval's spontaneous, ill-fated battle with gravity in the base path between second and third except to hope for his good health after his face plant in the dirt.

Between innings, you retrieve your laundry from the dryer, and pitch by pitch, batter by batter, in soft lamp light you fold and put away your socks and shirts.

Then Matt Cain abruptly forgets how to pitch in the 7th inning, and two base runners and a Ryan Zimmerman home run make it a 5-4 game.

A break in play and you shake out your rug out the back door, dust to dust as you free dust particles to rejoin their brethren (or sistren?). You stack coins to be rolled and deposited; you bag up newspapers and magazines to be recycled.

Damn. The Nationals clobber Bob Howry, and jump to a 7-5 lead in the top of the 8th, and your comfortable evening descends into a contemplation of how to be mature enough to deal with your co-worker from the East Coast tomorrow who happens to be a Nationals fan. Do you delegate all mailed-in paperwork to him for processing and sabotage his chair, or do you get spiteful and petty?

You sweep the floor, deposit the dust in the garbage bag from the kitchen, consolidate the garbage from the bathroom, recycle the wine bottle, throw out the cork.

Bengie Molina smashes a home run to lead off the bottom of the 8th, sparking a flicker of acceleration in your heart. The next three Giants go down in order, and you return to a resting state.

The bottom of the ninth, and a lunch of work place Corvus ossifragus is staring you in the face, and it has a nasty looking beak that will probably scratch your throat and choke you. The first two Giants are briefly mentioned, quickly leave the stage.

Then Emmanuel Burriss, the D.C. native, comes to bat and singles. A wild pick off throw moves him on to second base. Next up is Edgar Renteria, the much-maligned Columbian shortstop--maligned for the big contract he got in the wake of a down year in Detroit, but really, who or what didn't have a down year in Detroit, other than the Red Wings and people who didn't like their mayor. Renteria walks. Pablo Sandoval is up next. Sandoval is a second-year third-baseman who always swings at the first (and second and third . . .) pitch he sees. You have seen him reach up above his shoulders to swing at an offering, as if he were swinging an axe, bringing it down to cleave a log standing on end.

Sandoval takes four pitches in a row, and the announcers don't know what to make of it. It's as if a peanut butter sandwich were to suddenly recite the Gettysburg Address.

Then with the count 2-2, Sandoval bangs the ball deep to left field, over the fence and out of the game, a walk-off home run.

That's what I call a well-structured night.

Random Baseball Thoughts For Mother's Day

First one, of course, is neither random nor baseball-oriented. Happy Mother's Day, missprune. Enjoy a sunny spring day in Hamilton. Here's hoping we see you in the Bay Area this summer.

******

Baseball's Sunday morning broadcasts on TBS seem to have a series of highlights sponsored by Viagra; last time I saw a "Viagra Game Changing Moment" of a home run by Mike Schmidt; today it showed the demolition of an outdated Atlanta stadium.

Does baseball really approve of its highlights being brought to us by a performance-enhancing substance?

******

Speaking of, as a Giants fan, I can't help giggling over the suspension of the Dodgers' Manny Ramirez for 50 games. They didn't dodge that suspension, that's for sure.

I'm torn; I don't want to gloat too much, because of that old karmic carousel; but then again, we're talking about the Dodgers.

To be fair, the Dodgers fans next to us last year were gracious enough when the Giants rallied to win in the bottom of the ninth.

******

The Giants face the Dodgers in LA on TV this afternoon. Tim Lincecum takes the hill. Let's get him some runs and take the rubber game of the series, Giants. It will prove the infinite moral superiority of our city to theirs, and really, that's the most important problem these days.

*******

A month or so ago, I read an article that said that stewards at Yankees games frequently chain off certain exits from the stands during performances of 'God Bless America.' Can't have fans going to the bathroom during enforced patriotism/religious self-aggrandizing sessions after all. And no, singing 'God Bless America' has nothing to do with the memories of the sacrifices made by and the bravery of the New York firefighters and police officers. We don't need to sing that particular song to recognize that.

As if we needed more reasons to loathe the Yankees. It's like they are a conglomeration of overly-generous Santa Clauses who only give insulting presents.

Baseball '09, Volume II

What, if ever, goes to plan? Before the season, we were stoked up on effusive descriptions of the Giants pitching staff: Tim Lincecum, face of the franchise; Randy Johnson, the legend; Matt Cain, the solid pitcher who never got the run support he deserved; Jonathan Sanchez, another rising star; even Barry Zito, who looked like a $126 million dollar bust early last year, was looking better at the end of last season, and people were talking about more success.

Then in the first weeks we get shellacked by the Dodgers and the Padres, even Lincecum, and again, we were getting no offense, scoring one or two runs a game.

Here-we-go-again syndrome is something to which Giants fans are quite susceptible.

April 18th, I go to AT & T Park for my second game of the season, Giants versus Diamondbacks, Lincecum versus the slow-wind-up Doug Davis. It was a beautiful day, though hot. The classic brick facade of the park feels much more aesthetically pleasing than the Oakland Coliseum, and the sun sparkled off the water of the Bay, and the white sails of the sailboats and the passing cargo ships were fruit ripe for meditation between pitches and innings.

I'm there with Marina, Vaughn, and Tara, a perfect Saturday afternoon ball game, the field bright and clean. And Lincecum has recaptured his dominance. His windup is sharp, the white sphere flashing in towards the batter so fast you can just get a glimpse of it when it leaves his hand, and he is sharp, striking out more than ten on the day, surrendering no runs. When the Diamondbacks do mount a scoring opportunity, he shuts them down, usually with a strikeout.

But the offense is struggling too. In the first inning, Emmanuel Burriss gets a single, advancing to second on an error. Then, taking advantage of Doug Davis' rreeaallyy slow wind up, he steals third base easily. But then, with the clean up hitter Bengie Molina at the plate and two outs, Burriss tries to steal home, and is out by a mile. At the time, we like the aggressiveness, but it would look rash as the game went on, especially because in the second inning, Molina leads off with a single. Burriss hits the ball hard a couple more times in the game, getting a single and a hard line out that only a fine leaping catch by Chad Tracy at first base prevents from driving in a run, and he puts down a nice sacrifice bunt. But otherwise, the Giants offense looks lost, and in the 9th inning, after Lincecum pitches 8 full shut out innings, the Giants go to the bullpen, which promptly and weakly surrenders two runs, and the bottom of the ninth showed no fight from the home team, as they anemically went down 1-2-3.

Disappointing, but Lincecum's strength is encouraging, and the pitching has since done well, and the bats have come alive. This past week, the Giants have won 5 games in a row. One more example that one day at the ballpark does not define a season one way or the other. Which means that the acrid stench I detected as we were filing out of the stadium was not the Giants going up in flames, but merely the smoke of a muscle-bound, tank-topped jerk smoking a repulsive cigar. Probably a Dodger fan. A baseball stadium at our disposal, but not a single bat to be found.

It did kind of ruin my streak, as the Giants had come back to win both of the previous two games I've seen since I moved down here in 2007, and that ruins the premise I had of a short story where a man's favorite team wins every single game he attends in person.

But baseball is back, and that makes me happy. I'm watching the Giants-Diamondbacks game on TV in an hour, maybe getting a beer while doing so, fresh off the Giants winning the first two games of this miniseries, which means that even a loss today wouldn't be the end of the world.

Beats the heck out of worrying about swine flu and the economy on a beautiful Sunday.

Baseball '09, Volume I

Baseball. There is something orderly and precise about the game. One pitcher, one batter. Four balls or three strikes. A perfect diamond of bases, trying to move from start to finish, closing the circuit for as many base runners as you can. Three outs in a half inning, nine innings in a game. Success measured in mathematical statistics. 162 games in a year, broken into home stands and road trips, series of games against individual teams. If you lose today, you can win tomorrow, sets of two, three, or four games to be fought for.

A new season coincides with the arrival of spring, so it co-opts the sense of renewal and rebirth, options for new legends and new myths to be made, as well as tons of money in Vegas, if you're so inclined.

There is the prospect this spring of Oakland having a new offensive je ne sais quoi; having spent years building a reputation for cultivating talent and then selling it off at the trade deadline, they suddenly shocked us all by bringing in some big name bats: Orlando Cabrera, ex-Red Sox star Nomar Garciaparra, prodigal son Jason Giambi (prodigal as much for going to the Yankees as for steroid use), and most of all, Matt Holliday, formerly of the Colorado Rockies, and quite possibly slated to be formerly of Oakland too after the trade deadline, depending on how things go. So I want to see Oakland early and often while I could see them with an offense.

April 14th, I got a free ticket through work, proving that having a job is good for something, even in this economy. I checked the papers, and found that Daisuke Matsuzaka, the highly successful Japanese import from last year, was pitching for Boston against Dana Eveland, one of a group of young Oakland pitchers who are highly regarded. It seemed like a pitcher's duel was on the cards, and I was looking forward to a warm East Bay evening, decor of the ballpark notwithstanding.

The Coliseum in Oakland is not what I would call a pretty ball park, nowhere near the caliber of the Giants' waterfront stadium. It has a somewhat industrial feel to it, all concrete, and the upper deck is almost completely tarped off. It always feels like I have to walk forever to find the right gate for my ticket.

But still, you have the green grass of the field in that distinctive cross-hatched mowing pattern, the white of the foul lines, the dirt of the infield and the warning track, and there was the best seat I've ever had, right along the first base foul line, halfway to the corner. It's like the players were the size of real-life people, right there in front of me. Jason Varitek was warming up Matsuzaka right there in front of me; I'd read all about Varitek in Stephen King and Stewart O'Nan's book Faithful, chronicling the Red Sox' championship season in 2004.

Objectively speaking, hero worship or athletic fanaticism is a pretty weird thing. Subjectively speaking, it is just darned cool. Seeing the players up close and in person, somehow reading the lettering of their names on the back of their uniforms, makes them seem more real.

I bought a $4 pretzel and an $8 cup of beer. Gotta love the economics of concession stands. They ought to charge on a sliding scale based on the number of drinks you've had; the more you drink, the more willing you'll be to pay extra. But the pretzel was really good.

I was happy, though there was a chill in the air.

Then the game began, and the Red Sox drove in three runs in the top half of the first inning, and I felt the cold onset of here-we-go-again. Eveland could not get anyone out, and I had flashbacks of Greg Smith's debacle against the Twins last year.

It turned out, though, that the cold I felt was simply the wind sneaking up to prove that actually the East Bay can be damned cold in the evening. It was 50 degrees and would only get colder.

But then the bottom of the first inning showed up, and Daisuke Matsuzaka did not, or at least his skill did not. Oakland drove in five runs, highlighted by a two run double by Holliday, long and far, that banged against the padded center-field wall above the outstretched glove. Matsuzaka would not be back for the second inning.

Eveland, however, settled down, and the Boston reliever, Justin Masterson, proved to be much more in command. A long and closely fought game was fought in the deepening cold. Holliday made a great tumbling catch followed by an accurate throw to put out Kevin Youkilis at first base for a double play. Dustin Pedroia of the Red Sox made one of the best diving catches in mid-air that I have seen.

Late in the game, the Red Sox scored twice more to tie the game, and we went to extra innings, as the night grew later, the cold grew sharper, and the last BART train of the night loomed closer. Still, I stayed, because, well, it was a free ticket, and leaving before the end? That seemed unthinkable, almost unpatriotic.

At the end of the 10th inning, it was 11 p.m. and I had to go. There was a steady string of other people also trudging to the BART station, and at any moment I expected to hear a roar from the stadium indicating a result for better or worse that I had missed due to a weakness of character, i.e., wanting to go home and get some sleep before work, not wanting to be stuck in Oakland with no way over the Bridge, etc.

I checked my text alerts as I took a mostly full train back to San Francisco, and by the time I was ascending the escalator at Powell Street, I found out that Oakland won in the bottom of the 12th.

All in all, a good game. As I was heading for the bus, a homeless guy named Nathaniel told me he was a gift from god and asked if it would really kill me to have a cup of coffee with him, etc., but this is not his story. This is about baseball, a bit of order to contrast with the decay and sadness and mess of the Tenderloin approaching midnight. So I don't want to write about the sad people I saw slumped on the bus, or panhandling in confused, grim-faced chaos, or the gold-clothed black man who lurched onto the bus, saying, "Whoa, I almost spilled my beer. Slow down, driver. Slow down, baby," as the bus pulled away. People saying 'fuck' loudly at the back of the bus. I got a bit freaked out, and was very glad when the bus got past Cathedral Hill and headed down into the Richmond district.

I don't want to write about that part of the night. Not now.

Play Ball

Summer has set in with unusual ferocity, as well as a blatant disregard for a calendar that implies that it is still technically spring. With this heat wave has come the crazies.

By crazies, I mean that general sense of lassitude and things going off-kilter. For instance, the other night I was riding the 38-Geary down O'Farrell, and it had to make a detour down a couple of blocks and over along Post Street due to fire engines clogging the street; once I got to the BART station, I heard the metallic announcements from the PA system announcing that debris on the tracks near Daly City was causing long delays in either direction; we were stopped in the tunnel between 16th and 24th Streets for a good five minutes, and I was getting slightly antsy, slightly claustrophobic, couldn't quite tell if we were moving or not, because there was that gentle vibration in the walls of the car.

Late Tuesday night, I had a conversation with a homeless man named Nathaniel, whose name, he pointed out, means "a gift from God." That would have meant more to me if I believed in God, I suppose; he also told me, if I heard right, which I don't think I could have done, that he came here from DC for the free HIV, and he wanted me to have a cup of coffee with him, my treat, at 12:00 on Wednesday morning and to give him my phone number so I could call him with job opportunities down the road. All very weird stuff.

It's feeling a bit like the world is coming undone like a baseball whose covering is coming unstitched.

Which means it is time to write about baseball.

This is the first entry to introduce a chronicle of what I hope are at least 7 entries covering baseball games I attend this year, as my goal is to get to one game, either Oakland or the Giants, in every month of the season, April through September. It will give a nice element of structure to the year, I think, and maybe I'll capture some of the magic--in miniature--of David Halberstam's great book, Summer of '49.

I'm already two games to the good this year, with a game in Oakland last Tuesday and a game in San Francisco last Saturday, and a Giants-Braves Memorial Day game planned. I might even get to an Oakland-Giants match-up in June, which might merit two entries, one for each team's perspective.

Baseball is full of so many narratives and meanings. Just to tout a few of my own: the Giants-Diamondbacks game I went to on Saturday featured the team I grew up with versus the team affiliated with the Missoula Osprey, so I have a connection there, and I think I saw the Diamondbacks catcher play once back home. The Giants-Braves match-up is a repeat of the very first baseball game I ever attended with my dad, 1985, a game when Bob Brenly made three errors but won the game with a home run.

When looking for something to write, might as well write about something you love and something that holds your fascination, something to get you into a groove of writing consistently.

Tomorrow I'll write about learning the heartbreaking truth behind the myth of East Bay warmth, the scandal of the scorecard and the hot chocolate, the dissonance of Red Sox fans outnumbering the good guys, and the other details of the Oakland-Boston game from last Tuesday night. Like the baseball season, writing happens every day.

Opening Day, And The Crowd Goes Pfeh

When I was growing up in Santa Rosa, baseball was for me the whiffle ball and the whiffle bat, tossing the white swiss-cheese plastic ball up in the air, smacking it with the hollow tube of plastic, trying to propel it across the yard, over the wire fence with the wooden railing, the demarcation of home runs. It was also baseball cards in their plastic sleeves in albums; it was posters of Will Clark; it was the Oakland-San Francisco Bay Bridge series in 1989, before the earthquake disrupted the whole process. It was accessible; it was beautiful and full of stories and larger than life names and faces.

This year, I've recaptured some faint traces of that same passion. I've been looking forward to the new year, making a pledge to myself to go to at least one game, Giants or A's, every month, with already an Oakland-Boston game and a Giants-Diamondbacks game planned for this month.

San Francisco, I've always been a sucker for the Giants. Oakland, though, I've had my ups and downs of feeling for them. For one thing, their stadium, with the tarped-off upper deck and a decidedly-industrial field to the ballpark, is much less aesthetically pleasing than the Giants.

But in this off-season, a sudden surge of acquisitions reversed the trend of selling the young core, continuing the cycle of short term investment, brief frissons of excitement between selling the stars. Matt Holliday. The return of Jason Giambi. Orlando Cabrera. Even Nomar Garciaparra, Mr. Mia Hamm himself. All this plus the return to health of Eric Chavez promised excitement on the other side of the Bay.

This despite Lew Wolff's determination to move the club to Fremont or San Jose or just about anywhere that is not served by the Oakland Post Office.

So I was looking forward tonight to watching Oakland versus Anaheim on ESPN, especially if the NCAA Final between North Carolina and Michigan State proved to be less than a nailbiter--and indeed, the basketball caused no harm to my cuticles.

Imagine my consternation when the feed on ESPN was actually a sports news show.

Apparently the game was blacked out locally on ESPN, for the benefit of Comcast Sports Net California, with whom the A's signed a special deal for lots of money recently. It isn't that the game was played locally and wasn't sold out, which is the normal reason for a game being blacked out. No, it was blacked out so it could only be shown on one channel available only to certain people, I think on satellite.

It all boils down to money, and not to the fans, and that leaves an unpleasant taste in my mouth, and I no longer feel excitement for the Oakland season. Well done, Lew Wolff; you now have my blessing to get the hell out of town. I don't care any more about you. Brilliant bit of Machiavellianism.

Sports, Disenchanting

Opening Day is just over a month away. Soon we're going to break out the Giants' schedule and pick some Sunday afternoon for a day trip to the waterfront ballpark, Vaughn and Tara, Marina and me, for garlic fries and all the contemplative yet visceral joys to be offered by the duels between pitcher and batter, the smack of the ball hitting bats, arcs of rawhide-covered spheres driven towards alleys of green.

The other afternoon, I tuned the radio to KNBR, listened to a few innings of a Cactus League exhibition against Seattle. Baseball on the radio is storytelling at a deceptively sublime level. Like any other story, it has heroes, concurrent and competing narratives, defined objectives, clear obstacles, scale and the lingering scent of Ken Burnsian mythology.

The 50s image of America the perfect society of apple pie and opportunity and political idealism is pretty much defunct, though the possibility remains of a more pragmatic idealism being resurrected, despite the lingering odor of Rush Limbaugh and his "I hope President Obama fails." Baseball is one aspect of American life where you can, for a time, lose yourself in a story.

Unless, of course, you remember the villains.

The thing that disappointed me the most about Alex Rodriguez's admission of steroid use is not the steroids themselves. I've learned to expect disappointment when it comes to the stars of the game; plus, as people have pointed out, there were no penalties from Major League Baseball for the substances Rodriguez used at the time. Baseball is a business, and money is at stake, so cheating is to be expected.

I'm more disappointed that Rodriguez, on national TV, slandered the SI reporter, Selena Roberts, who broke the story, implicating her in legal problems, saying she had been thrown out of his apartment building, saying she was in trouble with the Miami police. This was not true.

Rodriguez, in the midst of his embarrassment, and already rich beyond any necessity, was impugning Roberts' integrity, thereby threatening her livelihood.

He is not a good man. He is not a good role model. He talked about being young and stupid when he took steroids; not much seems to have changed for him, especially in light of the fact that he left the first day of spring training in the company of the cousin who was implicated in providing him steroids in the first place. Rodriguez is either dumb or brash or both, or unfortunately perceptive enough to realize that this scandal will not to stick to him in any real punitive way. The Yankees aren't going to write off such a marketable investment.

There has been no public apology from Rodriguez to Roberts, just an off-the-record cell phone call. What, you thought Scott Boras would allow his moneymaker admit publicly to being a spoiled, spiteful jerk, when with time, the public is more likely to celebrate the baseball star than defend the journalist?

One can only hope that karma is real.

II. In further sports cynicism, consider the case of David Beckham. The LA Galaxy gave him a Hollywood studio's worth of money to come over here to play in the US, party with Tom Cruise, sell a bunch of jerseys, and, oh yes, maybe provide some quality and leadership on the soccer pitch.

After two seasons in the MLS, the Galaxy have not made the playoffs, Beckham has not shown any inclination in leadership, and during a loan spell with Milan, has expressed the desire to not return to the States, hoping that the Galaxy would accept the pitifully small offer Milan made to make his services theirs on a permanent basis.

Because, he's Beckham, they're Milan, and we're just the Americans. What does a contract with us matter?

The disclaimers: of course people are entitled to change their minds, to want different experiences, and there is a world of difference in quality between the LA Galaxy and AC Milan. There is a vast disparity in scope and challenge. And honestly, if a player doesn't want to be there, the accepted wisdom is it is better for all parties for him not to be there.

But I'll admit that a part of me, the fan of soccer, was excited and starstruck when Beckham signed, and a part of me now feels a little bit spurned. I feel if Beckham can't abide by his ludicrously awesome contract, he shouldn't have signed it in the first place. I feel he should have spent less time partying with Tom Cruise and Will Smith and less time marketing his image, and more time promoting soccer by taking a leadership role with the Galaxy.

And a part of me hopes that Beckham and England play the US in the World Cup next year. I love England, rooted hard for them in a Welsh pub with my British friends when they competed in the 2002 World Cup, and hold Michael Owen and Alan Shearer to be two of my favorite individual players. But the time will come for the young US team to assert itself and beat England on the grand stage--it's happened once before way back when--and I would enjoy for that to happen with Beckham on the field.

"Beat LA"

Sunday afternoon, Vaughn and I were sitting by the Bay, enjoying garlic fries, the occasional breeze from McCovey Cove, the emerald green of the diamond, a sell-out crowd, lemonade, and free hats. And, of course, Giants-Dodgers.

Baseball is history, the immortality of narrative. Willie Mays. Joe DiMaggio growing up in San Francisco, the son of a fisherman. Pee Wee Reese, son of Kentucky, putting his arm around Jackie Robinson. Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth. Honus Wagner versus Ty Cobb. The tragedy of Roberto Clemente dying in a plane crash at sea while on a charity mission.

Baseball is also the crack of the bat, the pristine foul lines, the ball sailing into the gap, outfielders diving full length to snag the ball. It is the neat rhythm of a double play, shortstop to second to first, or a perfectly placed sacrifice bunt, advancing runners through small ball (also known as the celebration of having no more power hitters since Bonds left).

But mostly, of course, it is about the hatred of all things Dodger.

It isn't that there is anything rational to the hatred. We share the same time zone. It's just a ball game. It's not like there's something really worth hating them for, like if they lived in a different country or gave a different name to their god.

But still, they're the Dodgers.






And this is what the world is all about: a pitchers' duel between Matt Cain and Chad Billingsley, Randy Winn (whom I've loved since he won the game I attended against the Nationals last year with an extra-innings base hit) and Aaron Rowand wreaking havoc for the Giants, Andre Ethier and Matt Kemp belting triples for the Dodgers. The Giants were leading until Manny Ramirez, late of Boston, doubled in two runs in the top of the seventh, prompting the Dodger fan next to us to propose marriage to Manny. I don't think his girlfriend objected, because she was a Dodgers fan too. I think she would understand the need to sacrifice for the greater good.

It has been a tough year for the Giants, full rebuilding mode, with young players peaking and falling, and the Giants out of the race before the season started, or so it seemed. And the Dodgers are in the pennant race, especially after getting Ramirez. It is fundamentally wrong for the Dodgers to be winning and the Giants to be losing.

But that is part of the fascination of baseball. Every day is a new day, a microcosm of the season as a whole; the best hitters only succeed 1/3 of the time, and the best teams lose more than that. If you stake all your hopes on your team winning every day, you're going to be miserable. It teaches patience, and an appreciation for the small matchups, the individual moments of the game and the visceral satisfactions they provide.

At least Jeff Kent had a rough day; after burning his bridges on his way out of town, the man went from hero to hated.

After Ramirez's double, the crowd was deflated, and the early emigration began.

Then, in the bottom of the ninth, everything changed. The Giants trailed, 4-3. The scoreboard flashed a "Rally Time" message, and the PA announcer started exhorting us to make some noise, and like a Pavlovian response, more than 40,000 people suddenly began to chant, "BEAT L. A.! BEAT L.A.!" All at once, 40,000 people were focusing their will on crushing that of 25 men in Dodger Blue.

Randy Winn singled hard down the right field line. Aaron Rowand singled. Runners on first and second. The Dodgers fans next to us (who had been polite and gracious all day, it has to be said) looked concerned, and started shrinking into themselves, a nonverbal "Oh shit" as the chants and stamping to "Beat LA!" rose in volume.

Omar Vizquel pinch hit, looking to sacrifice the runners along, but only popped out weakly to the catcher. Jose Castillo came up and grounded the ball down the third base line, with Casey Blake prepared to field and start a game-ending double play.

I don't know for sure that the crowd got into Blake's head, but he booted the ball. Everybody safe. Bases freaking loaded.

Emmanuel Burriss made contact, sending the ball up the middle. The pitcher might have been able to field it cleanly, but he didn't, and they only managed to force Castillo at second base. No double play. Rowand to third. Winn tied the game. Eugenio Velez, another of the young Giants, also hit the ball, not hard, but in the right place. The Dodgers shortstop kept it in the infield, but didn't stand a chance, Burriss sliding headfirst through the dirt into second base and Rowand sprinting home.

Unbelievable. The Giants aren't going to do much this year, but they have heart, and I feel like I am watching something good starting to grow.

And best of all, if only temporarily, we pulled the Dodgers a game and a half back of the Diamondbacks.

We beat L.A.