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I see it time and time again: You're rooting for the playground bully.
Then you look, and see a game like tonight's. Evenly matched. Just folks. Just people playing their asses off. Scrapping for runs. Diving for balls. Pitching their hearts out.
And the scrub, the fielder who hasn't hit shit all series, comes up and catches a fat one.
Evil Empire? Fuck, man. It's contingency. Guys playing ball and playing hard. Any givcen Sunday - or, in this case, Thursday.
There's a moment when we give up our pretensions and resentments and just watch the fucking brilliant emergence of the game. I remember one of the first conversations I had with my wife, back in the days. She was amazed that the ground outs at first were always so close: How could it be? It's ninety feet, I said. Goddamn perfect.
Can we watch a goddamn perfect game and put the resentment on hold? Is it possible? Guys playing ball. Eye to eye for over four hours, pressure on, evil tone in the air. And a fucking Greek Tragedy, to boot: Pedro Martinez's utter domination, strength, and hubris has him flying to close to the sun. Keep me in, chief. I can do it. People - human beings - playing ball.
It's not a metaphor. Stop condenscing all your suffering into it. It's pitch by pitch - contingent as all git-out - any given Thursday, any given Thursday, any given Thursday....
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