Never too late to redeem Bonds By Eric Neel Page 2 columnist |
Page 2's "Critical Mass" is a weekly survey of what's happening at the busy intersection of sports and pop culture.
Feeling good for Barry
Second, I figured beyond the mental factors, there had to be other things contributing to his postseason average, too -- good pitchers making good pitches, teams being careful with him, outfield positioning, game situations dictating his approach to at-bats, and some bad baseball luck (hitting balls into guys' gloves, guessing wrong on key pitches, having his down times correspond to some big series, etc.). Anyway, "choke" always felt to me like a cheap, easy story for what was probably a complicated phenomenon. We (writers, fans, guys talking over a beer) do that -- we slap stories on things to make them digestible. It saves us the trouble of wrestling with the details and, in this case, the pain of empathizing with the guy struggling to get a hit. For most of Bonds' career, the story slap has dogged him. Great as he was, he was always also the guy who couldn't deliver at crunch-time. Monday night and Tuesday, though, simple storytelling worked to his advantage because now, after delivering in Game 5 to clinch the division series, his is the story of redemption. He's the guy who conquered his demons, got the monkey off his back, rescued his reputation in one majestic fourth-inning, big-time swing of the bat.
Watching him cross home plate Monday night, though, thinking about how he must have chafed under the choke label over the years, I imagined he knew, and was glad of, the story that was waiting for him at the end of the game. I thought he must, just this once, be glad that we look for easy handles sometimes, and I found myself hoping he'd get a chance to bask in the warm light of the redemption story, if only for a little while.
Feeling bad for Barry He's been crucial ("crucial" isn't nearly strong enough) to the team's success this year, but he was just a guy kicking around at the margins during their finest hour so far. It was weird. His talent, his reserve, his cockiness -- these things seemed to keep him on the outside looking in. He looked like the shy kid the other night, kicking dirt clods, keeping his head down, hoping no one will notice him. He looked like the kid you'd ignore, or maybe, if you took pity on him, let him join your party.
Memories of '87
Who of today's Giants could pull that off? Bonds? No.
Kent? Don't think so. Only one man, only one no-business-
Cheap, easy story, Part 3 Uh, yeah, Bud. Whatever gets you through the night.
Kirby Puckett has been wandering around the Metrodome lately, handing out grins and belly-laughs to all the kids.
Secret edge for the Angels against the Twins
Ask me why the Yankees lost You don't want to set yourself up as the potential object of ridicule like that; you don't want to sit there on your bum, looking like a punchline. The baseball gods, they've got a wicked sense of humor. They say to themselves, Oh, baby's got a sore bottom. Isn't that too bad? You know what he really needs? He needs to get up off it and walk around a little. He needs free time, days on end without any reason to sit on the bench. Let's send his boys packing, that'll make him feel better.
Ask me why the A's lost
On the shelf It says here that 14 percent of Americans root for the Yankees and the other 86 percent root for their demise. No fence-sitting; you're in or you're out with the Yanks.
If you're in the other 86 percent, you ought to be reading it, too. First, because there's something devilishly satisfying in reading about the early days, when the team was nearly shut out of Manhattan, playing on a sloppy, cobbled-together field with a swamp in right. Second, because as you turn the pages you come to realize that from DiMaggio to Mantle, from Bucky Dent and Reggie to Paul O'Neill and El Duque, these guys and the things they've done (sometimes to you, sometimes in spite of you) are part of your history, part of how you remember and imagine your life. And third, because it's insanely thorough, full of details you've forgotten or never knew, and very good looking. Stout started this series with "Red Sox Century" in 2000. "Dodgers Century" is in the works. These are rich, dazzling books, standard-setters, fully-realized, complicated portraits of the ways a team and a game weave in and out of politics, history and popular culture. O'Neill's sister contributes an essay to this volume that sums up the series' appeal much better than I can: "In our family we tell stories, we don't really talk. We let baseball articulate the hopes and fears that we'd never consider confiding in each other."
This week's line I most wish I'd written "In a season of late glory and odd fealty, it's appropriate that shortstop David Eckstein is the player every grandmother in Orange County wants to knit socks for -- even though outfielder Garret Anderson has had a near-Most Valuable Player year."
This week's there-it-is line Meanwhile, teammate Alan Houston says, "I think we should know something, honestly, as a team, as his teammates. Whatever he wants to let us know, that's on him." That's on him. Simple turn of phrase and Houston's made this about responsibility and family. He's challenged his teammate, but done it in a way that communicates respect, in a way that says, you're a man, you do what you have to do, you do what's right. The Knicks could have skipped the fine, because there it is.
This week's guy who gets a little more respect out of me than he did before Nice. Wish I'd said that.
On the air Urlacher bent over, scrambling around the "Duck-Duck-Goose" circle -- that's funny.
"All is Forgiven," Los Angeles Times article by Helene Elliott on Wayne Gretzky's jersey number being retired by the Los Angeles Kings before Wednesday night's preseason game against the Coyotes. The Kings have wanted to retire his number for a while now, but Gretzky insisted they wait until the team's former owner Bruce McNall could participate in the ceremonies. McNall was serving almost four years in federal prison for fraud, fraud which cost Gretzky nearly $1.5 million. Like you needed another reason to think of The Great One as graceful and classy.
RIP Bruce Paltrow
Eric Neel reviews sports culture in his "Critical Mass" column, which will appear every Wednesday on Page 2. You can e-mail him at eneel@cox.net. |
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