Last night, after the last Astro “hitter” headed for the dugout, I got up from the couch, where I had sat without saying one word for the last 2 innings and went and sat in front of the computer, trying to think of something to write. I’m usually a positive sort of girl, can think of at least ONE thing not bad to say, but this time, I just couldn’t. After I’d been staring at the screen saver for over an hour, Husband came over and put his hand gently on my head – he sez – Baby, you scaring the kids and the dogs – they think you mad at THEM. He right – little kids and dogs always think it’s about them. (Well, to be honest, a LOT of the time it IS about them…) So I got up and put on a happy smile and kissed my kids and told them they good boys and Mami loves them and read them a story and washed them and put them to bed. THEN I sat back down in front of the computer.
I didn’t know what to write that I hadn’t written way too many times already this year.
Lessee -
Roger Gets NO Run Support, As Usual
We Got Shut Out More Times This Year Than The *(%^$@! Royals
At Least Roger Looked Good Out There
At Least We Didn’t Get No-Hit
If it Wasn’t For Bad Luck, Roger Wouldn’t Have No Luck A-tall
And I didn’t. Why bother?
So after another hour of staring, I figgered, well, it ain’t Husband’s fault, neither, and went to bed after trying to put on a happy smile.
But I woke up this morning without it and after a while, sat down at the computer, trying to find something to say, finding nothin, so I decided to go play with my kids – I’m trying to teach them colors – they get them wrong most of the time, but little kids get most things wrong most of the time. They do them same things over and over, usually wrong, or they “forget” and you need to have patience. Because they usually fail and the minute you forget that, YOU fail, too.
And that got me thinking. About baseball and why I’m a fan at all.
My daddy, who hates all sports, once asked me WHY I bothered to follow baseball – he said, they mostly white MEN twice your size – how can they be YOUR team? How do they represent YOU? They sure don’t represent Houston – where are the Mexican-Americans, the Vietnamese-Americans, the African-Americans, and most important, the TEXAN-Americans? Not to mention Female-Americans? I thought about it for a long time. And then I knew.
The answer is that baseball is a game of failure. MOST of the time, you fail. In baseball, the greatest players fail 2/3 of the time. Oh, yes – fail to get on base, fail to get the runner home, fail to get the runner out. You make errors, you don’t make a play, you misjudge a ball, you run into a teammate, you injure yourself running down the baseline, you do REALLY stupid stuff, like iron your shirt while you wearing it and burn your fool self… Your group might could win or lose, but sometimes what you do personally, good OR bad, has ZERO to do with the fortunes of the team. Sometimes you try your best and your best just ain’t good enough. And sometimes you try so hard that you over-try and that don’t work, neither. And yes, sometimes you get just everything right or you just plain get the breaks and so does everyone else and you win. And sometimes you learn from your failures and sometimes even when you know what you doing wrong, you just can’t seem to change your ways and stop doing it wrong, and sometimes you fall into this feeling of hopelessness where you figger why bother and stop trying and sometimes you get lucky breaks, and sometimes hard work pays off. Just like the rest of humanity in real life.
And the one thing about Roger – yall know that in the mainstream pitching world, success=wins, period. But in spite of the fact that he has pitched better by almost every other measure of excellence than every other pitcher in the ML and has very little to show for it, he’s been – what’s the word I’m looking for – a real grown-up about it. No tantrums, sulking, putting down or blaming his teammates/manager/umpires. Like so many other people do. It’s not that he don’t care about whether or not he does well and the team does well, but that he cares more about the attitude in the workplace and that screeching at the people who let him down – because they tried too hard, didn’t try hard enough or were just unlucky just creates misery and bad feelings and what’s the point of that? He understands and teaches his teammates that baseball is about fluctuations in fortune and to accept both ups and downs with good manners. Which, as far as I’m concerned, is what a REAL leader is all about. Just a few years ago, he won 20 games (and a Cy Young) with the Yankees, pitching MUCH worse than he has this year, but with MUCH better run support. And so this year, when he been caught on the down side of luck, he SMILES when he says – fluckt again…..
