Playoff baseball encapsulates a season's worth of drama into a few short weeks. Each team has its own uplifting story and appears to be the team of destiny. We get to know the personalities of the players and see rivalries develop as the same teams play each several games in a row. Every game, every inning and every pitch is pivotal. We are treated to legendary victories and tragic failures in each series, culminating in the Fall Classic itself. While I can't help but be reminded that my team is once again not a team of destiny but of ignominy, I eventually find players and teams to root for and to root against, and I lose myself in the drama.
And this year's World Series is proving to be one of the most exciting in years. The Astros and Dodgers are both really fun teams to watch, stocked with brilliant young players, future hall-of-famers and gritty role players. We're five games in and already two of the games will go down as a pair of the most dramatic in World Series history.
I'm loving every minute -- and all five hours and seventeen minutes of Game #5. But, at the same time, some troubling issues have arisen.
First, there is something wrong with the baseballs. Pitchers are having difficulty gripping the ball, and typically dominant pitchers are getting uncharacteristically roughed up because they've lost the ability to throw a slider. There have been reports all season that the baseballs have flatter seams, which is deemed largely responsible for the unprecedented explosion of home runs. But in the post-season, the balls are not only more lively, they are apparently slicker and harder to grip. Sure, home runs are exciting and dramatic, but so are pitching duels. Messing with the quality of baseballs is messing with the game. This is not cool.
Then there's the disturbing racist gesture and slur by the Astro's Cuban slugger Yuli Gurriel in Game #3. After hitting a home run off Yu Darvish, who grew up in Japan and whose mother is Japanese, Gurriel not only stretched the corners of his eyes, but uttered the derogatory term, "chinito." It seemed stupid and juvenile rather than cruel and malicious, but it was undoubtedly offensive and the fact that Gurriel and his teammates saw nothing wrong with doing this on a national stage is a vivid example of how racial insensitivity remains so ingrained. While Major League Baseball handed down a five-day suspension without pay for the start of next year, it seems to me that they too quickly swept this under the turf. A one-game suspension during the World Series would have sent a stronger message about racism and intolerance.
Finally, George H.W. Bush and his son George W. Bush threw out the first ball to start Game #5 yesterday to wild cheering and applause. Sure this was Houston and all, but did we really need to see the 41st President -- most recently known for groping women from his wheel chair and historically known for putting another sexual harasser, Clarence Thomas, on the Supreme Court -- handing the ball to the 43rd president -- who is not as cruel, corrupt and unhinged as the current occupant of the White House, but did lie us into the worst foreign policy disaster in modern history, approve torture, and botch the recovery from Hurricane Katrina.
Baseball is our National Pastime and, as such, it often provides a reflection of who we are as a nation. And so it shouldn't be surprising, particularly at this fraught time, that the Game, like the Country, would be marred by questions of integrity, demonstrations of racism and mindless support for undeserving Republicans. But baseball -- and hopefully America -- is incredibly resilient. Whatever its problems, we are always left to revel in its beauty and power, in the remarkable feats and the agony of defeats, and in the drama of the unexpected. Let's Play Ball!
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