… another reason to love baseball.
I found this yesterday, by Patrick Dubuque — he of the three-u last name — about a play from Friday. The first paragraph is one of the best about baseball I’ve ever read. The last one is ok, too, and finishes the scene. The photo is perfectly placed. I’ve committed a copyright violation to share this with you. If someone comes to claim damages, I’ll gladly pay.
Play of the Game
Top 1 (SEA 0, TOR 0) (1 out, runner on 1st)
Cal Raleigh homers (1) on a fly ball to right field. Eugenio Suárez scores.
WPA: SEA +0.156
Watching a baseball game at a bar is a little like listening to someone while underwater. The noise of the crowd refracts the sounds and even the colors of the game, as different pockets of the throng ahead and behind become sensible, or forget themselves, at different times. The cheers are a little late, or sometimes completely unrelated; grown men talk to television screens. And then Cal Raleigh’s bat came down on every table in the place, all at once, like a vicious, blue-skinned schoolmarm. A hundred timelines, a hundred worlds snapped into one.
Then, the déjà vu: Raleigh, his bat extended upwards, his face marked with just a little disbelief, the same man who finalized the Mariners’ playoff eligibility with a walk-off home run the week before. Again down the line, again no doubt. Only: just a little higher this time, milking the moment just a little more.
Beautiful indeed. Thanks for sharing.