A flair for the dramatic

Last Updated on September 30, 2010 by Dave Farquhar

Writing about baseball two days in a row? Hey, it’s my site.
We played a doubleheader last night and won both games. I caught the first game; the second game the manager shooed me over to first base. I haven’t played first since one inning in high school, which was a disaster. I last played semi-regularly when I was 12, and that was mostly as a joke. I could make the catches but I was just over five feet tall so I sure couldn’t stretch to get the ball a split second sooner.

I did decent; I made 3, maybe four putouts. There were two bad throws, one I would have nabbed if I’d been six feet tall; the other I got the glove on but really awkwardly and I couldn’t keep control of it. I was pretty mad about that one. I’m a whole lot more comfortable in right or left field these days.

Enough about my reliving the glory days I never had. What about that All-Star game? Ripken has a great flair for the dramatic. First, A-Rod, elected to play short, shooed Ripken over to his old position and moved to third. And Ripken homered in his first at-bat.

That’s the story of Ripken’s career. Ripken had no business playing short at age 40. Ripken really had no business starting the game. But Ripken spent 14 years doing what he had no business doing. He was always too big and too immobile to play short, but he played it and played it well. Shortstops have no business playing uninterrupted for 14 years. Ripken did that.

And really, that’s what defines an All-Star. Yes, the numbers are a big, big part of it, but Ripken’s a star, whether he’s hitting .320 or .220, and Ripken’s a sure-fire first-ballot Hall of Famer whether he hits his way into winning his old job back (Ripken’s not even a regular on his own team anymore) or whether he goes hitless for the rest of the season.

And Commissioner Bud Selig made a total ass of himself, not knowing the difference between home runs and RBIs when talking about Cal Ripken’s achievements, and mispronouncing Honus Wagner’s name when talking about Tony Gwynn one-upping his impressive career batting stats.

It was tonight’s All-Star game that reminded me of what makes baseball such a great game. Baseball is full of great moments like that–great players, sometimes running on fumes, coming back and showing us one last time what made them great in the first place.

So what’s wrong with baseball? I honestly think baseball needs another Lyman Bostock. Lyman Bostock wasn’t a great player. He didn’t have time to become one, because he only played four seasons. But after making runs for the AL batting title in 1976 and 1977, Bostock signed with the California Angels, becaming one of the first of the high-priced free agents, and he immediately fell into a slump. He didn’t even hit his weight his first month, so he went to the owner of the team and tried to give back his salary, saying he hadn’t earned it. When the owner turned it down, he announced he was giving the money to charity instead. Thousands of requests came in, and Bostock went through them himself, wanting to determine who needed the money the most. Tragically, Bostock was shot and killed in Gary, Indiana, near the end of that season. He worked his tail off trying to get his batting average up over .300 by the end of the year. He was batting .296 when he died.

We’ve had tons of great stories since 1978. Ripken, of course. McGwire and Sosa’s friendly rivalry as they chased Roger Maris’ home run record. Orel Hershiser’s 59 consecutive scoreless innings. The emergence of Pedro Martinez and Greg Maddux when it appeared the era of truly, truly great pitchers was over.

But without another Lyman Bostock, they just look like a billionaire boys’ club. Emphasis on “boys.”

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5 thoughts on “A flair for the dramatic

  • September 5, 2001 at 3:20 am
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    right on–he was one in a million. it is unlikely we will ever see the likes of him again. i just found out that he’s buried only a few miles from where i live. i might just stop by to pay my respects on the 23rd. he was a great man, and a good man.

  • September 5, 2001 at 3:21 am
    Permalink

    right on–he was one in a million. it is unlikely we will ever see the likes of him again. i just found out that he’s buried only a few miles from where i live. i might just stop by to pay my respects on the 23rd. he was a great man, and a good man.

  • September 5, 2001 at 3:21 am
    Permalink

    right on–he was one in a million. it is unlikely we will ever see the likes of him again. i just found out that he’s buried only a few miles from where i live. i might just stop by to pay my respects on the 23rd. he was a great man, and a good man.

  • January 24, 2002 at 5:05 am
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    What’s really sick is that Lyman was shot and killed at random by an unemployed truck driver with a shotgun while he was driving in the backseat of a car. Worse thing of all is that the guy pleaded insanity and walked away totally freed in 4 months.

  • January 24, 2002 at 5:05 am
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    What’s really sick is that Lyman was shot and killed at random by an unemployed truck driver with a shotgun while he was driving in the backseat of a car. Worse thing of all is that the guy pleaded insanity and walked away totally freed in 4 months.

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