At a party over the Fourth of July weekend, a friend of ours–who is nine years old–was entertaining us by aping the deliveries of a few notable pitchers. The identifiable characteristics of the pitching motions were all there–Dwight Gooden with his straight, over-the-top movement, Mike Bielecki with his low delivery and his lunge toward home plate–so that any committed baseball follower could have picked them out in a second even if our friend hadn’t announced each one beforehand. In fact, when he said, “This is that guy, that relief pitcher for–I think–the Braves,” and he turned his back to us, and came sidearm with a phantom pitch, we knew right away it was Gene Garber (if not Louis Tiant, but that would date us, and besides he never pitched for Atlanta). And when he did Mitch Williams, falling off the mound (“I pitch like my hair’s on fire,” Williams has said in a famous quote), it prompted us to stand up ourself, saying, “You know who else pitched like that”–at which point we did a slow-motion Bob Gibson, pumping, kicking (glove pointed down, ball curled in right hand, left leg relaxed in the stride, shoulder high and shadowing our face–just as in that old Sports Illustrated subscription fly card), and then lunging in the direction of first base, left arm out in the manner of a CTA straphanger who has somehow missed the strap. And the kid looked on as if he wondered what the hell it was we were doing.
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
Boys–and, we imagine, girls these days–have an immense capacity for the minutiae of the game of baseball–from statistics to the slightest physical gestures and facial tics. The game is so centered on the individual–from moment to moment–and our focus so intent on the players as they appear in the spotlight, that everything from Ernie Banks’s finger-twitching to Bob Dernier’s compulsive glove-tightening registers. Young fans–not yet distracted by other pressing concerns–absorb even more; there are friendly neighborhood contests to see who does what pitcher better, what batter more correctly–in effect, who has seen the most detail or most succeeded in putting him- or herself in the place of a major-league player. Another friend of ours–a contemporary–tells of such contests taking place in a college dormitory, semiadults standing around going, “Who’s this?” And then striking a pose, twitching the fingers, going into a pitcher’s motion. This is the sort of detail baseball fans–and especially young baseball fans–are continually filing away, perhaps for later use, more likely for personal satisfaction. Eventually, it becomes a part of the fan’s very personality.
This point was pounded home during the introductions last Sunday. The ’77 Sox seemed pleasantly surprised to be seeing one another again, but the ’69 Cubs were delighted, like brothers at a family reunion, slapping one another on the back, taking one another aside for the retelling of old tales. That Cubs team was together a long time–too long, many people said–and like a family they tended to allow their problems to fester, from year to year, until they were too great to be easily treated. The Cubs, also, were looking a little old, a little gray. They all remained in pretty good shape (it was the White Sox’ Carlos May, Lamar Johnson, Jim Spencer, and Wilbur Wood who didn’t grow up but out), but they were gray around the temples, rusty in their movements. Ferguson Jenkins’s kick wasn’t as fluid as before, and his arm rose rigidly behind him to deliver the baseball so that he appeared to be imitating not himself but Johnny Unitas. (“Save it, Fergie,” Glenn Beckert had yelled as Jenkins threw hard fastballs in batting practice.) When Billy Williams hit a home run off Bart Johnson in the first inning of the exhibition game–not far from where he had homered off Hoyt Wilhelm in the 1983 old-timers game during the All-Star festivities–the pages of history began flapping backward and forward, and we fell to musing.
