I'm not a Cubs fan but I'm rooting for the Cubs, for the same reason I rooted for the Red Sox in 2004. It's time. Also, their manager, Joe Maddon, attended the same college as my father, Lafayette, in the town of my birth, Easton, PA. They also have on their roster a player who starred at Villanova, my alma mater, in football as well as baseball: Matt Szczur. His name means "rat" in Polish and is pronounced a bit like the word "chore" if you put a "sh" in front of it, though the announcers cheat and call him Caesar. They've had to do that quite a lot because one of the starters, Anthony Rizzo, has emerged from his slump by using Szczur's bats. In fact, Szczur was interviewed from the dugout during last night's game - making him one of a very small group of non-starters ever interviewed during a championship game - and he mentioned that another player was wearing his leggings. But then Szczur is used to sharing what he has: While at Villanova, he donated bone marrow to a young Ukrainian girl.
Perhaps now - after the dirge-like playing of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game," Dee Gordon's first-pitch homage from the right-handed batter's box (followed by his surreal, Ruthian home run), the circling of the mound following the 7 to 3 win, the caps left behind in loving tribute - the Marlins will win back South Florida's sports fans. God knows they deserve them.
The death of a young person is always tragic, mercilessly cutting short a potentially long life. In the case of the Marlins pitcher, it was a life of fame and glory, still unrealized potential and almost fathomless fun. He brought to baseball an enthusiasm and exuberance that had not been seen since the debut of Willie Mays (in the days before the pastime was turned into big business). This is why his death hurts so much; we mourn not just for the great athlete struck down in his prime but for the uncommon joy that has been taken from the game.
Several years ago when Giancarlo Stanton became the richest player in baseball I wrote (not here) about how he was not to be envied. It seemed to me that the pressure to live up to that historically immense salary would prove insurmountable. Stanton, for all his power, had never shown great aptitude for the game's daily grind, and I wondered how sympathetic fans would be to an overpaid superstar who ended the season with a middling batting average and a clutch of meaningless if breathtaking home runs. And what, I asked, if he got injured?
Perhaps ESPN - which recently named Stanton one of baseball's most overrated players - would care to hire me as their new baseball analyst. For the third straight year, Stanton will end the regular season on the DL, after putting up mediocre stats. His popularity has not waned, owing to the fact that he seems to be an all-around nice guy (and that his season two years ago ended when he was hit in the face with a pitch), but frustration with his performance and his susceptibility to injury is, inevitably, on the rise.
I feel sorry for Stanton; baseball is an incredibly difficult and increasingly punishing game (Willie Mays never lingered on the DL), and, as noted earlier, he comes across as an upstanding young man. But I don't feel all that bad for the Marlins. Losing a clutch player who is, in reality, not all that clutch could give them the incentive they need to make the playoffs. All season they have been a team that wins just enough to give fans hope but not often enough to justify it. With a new lineup, perhaps that will change.
I arrived at Marlins Park early yesterday evening and walked up to the ticket window.
"I'd like the cheapest ticket," I said.
"The cheapest ticket tonight is $22," said the young man behind the window.
"It's usually $15," I said.
"Those tickets are unavailable tonight," the man told me.
I asked him why. He said he didn't know. I told him I was sure that the upper deck in the outfield had not sold out. He insisted that he had not been told anything; all he knew was that the entire section had been blocked for tonight's game.
I took a few seconds and approached the next window. Maybe he's got the $15 tickets, I thought. He didn't.
"This organization does everything in its power to alienate fans," I fumed. I told him I wanted to speak to his manager, and went back to the barrier to wait. He immediately started talking to the third ticket seller, surely a conversation about me which the third ticket seller found very amusing. I went up to his window and asked him if he thought it was funny how the Marlins don't play fair with their fans.
He explained to me that the upper deck was closed to ticket sales tonight because it had been reserved for people in the military. I heard this news with mixed feelings. On the one hand, I was happy to have an explanation (it was the secrecy, the withholding of information that so infuriated me) but I knew now that my battle with the manager would be a lost cause.
The manager, when he arrived, stayed behind the glass. He too told me that the seats I wanted had been blocked for the night. I asked him why. When he failed to give me an explanation I told him I knew the answer, and it had taken me three ticket sellers to learn it. He got belligerent (as I was at this point; actually, probably before) and asked me why I asked if I already knew the answer. I told him I wanted to demonstrate how the organization is not upfront with its fans.
"We're honoring the military," he said sharply, in a way that clearly suggested that, by being a pest, I was doing the opposite. I bought a $22 ticket.
During the game I checked the upper deck in the outfield periodically. At its most populous, three of the eight sections got close to half full; the other five showed small pockets of people (none of them in uniform) sprinkled around a sea of blue seats. Honoring the military, for the Marlins, means honoring the profit margin. What the organization lacks in transparency it makes up for in hypocrisy.