According to persistent rumors, baseball is back. This is a situation that naturally occurs whenever, at this time of year, the Cubs are not in last place.
Imagine the hoo-haa when the Cubs are bearing down on August actually leading something, in this case, the National League wild-card race. You’ll find those standings under gimcracks and contrivances.
“I’m excited, the fans are excited, everybody is excited every day,” said Sammy Sosa, one of the reasons for all this excitement.
Another reason is Kerry Wood, the young pitcher, and what have the Cubs ever done to deserve to have two of the remedies for baseball’s self-inflicted miseries excelling together?
On this day, a perfect high-sky, short-shadow baseball day, what could be more exciting than the Mets in town, Wood on the mound and Sosa whacking a game-winning two-run homer in the sixth inning?
Through the four-game, three-day series with the Mets–another of those wild-card nominees–Wrigley was more filled with fans than ever for such a set, 121,449, and these 40,329 were of one throat, demanding Sosa take a bow.
The belt-high fastball from Mets right-hander Rick Reed to Sosa was last seen bounding among the center-field shrubbery, Sosa’s 38th home run and 95th and 96th runs batted in of the season.
“He make a mistake,” Sosa shrugged.
The ovations are standing and long these days, honoring not only Sosa and Wood and Mark McGwire and Ken Griffey Jr., identifiable heroes doing identifiably heroic things, but also honoring the game that is too slow and too tedious and too greedy and too . . . well, too old-fashioned.
“Well, the home run record is in sight,” Wood said, “and people are watching. I love to watch these guys. I just don’t like to pitch against them.”
This rush back to baseball could, of course, simply be the panicked reaction to the forced soccer of the summer, the Third-World Cup, and to whatever that track meet thing going on in New York is.
Faced with these choices, the public would naturally turn to old friends, and if Cal Ripken Jr. is not just where we left him, we need only glance a little to the left, and there he is.
Baseball’s greatest asset has always been its utility, one of those all-purpose kitchen utensils you can stick away in a drawer until needed.
Like the butter churn, baseball may be obsolete, but it still works.
The point is, between Michael Jordan’s last basket and Curtis Enis’ first fumble, something has to occupy the space, and better baseball than golf.
We can’t depend on the Bulls to call a press conference every day.
A sports mind lying fallow will inevitably turn to opera, and nobody wants that.
So comfortable is baseball in its renewed approval that it has dared to name a commissioner, superficially restoring the structure of the game that has been busily chewing off its own limbs recently.
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But it is not Bud Selig, but a child who shall lead it back.
“I mean, I’m just trying to do a job every five days,” said the child, young Wood, who has been the game’s greatest curiosity since striking out 20 batters in his fifth major-league start.
This day he had only six, though he was getting stronger–three of four strikeouts–when he was lifted for a two-out, bases-empty, completely irrelevant pinch hitter after only 110 pitches.
Wood is being handled very cautiously by manager Jim Riggleman, and it is hard to really fault the plan. Wood has won 10 games and has the lowest batting-average against in baseball.
Still, it does seem that the only way Wood will get into the eighth inning again is if he is challenging his own record.
As for Sosa, his 20 home runs in June pushed him into the company of McGwire and Griffey as a certifiable baseball legend chaser, and nothing excites baseball like legend chasing.
“We are all trying to do the right job and probably we are being appreciated a little more,” Sosa said. “We can’t wait until the next game.”
It shows.