DiMaggio’s dignity was bound up with his brand of excellence. “People said, ‘You’re so relaxed on the ball field.’ I’d say, ‘But I knew what I was doing.’” There is also dignity in honest mediocrity, even in the unforgiving meritocracy of professional sports. And there is our obligation for special discipline on the part of the especially gifted. This was the theme of one of the spate of baseball movies in the late 1980s, Bull Durham.
In olden days, most baseball movies went like this. Boy meets baseball and falls in love. Then boy meets girl and inexplicably (one grand passion should suffice) falls in love again. The girl’s role is to sit in the bleachers beneath a broad-brimmed hat and look anxious in his adversity and adoring in his inevitable triumph over it. Bull Durham is different in two particulars, one of which is the girl, who is decidedly no girl. The other is the ball player, who is no Lou Gehrig. He is not the Pride of the Yankees, or even of the Durham Bulls.
Annie is more than 30 summers old but is a fetching sight wearing a short off-the-shoulder dress and, as exquisite accessories, batting gloves. She pitches Whitman and Blake to students of English at a community college and also at one ball player each season. “A guy will listen to anything if he thinks it’s foreplay,” she says from considerable experience. Annie, the thinking person’s theist (“I believe in the church of Baseball”), takes one player as her lover each season but is not, by her lights, promiscuous: “I am, within the framework of a baseball season, monogamous.” Furthermore, “I’d never sleep with a player hitting under .250 unless he had a lot of RBIs or was a great glove man up the middle. A woman’s got to have standards.”
But when it comes to keeping standards, which is the movie’s moral theme, the hero is Crash Davis, a journeyman catcher. He once made it to the major leagues, but only for a cup of coffee. Now in his twelfth minor league season, he is brought to Durham to teach baseball’s craftsmanship to a promising but unpolished pitcher, Ebby Calvin “Nuke” LaLoosh. When Annie asks Crash, in effect, to compete with Nuke for the privilege of being her lover for a season, he walks away, saying: “I’m not interested in a woman who is interested in that boy.” In terms of physical skills, Crash is not much. But in terms of character, he is the real keeper of the flame of craftsmanship. While Annie teaches Nuke about, well, life, Crash teaches him that his million-dollar arm does not mean he can get by with a five-cent brain. In baseball, concentration is required of everyone. Alas, Nuke is a male bimbo, an airhead who has to be tutored by Crash even about the clichés that comprise the basic interview. (“We gotta play ’em one day at a time…. I just wanna give it my best shot.”) When Nuke asks why Crash dislikes him, Crash goes to the heart of the matter: “ ’Cause you don’t respect yourself, which is your problem, but you don’t respect the game—and that’s my problem.”
Nuke has no idea how much hard work is required to achieve excellence, even when nature has given great talent. It has been said that the difference between the major and minor leagues is just a matter of “inches and consistency.” That is essentially true of the difference between excellence and mere adequacy in poetry or surgery or anything else.
When Nuke bounces into the dugout after one good inning, there’s this exchange:
NUKE: “I was good, eh?”
CRASH: “Your fastball was up and your curveball was hanging. In the Show [major leagues], they woulda ripped you.”
NUKE: “Can’t you let me enjoy the moment?”
CRASH: “The moment’s over.”
Crash has learned the essential lesson of life. Nothing lasts. The past is past. Everything must be achieved anew—on the next pitch, the next at bat, in the next game, the next season.
Past performance gives rise to averages, on which managers calculate probabilities about performances to come. The more you study, the less surprised you are. But no matter how hard you study, you are still surprised agreeably often. And the surprises that come to the studious are especially delicious. One reason for surprises is that no one puts batteries in the players: They are not robots. They are people whose personalities and characters vary under pressure, including the most important pressure, that which they put on themselves. William James knew what baseball people know: “There is very little difference between one man and another; but what little there is is very important.” All players who make it to the major leagues are superior athletes. The different degrees of superiority in terms of natural physical skills are less marked and less important than another difference. It is the difference in the intensity of the application to the craftsmanship of baseball. Some people work harder than others, a lot harder.
Standing in the manager’s office in Baltimore’s Memorial Stadium late on a Sunday afternoon in the middle of June, 1989, and in the dishevelment of a man eager to get out of uniform and out of town, Tony La Russa, manager of the Oakland Athletics, was being asked why the Orioles, recently such lowly wretches, were playing so well. They had just beaten the Athletics three times in three days. What was the secret? Was it pitching? Defense? Neither, said La Russa, his natural curtness now compounded with impatience at journalistic obtuseness. The secret, he said, clipping every word like a fuse, is no secret. It is at the core of all baseball success. It is intensity: “They are playing hard.”
Intensity in athletics has many manifestations. As a youngster, Pete Maravich dribbled a basketball wherever he walked, and sometimes while sitting. At movies he selected aisle seats so he could bounce the ball during the show. The young Ted Williams walked around San Diego squeezing a rubber ball to develop his forearms. After the Yankees lost the 1960 World Series on Bill Mazeroski’s ninth-inning home run over the left-field wall in Forbes Field, Mickey Mantle wept during the entire flight back to New York. It sometimes seems odd, or even perverse, that intensity—the engagement of the passions—should matter in professional athletics. To some people this seems inexplicable now that players are pulling down such princely sums. Tommy Lasorda, manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers, is known as a good baseball mind and an extraordinary motivator. He is often asked if it is really necessary to motivate someone making a million dollars. Damn right, says Lasorda. To most people, the word “motivate,” when used in an athletic context, means to inflame players the way Knute Rockne is said to have aroused his teams at Notre Dame. Lasorda is quite capable of that. He can be an exquisitely profane Pericles (if that is not too oxymoronic). But that is not the heart of the matter. In a baseball context, to motivate is to maintain the cool concentration and discipline necessary for maximum performance during six months of competition in a game especially unforgiving of minor mistakes.
It is the everydayness of baseball that demands of the player a peculiar equilibrium, a balance of relaxation and concentration. One afternoon, during Andre Dawson’s 1987 MVP season, he was in right field in Wrigley Field and the Cubs were clobbering the Astros, 11–1. In the top of the sixth inning Dawson ran down a foul fly, banging into the brick wall that is right next to the foul line. In the seventh inning he charged and made a sliding catch on a low line drive that otherwise would have been an unimportant single. When asked after the game why he would risk injuries in those situations when the outcome of the game was not in doubt, Dawson replied laconically, “Because the ball was in play.” Dawson probably found the question unintelligible. The words and syntax were clear enough but the questioner obviously was oblivious to the mental (and moral) world of a competitor like Dawson. At the beginning of this book I said that baseball heroism is not a matter of flashes of brilliance; rather, it is the quality of (in John Updike’s words) “the players who always care,” about themselves and their craft.
This book is a study of that sort of heroism. It is not an exercise in hero worship. Rather, more soberly, it is an act of hero appreciation. I use the word “hero” advisedly, cognizant of the derision it invites. We live in a relentlessly antiheroic age. Perhaps in a democratic culture there always is a leveling impulse, a desire to cut down those who rise. Today, howev
er, there also seems to be a small-minded, mean-spirited resentment of those who rise, a reluctance to give credit where it is due, a flinching from unstinting admiration, a desire to disbelieve in the rewarded virtue of the few. We have a swamp of journalism suited to such an age, a journalism infused with a corrosive, leveling spirit.
Yet it has been said that no man is a hero to his valet, not because no man is a hero but because all valets are valets. It requires a certain largeness of spirit to give generous appreciation to large achievements. A society with a crabbed spirit and a cynical urge to discount and devalue will find that one day, when it needs to draw upon the reservoirs of excellence, the reservoirs have run dry. A society in which the capacity for warm appreciation of excellence atrophies will find that its capacity for excellence diminishes. Happiness, too, diminishes as the appreciation of excellence diminishes. That is no small loss, least of all to a nation in which the pursuit of happiness was endorsed in the founding moment.
America has been called the only nation founded on a good idea. That idea has been given many and elaborate explanations, but the most concise and familiar formulation is the pursuit of happiness. For a fortunate few people, happiness is the pursuit of excellence in a vocation. The vocation can be a profession or a craft, elite or common, poetry or carpentry. What matters most is an idea of excellence against which to measure achievement. The men whose careers are considered here exemplify the pursuit of happiness through excellence in a vocation. Fortunate people have a talent for happiness. Possession of any talent can help a person toward happiness. As Aristotle said, happiness is not a condition that is produced or stands on its own; rather, it is a frame of mind that accompanies an activity. But another frame of mind comes first. It is a steely determination to do well.
When Ted Williams, the last .400 hitter, arrived in Boston for his first season he said, with the openness of a Westerner and the innocence of a 20-year-old, “All I want out of life is that when I walk down the street folks will say, ‘There goes the greatest hitter who ever lived.’” Today, if you see Williams walking down the street and you say, “There goes the greatest hitter who ever lived,” you may get an argument but you will not get derision. He won 6 batting titles and lost another by one hit. (In 1949 George Kell batted .3429, Williams .3427.) He batted .406 in 1941 and .388 in 1957, when his 38-year-old legs surely cost him at least the 5 hits that would have given him his second .400 season.
The hard blue glow from people like Williams lights the path of progress in any field. I said at the outset that this was to be an antiromantic look at baseball. I meant that baseball is work. Baseball is hard and demands much drudgery. But it is neither romantic nor sentimental to say that those who pay the price of excellence in any demanding discipline are heroes. Cool realism recognizes that they are necessary. As a character says in Bernard Malamud’s baseball novel The Natural, when we are without heroes we “don’t know how far we can go.”
INDEX
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Aaron, Henry (“Hank”), 8, 38, 193, 196–97, 206, 218, 317, 318
ABC television, 308
Abernathy, Ted, 132
Adams, Babe, 149
Adams, D. C, 247
Advance scouts, 15–17, 23, 173, 186, 220, 281
Agnew, Spiro, 1
Alcohol use, 214, 304–305
Alderson, Sandy, 250, 296
Alexander, Grover Cleveland, 128, 150, 298
Allanson, Andy, 119–21, 242
All-Star Games, 250, 265, 308
1935, 297
1950, 209
1958, 275
1966, 9
1985, 107
1989, 24
Alomar, Sandy, Jr., 304
Alston, Walter, 28
Aluminum bats, 97, 121–23, 196, 198–203, 309
American League, 19, 21, 28, 30, 36, 37, 46, 50, 105, 112, 190, 206, 234–35, 241, 287, 293, 311–13
attendance figures of, 307
base-stealing in, 182–83, 228
batting averages in, 134–35, 165
batting title in, 191
Championship Series, 41–42, 62, 65, 232, 238
designated hitter in, 43, 57–60
expansion of, 301
Gold Glove awards in, 243, 250, 251
home runs in, 318
1989 All-Star team, 24
pitchers in, 112, 120–22, 132–34, 137
RBIs in, 296–97
shortstops in, 274
steals per game in, 56
umpires in, 91, 169
Amoros, Sandy, 84
Anaheim Stadium, 202, 269
Anderson, Brady, 12, 14
Anderson, Dave, 82
Anderson, Sparky, 26, 30, 133, 269, 280
Angell, Roger, 4, 119, 126, 137, 142, 245, 323–24
Aparicio, Luis, 32–33, 248, 267, 275
Appling, Luke, 249, 275
Arizona State Univ., 123
Arlington Stadium, 57, 269
Armas, Tony, 228
Arroyo, Luis, 132
Arthroscopic surgery, 143
Artificial turf, 31, 67, 168, 175
bunting on, 38
defense and, 263, 265–66, 268–70, 282
pitching and, 117
Ashburn, Richie, 196, 276–77
Ashby, Alan, 109
Assists, 233, 262, 272–76, 287
ratio to innings played of, 272
records for, 275, 276
Astor, Gerald, 212
Astrodome, 117, 203, 265, 323
Atlanta Braves, 27, 98, 154, 171, 311
Atrock, Nick, 52
Attendance records, 239, 307
Automobile industry, 43–44
Backman, Wally, 78, 155, 186
“Bad-ball pitchouts,” 51
Baines, Harold, 169
Baker Bowl, 32
Balk rule, 183, 189
Ballard, Jeff, 244
Ballparks, 5, 56–57, 138–39, 162
ambiance of, 323–24
batting conditions of, 169–70, 174–76, 203
defense and, 265–70
managers and, 31, 39
minor league, 309
outfield fences in, 31–32, 106
paid admissions to, 295
pitchers and, 117–18
Balls
irregularities of, 79
liveliness of, 47, 104–105, 195
scuffed, 99–101
tampering with, 307
Baltimore Orioles, 170, 179, 191, 221, 231–39, 241, 243–44, 250–54, 256–59, 281, 283–84, 312, 319, 327–28
advance scouting by Yankees of, 16
attendance record of, 307
bunt defenses of, 261–62
draft picks of, 198
farm system of, 303
fielding percentage of, 233
Gold Gloves won by, 243
groundskeeper for, 267
history of, 236–39
home runs hit by, 34
in League Championship Series, 58
managers of, 17–18, 25, 28, 231, 253, 324
payroll of, 234
pitching staff of, 107, 116, 128, 130, 150, 243, 257
in World Series, 4, 128, 218, 239, 243, 282, 311
Bankhead, Scott, 10
Banks, Ernie, 33, 193, 196–97, 248–49, 287, 317, 318
Barrett, Marty, 10–15
Barrett, Red, 241–42
Barrow, Edward, 32
Baseball cards, 310
The Baseball Encyclopedia, 320
Baserunning, 181–82, 195, 227, 301–302
coaches and, 19–20
collisions during, 288–90
defense and, 257, 259–60, 265
managers and, 37–40, 44–45, 55–56, 66–67
and opportunities for double plays, 272
pitchers and, 91, 127–28
Se
e also Stolen bases
Basketball, 103, 129, 154, 165, 228, 249, 316
Bats, 194–203
aluminum, 97, 121–24, 196, 198–203
corked, 47
Batters, 3, 161–230
advance scouting of, 15
aggressiveness of, 62–63, 96, 121, 191, 228
and aluminum bats, 197–203
analysis of opposing pitchers by, 12, 23–24, 208–209, 215–16
analysis of opposing team of, 10–15, 20–23, 50, 193
arm speed of, 145
bad pitches to, 81
ballpark conditions and, 169–70, 174–76
on base. See Baserunning; Stolen bases and broken bats, 197
bunting by. See Bunting coaching of, 65–66
in cold weather, 112
concentration of, 217
defense and, 241–46, 249, 252–59, 278, 280
defensive, 151
discipline of, 226–27
diving into plate by, 177
drinking by, 214
fear factor and, 176–77
first pitches and, 145–47
going deeper into count by, 172–73
“grooves” of, 209–10, 218
high-average, 166–68
in hit-and-run situations, 180
“holes” in swings of, 95, 206
injuries of, 165–66, 211–13, 215, 216
leadoff, 147
left-handed, 194–95
number faced, 121
and number of pitches thrown, 127–28
peeking at catchers by, 97–99
physiques of, 165
relief pitchers and, 134, 137
rule changes and, 102–107, 190
run creation by, 170–71
Men at Work Page 45