With baseball season shortly upon us, Nate Graziano reflects on five tough life lessons he has learned at the hands of the sport.
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At the beginning of each baseball season, I find myself becoming nostalgic and reflective. Growing up a Red Sox fan, one of my most vivid memories of my childhood was watching the infamous Game 6 of the 1986 World Series with my father.
It was a night that taught me some tough life lessons.
I was 11 years old, in sixth grade, and enjoying a deep sleep when the game stretched into the tenth inning. A cautious and circumspect man, my father waited until the last possible minute before waking me up. With two outs and a two-run lead on the New York Mets—Oil Can Boyd had allegedly already cracked the first bottle of champagne—my father nudged me awake.
“Get up,” he said. “The Red Sox are about to win the World Series.”
Elated, I popped up from bed and followed my father into his bedroom where he was watching the game on an old television set. My mother worked third-shift as a nurse, and my younger sister was in bed, indifferent to the Red Sox fate. It was the type of father/son bonding moment that couldn’t have been scripted any better.
Lesson #1: Anything that seems too perfect is illusory.
Most baseball fans know what unfolded next. Red Sox relief pitcher, Calvin Schiraldi—who had the countenance of a man who had just soiled his shorts—imploded. With two outs, Schiraldi gave up three straight singles, cutting the Sox lead to one run and leaving the tying run on third base.
The man who should’ve been faulted for the collapse, manager John McNamara went to bullpen for reliever Bob Stanley. Stanley and catcher Rich Gedman mixed up signs, and Stanley threw the ball to the backstop, bringing in the tying run. Third baseman Ray Knight moved into scoring position.
Lesson #2: The distribution of blame, when the shit hits the fan, is always inequitable.
By this point, my father had spun a web of profanity unlike anything I had ever heard from him. It scared me and woke up my sister, now both of us were crying on my parents’ bed.
Then Mookie Wilson hit a slow ground ball down the first base line, a ball that the speedy Wilson would’ve likely legged out for a base hit. When the ball went through a hobbled Bill Buckner’s legs, my father lost his proverbial shit—as I would loss my shit 17 years later when Red Sox manager Grady Little would leave Pedro Martinez in to pitch in Game 7 of the 2003 ALCS against the Yankees. (In the eleventh inning of that game, it would be a guy named Aaron “Bleeping” Boone who would then send me over the edge.)
Lesson #3: Anger is ugly.
When the blame for the loss of the 1986 World Series was meted out, it fell inordinately on Bill Buckner for whiffing on that weak ground ball. Buckner became a pariah in New England off the field as well. Despite the fact that any of the aforementioned men—Schiraldi, Stanley, Gedman and, particularly, McNamara—could’ve and should’ve worn the label of “goat,” it was Buckner who bore the brunt of it.
In school, Buckner’s kids were bullied, and the vilified former first baseman could barely show his face around town without being harassed. Eventually, Buckner would have to move his family out of New England and relocate to Idaho because of one ground ball, one error in an otherwise solid professional career.
Who needs The Book of Job when you have Bill Buckner?
Lesson #4: Life is inherently unfair and unjust and, at times, entirely arbitrary.
As Opening Day approaches this year, I’m reminded of the bullshit ceremony at Fenway Park in 2008, following the Red Sox 2007 World Series victory. After 86 years without winning a title, the Sox had won their second in a span of four seasons.
The organization decided that it was finally time to publically exonerate Bill Buckner. They brought Buckner back to throw out the opening pitch of the season. Buckner received a two-minute standing ovation from the Fenway’s “faithful” fans.
Winning has a tendency to make everyone magnanimous.
Lesson #5: Hypocrisy is ubiquitous.
I’ve learned as much—if not more—about life and the human condition from being a baseball fan than I have from my studies of literature. From baseball, I’ve learned about my own unjustified anger and my own hypocrisies, as well as my own tendencies to find a scapegoat when things go wrong.
Fans of any sport invest a lot of emotional energy in the outcome of these games. And they are, indeed, “just games.” But the game, in some ways, informs the way we interact with our world. There will always be heroes, and there will always be goats, but ultimately we’re all just people—you, me and Bill Buckner.
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Photo Credit: Associated Press/File