Triumph and Tragedy in Mudville by Stephen Jay Gould Read Free Book Online

perfect game in World Series history, leading the New York Yankees to victory over the Brooklyn Dodgers in game five on October 8, 1956. The Yankees ended up winning the Series in seven games. Credit: Bettmann/Corbis
     
    “Outside by a foot,” groused Mitchell later. He exaggerated, for it was outside by only a few inches, but he was right. Babe Pinelli, however, was even more right. A man may not take a close pitch with so much on the line. Context matters. Truth is a circumstance, not a spot.
    I was a junior at Jamaica High School. On that day, every teacher let us listen, even Mrs. B., our crusty old solid geometry teacher (and, I guess, a secret baseball fan). We reached Mrs. G., our even crustier French teacher, in the bottom of the seventh, and I was appointed to plead. “You gotta let us listen,” I said. “It’s never happened before.” “Young man,” she replied, “this class is a French class.”
    Luckily, I sat in the back just in front of Bob Hacker (remember alphabetical seating?), a rabid Dodger fan with earphone and portable radio. Halfway through the period, following Pinelli’s last strike, I felt a sepulchral tap and looked around. Hacker’s face was ashen. “He did it—that bastard did it.” I cheered loudly and threw my jacket high in the air. “Young man,” said Mrs. G. from the side board, “I’m sure the verb écrire can’t be that exciting.” It cost me ten points on my final grade, maybe admission to Harvard as well. I never experienced a moment of regret.
    Truth is inflexible. Truth is inviolable. By long and recognized custom, by any concept of justice, Dale Mitchell had to swing at anything close. It was a strike—a strike low and outside. Babe Pinelli, umpiring his last game, ended with his finest, his most perceptive, his most truthful moment. Babe Pinelli, arbiter of history, walked into the locker room and cried.

The Best of Times, Almost
    L ook, I’m a Yankee fan—have been since long before most of you were born. I have benefited from Boston’s suffering (most, after all, for Yankee gain) all my life. I reacted with boyish glee when, in 1949, Boston faced the Yanks one game up with two to go—and my guys won both for the pennant. And, although (honest to God) I didn’t want Yaz to make the last out by popping to third, I decided that Bucky Dent was the greatest living American one afternoon in early October 1978. The Red Sox, in other words, began as my mortal enemies.
    That is, until 1967, the year of the Impossible Dream, and my rookie season in the Harvard professoriat. I loved that pennant race and cheered Boston on (why not, the Yanks were out of it, and one of my New York heroes, Elston Howard, was catching for the Sox). For the first time in my life, I suffered with you through the seventh Series game—though the final result was inevitable (I mean nobody but nobody could beat Bob Gibson, not even Lonborg, especially on two days’ rest).
     
    First published in the Harvard Crimson , November 5, 1986.
     
    My affection for Boston crept slowly apace until it blossomed in 1975, and I began to understand Boston pain. I watched the sixth game of the Series from a hotel room in Salt Lake City (no beer, not even before the seventh inning), and exulted in Carlton Fisk’s homer with a glee unmatched since Bobby Thomson’s for the Giants in 1951. I also watched, from the same room, the next day as the Sox, in the finale, took a 3–0 lead into the sixth, and then blew it.
    This cocky Yankee fan, accustomed to victory as a rite of fall, began to understand the uniqueness—also depth—of Boston’s special pain. Not like Cubs pain (never to get there at all), or Phillies pain (lousy teams, but they did take it all)—but the deepest possible anguish of running a long and hard course, again and again, to the very end, and then self-destructing one inch from the finish line.
     
    Well folks, guess what? Call it shallow, fickle, or anything else you want. But this