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

year I was with you all the way. The Yanks never had a real shot (and Steinbrenner does wear on you after a bit). Maybe you thought I would switch caps for the Series and start chanting “Let’s Go, Mets.” Not on your life. I’m a loyal New Yorker, to be sure, but the Mets are nothing to me. They didn’t exist when I was a kid, and loyalties are shaped by those early years of splendor in the grass and glory in the flower.
    I rooted for the Sox all the way, as hard and as diligently as I ever rooted in all my life (and spurred by my son Ethan, a Sox zealot too young to remember any previous postseason play).
    What can possibly be said? It’s a week later, and I’m still numb. To hell with the French Revolution; to hell with Dickens. This, not that, was the very best, and then the absolute worst, of times.
    When, a millimeter from final defeat (with the champagne already uncorked in the Angels’ dressing room), Dave Henderson hit that fifth-game homer, I reacted as I never had before. I didn’t cheer or jump; I wept—not a few tears stifled by the customs of manhood, but copiously. Then, alone again in a hotel room (this time in D.C.), I had to watch when Henderson, reaching for immortality, apparently won the Series with another homer in the tenth inning of game six, and, with two outs and nobody on, the Sox came—not once but four times—within a micron of taking it all, only to blow it once again.
    The Mets’ scoreboard had already flashed “Congratulations Red Sox.” NBC had already named Marty Barrett player of the game, and Bruce Hurst the Series MVP. But the Sox knew better. They had peeled the aluminum off the champagne bottles, but they hadn’t popped the corks. You all know what the great Yogi Berra says about when it’s over—and when it ain’t.
    Yes, I do understand finally. I came to it late, but I do understand now. This was worse, more bitter than ever. A total self-immolation, by guys we love and admire—by Calvin Schiraldi, who got us there; Rich Gedman, who performed with such quiet efficiency; Bill Buckner, who, though hobbled, had fielded flawlessly. I even grieved for Bob Stanley (nine times out of ten, Gedman stops that ball, even though it must technically be ruled a wild pitch; and Stanley did what he was brought in to do—he got Mookie Wilson to hit an easily playable ground ball). Yes, this was much worse—worse than selling that great lefty pitcher named Ruth, worse than Pesky holding the ball in 1946, worse than facing the Gibson machine in 1967, worse than Joe Morgan in 1975, worse even than Bucky Dent and Yaz’s pop to third in 1978.
    What does it all mean? (We academics do have to ask that question after all.) I held and abandoned my hypotheses in this vein during postseason play. After Henderson’s resurrection in playoff game five, I actually dared to suggest that God was a Red Sox fan. After the most providential rain delay in recent sports history, between games six and seven of the Series, I decided that God cannot influence human actions, but still controls the weather. After the last game, I realized that He must hate the DH rule so much that He only favors the Sox within the American League. (I must, of course, now also entertain the possibility that either he doesn’t exist at all or doesn’t give a damn about baseball.) We are left alone with our pain.
    The finale was too typical—an early Sox lead, eroded near the end; a late Sox surge, almost but not quite enough. Ethan cried when it was all over—and this was only his first time. I tried to console him, but ended up joining him. It’s a puzzle, isn’t it? I don’t know why grown men care so deeply about something that neither kills, nor starves, nor maims, nor even scratches in our world of woe. I don’t know why we care so much, but I’m mighty glad that we do.

Innings
    T ime flows in many ways, but two modes stand out for their prominence in nature and their symbolic role in making our lives