Americans go to baseball games for the same reason Italians attend the opera
or Spaniards the bullfight - not because they're looking for novelty but
quite the opposite: to see how faithfully the ritual is performed and
whether it can be brought to a new level. Ritual has got a bad press, as in
mere ritual. Better understood, the purpose of ritual is not to re-create
the past but to enter a kind of ever-present in which the only thing that
counts is the sacrament, the performance, the Game.
Oh, yes, the game. Inning follows inning, with the Red Sox building a
comfortable lead (11 to 7) until the top of the ninth. That's when the
missing element of the game reappears: suspense. The Orioles put two men on
base, and the Red Sox call on No. 58, their ace reliever - Jonathan
Papelbon, who's got an earned run average of something like .91 and the wild
devotion of Boston fans.
I begin to see why they call him Wild Thing when, with the bases loaded
after a Red Sox error, Papelbon walks in a run. It's a refreshing sight:
Thirty-five thousand Americans on their feet totally absorbed in something
other than themselves.
The cozy stadium resounds with one name as the chant goes on and on:
Pa-pel-bon! Pa-pel-bon! Pa-pel-bon! The score goes
to 11-9 with the bases still loaded and the Orioles' go-ahead run on first.
And this is the way the game ends, this is the way the game ends, not with a
bang but an infield grounder. Papelbon is saved, or saves the game, or both.
It scarcely matters.
A good time is had by all except the Orioles and the lackluster pitchers on
both teams. It isn't great baseball but it's still riveting. Or as Ravel was
supposed to have said after hearing the first performance of his "Bolero,"
it's not music but it's magnificent.
The crowd files out, satisfied enough with the win. The Yankees wouldn't be
in town till the next week for a five-game series that would prove
disastrous (the Boston Massacre). Today hope was still in the air. So was
premonition. One could almost feel the Greek tragedy that is the pre-2004
history of the Red Sox stirring again.
Without Jason Varitek behind the plate - he's recovering from knee surgery -
the Sox pitchers look lost out there on that lonely mound. Center field
seems empty with Johnny Damon gone, having committed the Boston equivalent
of high treason by joining the Yankees. With no warning, the same fans who
were just cheering wildly can turn into a swarm of furies.
As the afternoon waned, slowly the shadows began to creep across the third
base line and out into the field, like the other, lesser world out there
returning. For some reason I think of Joe DiMaggio's unmatchable 56-game
hitting streak in 1941, the last pre-war season. In Game 35 he went 2-for-5
against the Detroit Tigers in Yankee Stadium. The date was June 22, 1941,
the day Hitler, sparing his old ally Stalin any formal notice, sent his
panzer divisions hurtling into Russia.