Michael Chavis made his major league debut on April 20, pinch-hitting and hitting a double. Last Tuesday, he spoke with David Laurila of Baseball Prospectus at Fenway Park:
I wasn't in the lineup — I was on the bench — but I knew the situation. They'd said there was a chance I would get to hit that day. Of course, I didn't know when, who for, or who would be pitching. Come the eighth inning ... I'm taking some swings in the cage, and they come in and say, "Hey, you're going to pinch hit in the ninth." ... "OK. Beautiful." ...
I looked at a little bit of video [on Alvarado] to get a scouting report on what he might do. There wasn't a whole lot of time, and the biggest thing was getting my swing ready, so it was quick. I mostly just wanted to see his motion. That, and the action of his fastball.
The nerves didn't really hit me until I got on deck. ... Walking up to the plate, I heard them announce, "Making his major league debut..." ... I almost cried in the batter's box. It's something I'd dreamed about, many times, as a kid. ... I would pretend that I was playing for the Red Sox, facing a closer, and I'd get a big hit. ...
Alvarado bounced a slider on the 1-2, and then I got a fastball down and in. That's the one I hit for a double. I hit it to pretty much straightaway center, and it went over Kiermaier's head. When you square up a ball like that you don't really even feel it. But I heard it. I knew what was happening.
Kiermaier is a platinum glover, so I'm praying that he doesn't catch it. ... I'm just glad it got over his head. ...
What was I thinking [standing on second base]? "Don't cry. Act like you've been here before." That’s pretty much it, honestly. ... I could hear my mom. I knew where they were sitting, so I could see them ... I'm sure my mom was crying. Without a doubt. She's a big crier. ...
I went out with my family afterwards. ... There was a TV. It was the first time I'd seen myself on TV — they were showing highlights from the game. It was weird. There I was, watching myself on TV, and they're talking about me and the Boston Red Sox. I'm part of this team now. Unreal.
James Parker of The Atlantic, on "The Lost Art of Deadline Writing":
[A] print deadline—the galloping clock, the smell of the editor—is a particular concentration of mortal tension. The brain on deadline does whatever it can: It improvises, it compresses, it contrives, it uses the language and the ideas that are at hand. Inspiration comes or it doesn't. Here the writer is an athlete—performing under pressure and, if he or she is good, delivering on demand.
Joey Votto was just warming up like usual prior to Monday's matchup with the Pirates when he caught something interesting out of the corner of his eye: a Reds fan, sitting down the first-base line, who just so happened to be wearing a T-shirt that read "Votto for President."
After some inspection, Votto decided that, yes, he would like to own a T-shirt that says he should be elected president. And, being Joey Votto, he had plenty to offer the fan in return -- like, for example, the jersey off of his back
Of course, Votto hails from Canada, a country that has a prime minister rather than a president. Still, that's just a technicality ...
Before the fall of 2004, wearing a Boston Red Sox hat outside of New England elicited the sort of sympathy or solicitude more commonly extended to a lost child or a wounded fawn. Red Sox fans were objects of pity. To the extent we attracted admiration, it was for our dedication to suffering.Stossel has been shoveling this horseshit since 2005.
Wearing a Red Sox hat outside of New England today elicits looks of resentment or hostility, as if for a John Hughes villain or a hedge-fund plutocrat. Red Sox fans are objects of contumely. To the extent we attract admiration, it's for ... Well, we don't attract admiration anymore, actually—only envy, at best.
In August of 2005 ... I wrote in an essay for The Boston Globe that something had been lost when the Red Sox traded in their years of accursed failure for a championship. To this day, nothing I've ever written has attracted so much invective—a testament to the snarling intensity of Boston fandom, or perhaps just to the depth of my obtuseness.All I know is I would rather feel good than bad.
"Before 2004," I wrote then, "the basic Red Sox mode was that of tragedy," and then I quoted an essay from the Catholic journal Commonweal. "The Sox remind us that life is a trial; that it raises hopes to crush them cruelly; that it ends badly … A Red Sox fan is an Irishman, an Armenian, reciting ancient hurts by ancient enemies … By now Red Sox suffering surpasses an individual human life span. It is a cathedral of loss and pain. It is holy." But, I asked, "if this suffering no longer surpasses a human life span—if it is no longer suffering—is it any longer holy?" And I wondered further whether, now that we'd finally won a World Series—and then if we started to accumulate more victories (as we since have)—the force of our yearning would be diminished. "A man's reach should exceed his grasp," as Robert Browning wrote, "Or what's a heaven for?"
I don't know whether the force of our yearning has diminished—Boston fans remain ravenous for more championships—but its quality has. We've exchanged the weight of history for the swagger of dominance; humble, sacred hope has given way to a spoiled, profane gluttony.
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Summer of 2005, my Red Sox cap and I were walking the Coast-to-Coast Path in North Yorkshire, toddling along at our glacial pace when a walker came up behind me and, reading the 'Red Sox' on the cap's back strap, asked in an American accent and with admiration: "Aha, a Red Sox fan! Do you come by it honestly or are you just jumping on the bandwagon?"
"I was born at the Richardson House, about a mile from Fenway! What does that tell you?"
Turned out, he was from Detroit, not the Bronx, so we could walk and talk baseball pleasantly enough for a mile or two.
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