You’re the Best, Eck
SATURDAY, JULY 31, 2004 11:47 PM
I’m a bit of a cynic. I often disdain pieces about sport that wax rhapsodic about the innocence and joy of “the game” and the purity of competition and such. The problem always seems to be that the nostalgia is oversimplified and the import of the events is overestimated, as if who wins the World Series, the Super Bowl, the Stanley Cup, or the inelegantly named NBA Finals matter at all in the grand scheme of things. As if being the MVP of anything or being able to hit the farthest, run the fastest, jump the highest, be the strongest, land the cleanest, or twist the prettiest affects anything in the world or deserves our awe. Baseball is particularly at risk for such memorializing, what with childhoods playing stickball in the street, having a catch with dad, and a perfect summer day at the ballpark. I don’t rail against these things, I just read the pieces, note that some one isn’t paying quite enough attention to all the bad things in the world, and then I move on. The reality is that we should all be at least a little mad that we live in such a screwed up world and keep sports in perspective.

But every once in awhile, I get sucked in. I let the warm fuzzies of it all get to me. The Olympics are often pretty good at getting me in a schmaltzy mood, although not the often melodramatic human interest pieces about athletes overcoming a dead parent or an impoverished childhood or a supposedly career-ending injury. That just makes me want to trim the network’s budget for The Games. I’d rather see more competition than watch a two and a half minute retrospective of illogical shadowy interviews and unnecessarily hazy images. The underdogs, the honest joy of actually being an Olympian, these are moments that I appreciate—enough to even ignore the clashes between the national teams’ outfitters and the individual athletes’ sponsors.

Last weekend’s Baseball Hall of Fame induction ceremony was another one of those times when I let the feeling take over. I have a funny relationship with baseball. I like it, though I don't really know why. Soccer is my absolute favorite sport, but baseball has burrowed itself inside of me and I’ve been unable to get it out. I started watching baseball, and other sports (well, football and basketball, college and pro), around 1987, 1988. I was all over the hometown Oakland Athletics. I was unusually lucky to catch them right at the start of their run of three straight World Series appearances and four ALCS appearances in five years.

Baseball was about the Bash Brothers, Rickey Henderson and Dave Henderson who weren’t brothers, 20 plus game winner Stew, Eck, Carney Lansford, wise skipper Tony La Russa (and other coaches like Dave McKay at first base and Dave Duncan guiding the pitchers), and people who I thought were amazing as a kid, but in adulthood I realized weren’t stars outside of Oakland—Mike Gallego, Lance Blankenship, Rick Honeycutt, Walt Weiss, and Storm Davis. I remember Jose Canseco’s 40-40 season, Rickey Henderson breaking Lou Brock’s career stolen base record and stopping the game to hoist the base triumphantly in the air, Mark McGwire being the first guy to hit thirty home runs in his first four seasons. I had a poster of McGwire in my room along with an artist’s rendering of him that I pulled out of a magazine (okay, it was a magazine I got at the ballpark that was all about the A’s). Next to my door was a cut out from that same magazine of Dennis Eckersley just about to release the ball with the words “Eckstra Special” emblazoned across it in big bold letters.

Combine all this with my love of history—which I think heavily influences my Olympics-love too—and you have a person who adores Casey Stengel and has read multiple Stengel biographies, who thinks that even though all those infinite baseball stats are stupid they’re also really interesting, who really wants to go visit Cooperstown, who was sad when she visited St. Louis and couldn’t take in a Cardinals game—the team Mr. Sassy grew up adoring in the 80s, who was elated when the Baseball As America was at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County when I lived down there and kind of wants to go see it again when it hits St. Louis. I buy into Field of Dreams and its sourcebook Shoeless Joe, even though I know it’s silly. I’m glad The Pride of the Yankees is around. I’ll watch Major League when it comes on TV.

Given all the preceding nonsense and you’ll understand why I stayed up late last Sunday night to catch the replay of the Baseball Hall of Fame induction ceremony on ESPN Classic. By the by, I’m glad there’s a channel that shows the 1946 World Series sometimes. That’s awesome. Anyway, Dennis Eckersley, one of my childhood heroes, was inducted. Along with Paul Molitor, who, to be honest, was one of those guys who I had always heard of but didn’t know much more than he was kinda good looking and a good player. Good for him. At any rate, Eck made me and a lot of other fans proud. Seeing all those fans in kelly green and gold was wonderful.

I won’t comment on the apparent requirement of the near/early post-retirement new young wife thing, but beyond that, Molitor and Eckersley seemed so different. Molitor, a polished, comfortable public speaker in an impeccably put together dark suit; Eck, reading and sounding like it, going too fast in parts, a little disheveled in a tan blazer, but that just made me cheer him on more. I appreciated his gratefulness and his modesty. I was happy that he got in to the Hall, pleased he did it on the first ballot, and excited that the world, okay, the baseball world, was cheering someone I had growing up cheering. I felt so damn good about it and I liked that even if it meant I went to work tired Monday morning. What other choice did I have? After all, Eck’s the best.

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