A second night at Hadlock Field, and I'm
beginning to pick up the rhythms and traditions of
the park, and what's more, the essence, the DNA if
you will, of the team. The Sea Dogs are a classic
American League type ensemble. They swing for the
fences, and tend to hit the ball hard if they hit it
at all. Brandon Moss, on the occasion of his 23rd
birthday, hit two moon shots, and earned himself some
fireworks and 3 RBIs. But he also struck out chasing
balls that were feet, not inches, out of the strike
zone. Fielding is always an adventure, and tonight,
as last night, there were some ugly, ugly defensive
moments. In contrast, the visiting Akron Aeros, farm
team of the Cleveland Indians and wearers of black
bar-league softball uniforms, are slick like butter
on the green and brown, scooping up hotshots and
snaring liners with major league grace and agility.
They also know how to shorten up on the stick and
dunk a flare into short left field...play one base at
a time without trying to solve all the world's ills
with one rotation of the lumber. And still the Aeros
found themselves 3 outs away from the long dismal
season of...I don't know...parking cars? Waiting
tables? What do these boys do when double- or
triple-A ball comes to an end? Well, they were about
to remember, because it was 5-4 Sea Dogs and the top
of the ninth, and there was an out but two on, and
everyone was ready to party. Yet there was something
else in the air too, and that's when I realized that
deep down, all the thousands of eager and oral
rooters that surrounded me had as their shared point
of reference a lifetime of baseball failure, of near
misses, stunning turnarounds, defeats snagged from
the clutches of victory in every Dentian, Buckenrian,
Boonian way imaginable. And I, in my Yankee blue
Johnny Damon shirt, my weathered smudgy NY cap, and
my big-as-a-heart Portland Sea Dogs button, affixed
to my chest to ward off those who would do me harm, I
was accessing a different database. It was one
replete with dazzling comebacks, with improbable
pennants and trophies and rings and hungover or
half-drunk perfect games, an inherited memory of Ruth
and Gehrig and DiMaggio and Mantle and Berra and Ford
and Stengel and Maris and Nettles and Munson and
Jackson and Gossage and Chamblis and Mattingly and
Jeter and Rivera and '27, '49, '61,'78, '96 and
dozens more. So I felt confident, certain that the
team I was busting a lung hollering for would step
up, leave some sweat and some guts on the playing
field and make the pitches, catch the balls. Well,
I'll let you guess whose history, whose
interpretation of the zeitgeist, prevailed. But I'll
let you know there was no party, I did not find
myself dancing among thousands through the green
blades of grass towards the dusty mound and into the
pile of sweating Sea Dogs, nor did I spend the night
in jail. The P.A. blared "Tomorrow" and "Don't Stop
Thinking About Tomorrow," and I bet a dozen other of
the golden oldies of loserdom. Into the night I swam
amidst the throngs, past the prison and the Greyhound
bus terminal and the St. John's Street shopping
center. Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow...and yet
I tell myself it's not my tragedy.