Blowfish Chronicles: Getting Religion

TUESDAY JUNE 17 v THE FAYETTEVILLE SWAMPDOGS

 

 

 

Getting Religion

 

 

 

In a report from the Cap about the June 7 Blowfish loss to the Wilson Tobs, I wrote of a wild throw to home by short stop Sean Sullivan, which allowed two runs to score. Characterizing this kinesthetic malfunction as a “thrilling disappointment,” I went on to confess that I had taken pleasure not only in the spectacle of the error itself, but also, perhaps, in the misfortune of the young man who had committed it. Then, carrying sports reporting to what I suspect many would call a yet more deplorable psychoanalytic extreme, I allowed that I sometimes wished the whole show would come crashing down in a comical profusion of runs, even at the expense of the home team. But in pondering the 6 – 2 loss by the Fish on June 17 to the Fayetteville SwampDogs, I have come to understand how a thrilling disappointment might be confessed in a context not quite so controversial.

First, however, allow me to happily profess fealty to the Fish by muttering: that bastard. With this elocution, I refer to SwampDog Alex Vertcnik, whose name I am loathe to add to the spelling check lexicon of my laptop. Indeed I have until this point eschewed mention of visiting names, treating all who pitch to our batters or bat at the top of the inning as if they were mere foils for the glory of our guys, mere Generals to Globetrotters, even though, of course, unlike the Generals, the aliens at the Cap often win—this season, in fact, they have won more often than not. But the SwampDog right fielder, deserves, I admit, in proper recognition for services rendered on this particular night, a proper name, and also another, less proper: thief. For ‘twas he, Alex Vertcnik, who, in the bottom of the eighth, robbed Phil Morgan of the single that would have brought pinch runner Jesse Harmon in from third to tie the game at 3.

It was a stupendous catch, Vertcnik having to dash I’d say some twenty yards in to shallow right to make the dive forward that left him on his face with the ball in his glove, or so we learned when he jumped to his feet and raised his arm to enter that glove and the ball it cradled as irrefutable evidence of the side-retiring out. It was, as I would say, a thrilling disappointment, or, if you will, a disappointing thrill, each phrase being, perhaps, both a thrill and a disappointment, to any Fish fan who is, like me, a fan as well of nuance. Baseball games are played in the real world, but the next day, in recalling them, I live in another, the written, which, in its own way, is as real as the real world, or even more real, in so far as writing can reify what might otherwise seem unreal, for example, the subversive thought, which has been haunting me of late, that whether you win or lose is not so important as how you play the game, the purpose of competition for we reflective types being the generation of memorable plays. Thank you, Vertcnik, for that one memory, and thank you, Mr. Morgan for the almost-hit that made that memory possible, as admirable in its own way as (in basketball) a great bounce-pass assist. 

One can, I suppose, be a fan of baseball without being a fan of any particular team, and in this philosophical vein I think most tentatively of the local pastime as a ritual of contemplation that informs a kind of faith. Should I say it now? I am on the verge of conversion. I thought yesterday of a baseball history I bought last year but have not yet read and cannot find in my disheveled library—I hungered for this book as for the Holy Scriptures. How did the rule evolve for not counting more than two fouls as strikes? I wake up wondering, and then I think “baseball,” as others think “Jesus,” and find a satisfaction I need not understand. 

This does not of course release me from reportorial labor in the real and written world. Having made my sadly joyful or joyfully sad noise about the eighth-inning play by Vertcnik, I must add what the reader has perhaps already inferred from figures heretofore provided: that the SwampDogs scored in the ninth three apparently paralyzing runs. The Fish, in their last at bat, went down in order. Justin Hopper struck out swinging, and Tyler Bortnick and Sean Sullivan, respectively, popped a foul and grounded out—to the first baseman, a player I am pleased to identify as SwampDog 21.

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