Volume 5, Issue 23: The Test Dream

"I had one of my Coach Molinaro dreams."

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The current active MLB leader in games played is Pirates outfielder Andrew McCutchen, who has appeared, as of this morning, in 2,059 games. After being selected in the first round of the 2005 MLB Draft straight out of high school, McCutchen played in 511 minor league games, as well as 29 games in the Arizona Fall League. The average high school baseball season lasts about 25-35 games, and travel ball teams tend to play, depending on what region of the country you’re from, 40-50 games a year. You have to add in Little League as well. (It’s worth noting that McCutchen himself has memorably written about how few baseball opportunities there are for Black youth.) So, give or take, Andrew McCutchen, the human who has probably played more games than anyone who still gets to put a glove on and run out on the field, has played probably about 3,000 baseball games in his life. McCutchen is 37 years old, his contract runs out at the end of this season and he’s having an average season for his team. This could be his last season as a major leaguer. Those 3,000 games are all he gets.

Three thousand games, obviously, is a lot of baseball games: There are probably only 30 or so people alive who have played more baseball games than that. But those 3,000 games or so are still a small percentage of Andrew McCutchen’s life. He will retire soon, and then he will spend the next 30-50 years of his life doing many things, none of which will be playing competitive baseball games. This will not change him from forever being known as a baseball player, even a great one; everywhere he goes, anything he does, the rest of his life, he’ll be introduced as “baseball player Andrew McCutchen.” But that’s not what he’ll actually be—not anymore. He’ll just be a regular schmuck like the rest of us. Even with all the games he has played, they’ll still be a small part of his life in total. They’ll nonetheless loom over everything.

I used to mock retired baseball players for this, the way they would still talk about their glory days well into their seventies, the way they would continue to dine out on achievements—and rake in money for memorabilia—that were many decades in the rearviewmirror. What does it say about what you’ve done with your life that you’re 76 years old and won’t stop reliving your best moments from when you were 26?

I no longer feel that way. I’ve played far, far less than 3,000 baseball games in my life, I’ve never gotten a cent for playing baseball and I haven’t been involved in a competitive game in nearly 30 years. But someone made the mistake of asking me a while back, at one of my son’s Little League games, if I ever played baseball. If I hadn’t stopped myself, I would still, this very second, be answering their question.

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I was an adequate to slightly-above-average baseball player. I played Little League—actually called Babe Ruth Baseball in Mattoon, Illinois; it’s now called Cal Ripken Ball. I played for both my middle school and high school teams and was the backup catcher on our 1993 Big 12 Conference championship team, a title that was was such a big deal we all came back to Mattoon for that season’s 25th anniversary and I gave a speech for it. I also played on several traveling All-Star teams, including one the summer after my freshman year of college, when I probably should have long moved on but wasn’t ready to let go yet. The final play of the final game I ever played featured me getting hit in the groin with a line drive at third base, as immortalized in an extremely old Life as a Loser column: “I spent the last seven innings of my baseball career with an ice pack under my shorts, keeping score, wondering when school started again.” That game took place, I swear to God, June 17, 1994, the day of the O.J. Simpson Bronco chase. They should have put that moment in the documentary.

This is all to say: The totality of my baseball career adds up to “not much.” But nearly 30 years after it ended, I still think about it constantly. Certain games will never leave my memory. The game when my dad, who was my Babe Ruth coach, got called out to work right before first pitch and my mom took over the team; I had the walkoff hit, the only one of my career. The All-Star game where I hit three triples. The game-ending play at the plate when the runner plowed me over at home but I still held onto the ball; after the umpire called him out, I stood over the runner and dropped the baseball gently on his chest to let him know he hadn’t knocked it out of my mitt, perhaps the only baller thing I have ever done. The two games Mattoon High School played at Busch Stadium, how before walking on the field, I took off my cleats and socks because I wanted to know how wet Astroturf felt on my bare feet.

I can conjure all these memories in a second’s notice. I cannot remember what I did for my birthday last year, or the name of that one girl from summer 2002, or the name of that old boss I had who used to drive me crazy, but I can remember every detail of these games. They still float around my brain, dominate my dreams. They forever will.

This last month, my son William played in his final Athens Little League game. He began in spring 2016, playing T-ball, with me as his coach. He ended it on first base as his team, our beloved Rook & Pawn, pulled off an improbable four-game playoff winning streak, including two complete games from William on the mound, to win their first-ever title. You tell yourself it doesn’t matter who wins these games, and I know it really doesn’t, and then your kid wins one and he is so happy and so is everyone else and, well, I’m not made of stone.

William is 12 years old, the age limit for Little League. This was his last year; he aged out. His baseball career is far from over. He is playing on the traveling All-Star team this summer, and he made it on the middle school team, which will lead right into high school baseball. He is good at baseball—better than I ever was—and as long as he wants to keep playing, he will have many opportunities. But eventually, whether he plays just one more season, or he plays 3,000 games in the big leagues, or he plays until his career ends with a line drive to the groin as the rest of the world watches a freeway chase, he will have to stop. He will have so many life experiences, wonderful things, terrible things, glorious things, tragic things. He will fall in love, he will have his heart broken, he’ll break someone’s heart. The world is full and ready and open for him, like it was for me, like it was for you, like it will be for his brother, like it is for all of us. He will do more in his life than I will ever be able to know.

But I do know this: He will think about the Rook & Pawn team, and all these Little League games, the rest of his life. He will think about what it felt to hit a line drive, to strike out the other team’s best hitter, to throw a complete game, to slide into third base, to high five his teammate after they hit a home run. He will think back to when his life was simpler, when he just got to run around on the field and play, when he got to wear a uniform, when he got to break in his new glove, when he saw his dad in the stands and waved. He will dream about it.

And someday, when he is watching his child play, someone will ask him if he ever played baseball, and he will not be able to stop himself from telling all his stories, in a rush, like they just happened yesterday, like they’re still happening right now. He will do so many more things than play baseball, important things, lasting things. But these stories, these memories, they will still float around his brain, dominate his dreams, and they forever will.

Here is a numerical breakdown of all the things I wrote this week, in order of what I believe to be their quality.

1. All the Caitlin Clark Battles Will Ultimately Be Good For the League (and Her), New York. This month’s “a bunch of lunatics yell at Leitch” column. I can never, ever predict when that is going to happen. It is quite amazing how furious, how instantly reactive, people will get over a headline that they do not read past.

2. This Week’s Five Fascinations, MLB.com. Luis Gil, the weird NL Wild Card race, nice Philly fans, knuckleballers and the awesomeness of the London Series.

3. The Toughest Calls on the All-Star Ballot, MLB.com. American League Shortstop is impossible.

4. This Week’s Power Rankings, MLB.com. The Phillies and Yankees look better than everybody else right now.

PODCASTS

Grierson & Leitch, annual mailbag show, and “The Abyss.”

Seeing Red, Bernie and I are watching the Cardinals struggle. Again.

Waitin’ Since Last Saturday, we did a big pre-summer wrapup, including talking about Georgia baseball and Charlie Condon, their star third baseman who will be one of the first players drafted next month is cool enough to have “Paint It Black” as his walkup song. William and I will be at the UGA-N.C. State game this afternoon, if you happen to catch it on ESPNU, look for the dork in the Cardinals hat.

LONG STORY YOU SHOULD READ THIS MORNING … OF THE WEEK

“We must remember the heroes of the AIDS epidemic, not just the trauma,” LZ Granderson, Los Angeles Times. There isn’t much in this world I miss more than doing my old podcast with LZ, but I get to read him every week, which helps. This is a wonderful piece.

ONGOING LETTER-WRITING PROJECT!

This is your reminder that if you write me a letter and put it in the mail, I will respond to it with a letter of my own, and send that letter right to you! It really happens! Hundreds of satisfied customers!

Write me at:

Will Leitch
P.O. Box 48
Athens GA 30603

CURRENTLY LISTENING TO

“School,” Nirvana. William and I had a five-hour drive this week, and at least half of that drive was an extended discussion about what, if we were MLB players, our batter walk-up song would be. I could not decide between Nirvana’s “School,” and Nirvana’s “Negative Creep.” It would definitely be one of those, though.

Remember to listen to The Official Will Leitch Newsletter Spotify Playlist, featuring every song ever mentioned in this section.

Also, now there is an Official The Time Has Come Spotify Playlist.

Last night, at Mercedes-Benz Arena in Atlanta, the Leitch parents and I saw … the Rolling Stones.

It was the first time I’d seen the Rolling Stones, and while I wouldn’t say they’re all that tight anymore, they played the great songs, and they surprised me by playing two of my personal favorites (“Sweet Virginia” and “Dead Flowers”), and while Keith looked a little wobbly, Mick remained a freak of nature, dancing around like a wild man at the age of 80. It’s the oldest crowd I’ve ever seen at a concert (and presumably the oldest one I ever will), but my parents had a blast, and so did I.

Have a great weekend, all.

Best,
Will