When CC hit his home run today and happily rounded the bases, I was reminded of one of my favorite plays: Take Me Out.
There's this great part where Mason, the money manager for the main character who is a baseball superstar, has just begun to watch baseball and is falling in love with it.
He says:
"Another thing I like is the home-run trot....What I like about it is it's so unnecessary.
The ball's gone, no one's going to bring it back. And can anyone doubt that a man capable of launching a ball four hundred feet is somehow going to fail to touch a base when he's running uninterfered with?
For all intents and purposes, the game, at that moment, is not being played.
If duration of game is an issue - and I'm given to believe that duration of game is an issue - the sensible thing would be to say, yes, that's gone, add a point to the score, and send the next batter to the plate.
But that's not what happens.
Instead, play is suspended for a celebration.
A man rounds four bases, and if he's with the home team, the crowd has a catharsis.
And from the way he runs, you learn something about the man. And from the way they cheer, you learn something about the crowd.
...And it seems to me that to conduct this ceremony not before a game or after a game but in the very heart of a game is...quite...well, does any other game do that?
That's baseball."
I love that quote, and I love baseball for that and many other reasons. And, I highly recommend the play, which you can buy here.
Happy All-Star break...and how great to go out with a win.
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