Wednesday 7/17/24
I didn't see any of the All-Star Game last night. As a kid, it was a must-watch affair for me. Sometimes I missed it because I was at hockey camp with all of the other writers--kidding!--and I didn't like that. The game was more organic and less predictable. A pitcher having a big year who got the start might go three innings, and he wanted to show his stuff and was super competitive. Roger Clemens in 1986, for example. Some guys would play the whole game or most of it. You didn't really know going in.
Whereas now, everything is so scheduled. Paul Skenes was only going to throw one inning. Pitchers don't really have a chance to shine now. A batter for the winning side will run into one and he'll be the MVP. Last night it was Jarren Duran, whose two-run homer was the difference. Good for him.
I was a little concerned to see Tanner Houck's line. You can't shine as a pitcher, but you can get knocked around, and he was, surrendering four hits and three runs, one of them being a Shohei Ohtani blast. It happens, giving up a home run to that guy. But the Sox need Houck to be good over the next two-and-a-half months and hopefully more. I don't know what they're thinking with these uniforms, though. Is it just greed? That people will buy an All-Star jersey? I'd have serious questions about someone if I saw them in one of these All-Star jerseys.
My guy Carlton Fisk never really did that well in an All-Star Game. No home runs, no big moments. But I liked seeing him out there.
I've been having bad dreams the last two nights about people I used to know. Some who were/are-in-the-from-a-distance fashion friends, others who aren't. I pay attention to these things because they're giving me information about parts of myself and my feelings.
I've been watching all of these people get drafted from the Cape Cod League. All of these rounds of the MLB draft. And so few of these players will ever make the big leagues, let alone have lengthy stays there, or become a regular, or a star. The chances for each successive thing are lower and lower. People who write and people in publishing are oblivious to things like this. That not everyone is equal. Almost all will and should fail because they're not good enough.
But sports aren't a warped popularity contest/hook-up affair of the broken and talentless. You have to be good. You have to be better than your peers. You have to rise above. What a concept, right? But this is why publishing people hate sports: It takes talent, hard work, no one lies to you, people don't pretend you're this thing that you're not, and it's about merit. Do you think they want anything in their lives and in their careers and in publishing to be about talent, hard work, results, reality, competition, and merit? Or do you think that's the last way they'd want it to be? Exactly.
I'd say that the last All-Star Game with real pop and drama was the 1999 affair at Fenway. You had the ballpark as setting, the bashing home run guys before steroids became an official scandal, Pedro Martinez on the mound at the height of his powers, and competitive as hell, and Ted Williams out on the field in Boston.
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