Herald

Darius Naficy

 “And we’re back on WWCTL, your home for twenty four hour a day, seven day a week sports talk. I’m your host Chris Jobe reminding you to call 1-800-HairFix, that’s 1-800-HairFix, for transplants, plugs or anything else hair, they’re your source. It’s half past the hour on this smoldering Wednesday. Forecasts predict it’ll reach the low hundreds by this time next week. No doubt it’s uncomfortable out there, hell I think I’ve lost twenty pounds since yesterday, but there’s no way it’s as rough outside as it is inside the Dodger’s clubhouse. Word is Dodger brass have been called into a closed door meeting to discuss the future of the franchise. Yeah, you got that right, future of the franchise. My translation? Heads will roll. But it’d be shortsighted to say the problem is with the Dodgers. Attendance numbers are down across the country and I’ll tell you why. Americans are getting sick and tired of these whiny overpriced babies who are clearly only in the game for the money. Pure and simple, fans and players can’t connect anymore. The second that the Yankees started trying to buy championships the heart of the game was lost. People stopped competing for the name on the front of the jersey and started competing for the name on the back. I’ll tell you what listeners, the commissioner better get thinking about what he needs to do because right now, with the state the game is in, we could see another Kirk Gibson walk off homerun and fail to be inspired. The game has lost its power. Just my thoughts, let’s go to the lines.”

There was something about sports, something, to coin a term, floetic. I watched highlights of Jordan dicing defenders, I watched him break one off, jet past another, fly over two more and weave around the last, he flowed. I used to watch in wonder as Montana lofted perfect spiral after perfect spiral into the thin San Francisco air, the receivers, his thrown balls, attracting as if brought together by some invisible magnet, flowing.

I was always amazed but never inspired by floetry, by dominance. Those athletes were great, but they were too impersonal. They were artists who I always thought would have preferred to paint alone. These competitive machines held the audience’s attention raptly, no one moved, no one stirred, they did not want to miss a moment of greatness. The audience lapped up every moment of their exploits, they cheered as loud as their voices would let them. But there was something odd about their cheering. It was empty, hollow, surface. These fans appreciated a Jordan, a Montana as someone would appreciate a prolific painter at work. Sure, the audience members were impressed, taken aback by these prodigy’s skills but at no point did anyone in the audience feel connected or a part of the moment. The cheering, the noise, was more reverence than unadulterated passion. The fans knew they were witnessing greatness and made sure to enjoy each moment, they were never inspired to be lost in it. 

These stars were removed from the situation; there was never competition when they were involved. They demanded and got the best out of themselves, and consequentially they won. There was no drama, no intrigue, we knew it, they knew it. They transcended their sport, they encapsulated the human being’s potential, but that was it. They dominated. These weren’t the guys holding my love for the dirty, greedy, selfish game I devoted my life to. I really did wonder why I bothered, why I fell in love with legends I had created, why I believed a grown man would kill himself for a uniform. Some would say it was greatness that kept me around, but greatness was too easy, too cliché.

I, as a media member, even worse a sports talk host, tried desperately to ingratiate myself with the athletes. I, as a media member, was held in contempt. Athletes didn’t trust men who profited off of strife; writers didn’t trust men who were taught how to avoid telling the truth. So, I would sidle up next to an athlete, perhaps one I held as a hero when I was younger and would prepare to be belittled. I didn’t quite mind, the jaded part of me had taught me to expect to be disappointed by these men. What the athletes didn’t understand was the spin, the juxtaposition of heroic or villainous characteristics in sports was what made the athletes money, fame. In fact for a while in this information age we now live in I wondered whether sport by itself, without the spin, could suffice. I wondered.   

I didn’t wonder ever again after one fateful day spent at Dodger Stadium. I was there on assignment, sulking. It was a game between my bottom feeding Dodgers and the seemingly invincible Cardinals. I didn’t care, and I wondered if the paid professionals on the field even did. To top it off Los Angeles’ dry heat was blasting like a furnace that day.

 I caught glimpse of the pitcher taking the mound for my very own Dodgers. He was a lanky baby faced Dominican, said his name was Angel Delgado. I had seen him pitch in our quaint spring training confines in Florida. He had gotten racked, destroyed, dominated. I always thought his name was funny since his game was anything but transcendent. He threw hard and was pretty accurate, but hitters weren’t intimidated by the skinny Latin.

Perhaps the most intriguing part of the game was the announcement prior to the game that in an effort to keep all the fans hydrated and cool all beverages would be sold at half price. I chuckled to myself as a roar went through the crowd. I had to give the Dodgers credit; they knew how to keep their losing team’s fans happy. Cheap beer. The game was scheduled to start up at 2:00 but a faulty scoreboard light bulb caused the whole circuit to trip out, it wasn’t fixed and ready to go until 3:00. The crowd had an extra hour of beer before the game even went off; needless to say they were a little boisterous.

It felt like a playoff game, the crowd was electric. The majority of the fans were beyond intoxicated and were perhaps channeling repressed playoff intensity from years prior. I twice tried to say something to the writer next to me but couldn’t get his attention. The thousands of unified voices filling the stadium, emanating from the cheap seats, easily overpowered any casual banter I could attempt. Knowing that I wouldn’t be able to talk to anyone until either the beer ran out or the game ended I turned my attention back to the aforementioned pitcher.  

Angel Delgado looked around quizzically before he threw down his last warm-up pitch. This kid was a late season call-up from the minor leagues, he was tops nineteen. His prior stop before being called up to the show was a tiny AA team in Wichita. Crowds there never exceeded a hundred or so. Because of this genius promotional, sorry, safety procedure our crowd was at capacity, thirty thousand or so.

I remember looking at Delgado right before the first batter stepped up to the plate. Welcome to the Jungle was blasting through the stadium’s piercing sound system, the crowd was buzzing and the blazing heat had given way to the comforting friend that is a warm summer night. Delgado was the type of athlete that caused managers to retire. There was report after report from different managers complaining of his lack of focus, or detachment from the game. They said that he seemed to be in another planet even while he was pitching. This wasn’t the Delgado I was watching warm up; he looked relaxed, calm, composed, yes. But he had an edge to him I hadn’t seen at spring training. Maybe it was merely the fact that he had finally made the majors, or maybe he had that look, that edge, because he was what people called a prime time player, a clutch one, a gamer. Maybe while looking around that stadium that night Angel had realized that he belonged. Maybe he had been elevated by the masses. All I knew for sure was that Angel looked locked in to me. Angel clutched his cross and pounded his chest, he was ready to go.

The crowd was in a stupor and looking for something to cheer for, and Angel immediately supplied a medium. He stared down the first three batters and put them away, easily. I wondered where this Angel had been in spring training. Our hitters, in keeping with their sterling reputation of mediocrity failed to reach base in the bottom of the first. The second inning started and Delgado as easily as he did in the first inning breezed through. What was truly remarkable about his outing was that he was facing the Cardinals. I had never seen a team able to guarantee wins as easily as the Cardinals, it seemed a victory for them each game was as inevitable as Montana completing another pass. All it seemed to require was time and the Cardinals would take over.

The third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh innings blew by, both teams being held down by pitching. The Dodgers had managed to sneak one run in the sixth off a series of fluke bloop hits. With the way Delgado was pitching that seemed to be enough. Delgado looked great, he seemed to be tiring a little but he was still overpowering batters with a fiery fastball and an arm that had seemed to descend from the heavens. The crowd was rocking, enjoying every moment of one of their few opportunities to cheer all season. I dutifully watched the stadium’s radar readings to see just what Delgado was doing so well. 95, 94, 97, 98, these hitters didn’t have a chance; Delgado was dominating them, throwing his best pitch as fast as he could and daring them to hit it. Between the seventh and the start of the eight I looked towards the bleachers. Every half inning, during the commercial breaks the bleachers had cleared as people went to get more and more beer, but not anymore. The crowd held steadfastly in their seats awaiting the eighth.

I watched in disbelief as once more Delgado mowed down the first two batters he faced. He seemed invincible, he had not walked one batter, not given up one hit at this point, he was perfect. I wondered where this Angel had been all year. He wound up twice and just as easily delivered two strikes to the third and assuredly last batter of the inning. The stadium picked up that extra boost that any stadium will when history is about to be made. We all realized we were witnessing history, a perfect game in the works by a nineteen year old kid against the goliath that was the Cardinals. All he needed was four more outs. It was too perfect.

Delgado, peered in for his sign from the catcher, accepted it and delivered. A fastball up and in, but a little too far over the plate, it was hittable.

Delgado had no time to react, the ball had been lined right back up the middle, right at Delgado. A sickening thump and then crack was made as the ball struck Angel directly in the rib cage. It had to have shattered something, I assumed a rib. An even more sickening sound was made as thirty thousand people collectively grunted, moaned, whatever, as if they had been punched in the stomach. For a paralyzing second Angel just lay there, bent over on both knees, at the lip of the mound. I could hear him wheezing. The stadium was completely quiet. The shortstop ran over and collected the ball, halting the runner at first. Time was called as Los Angeles’ manager and trainers rushed to Delgado. Delgado knelt there looking down towards the ground refusing to acknowledge the presence of his coach or trainers. They tried to reach in and analyze his injury. They were rebuffed, Angel, still holding his left arm over his rib cage, used his mighty right arm to push back his attendees. After about five minutes of this, it must have seemed like more to those in the bleachers who could not see a thing, Angel’s indomitable will won out. He refused to allow them to attend to him. His face was still looking down at the dirt, as if for answers, but he had gotten off his knees, he managed to stand up. The crowd, seeing their prize fighter step up off the canvas erupted. The manager, a real old school type, must have decided that if Angel wanted to dig his own grave that was his prerogative. He walked back towards the dugout with his two trainers in tow.

The crowd was stoked up once more and I was sure we could be heard all the way up in San Francisco, at Candlestick Park. I wondered if we could be heard in Chicago, at the United Center. Angel walked slowly around the mound; he managed to remove both hands from his rib cage and tuck them behind his back. I saw him try to take a deep breath to calm down; he immediately clutched his ribs again. He was hurting. The crowd sensed it and rose up once more. The roar was deafening. Seats shook, players peered out of both dugouts. This kind of commotion was unheard of in early August. To say the crowd buzzed or was electric would be to say that Angel had pitched well; this crowd was on the brink of warranting a new unit to measure sound levels. There was something more to the cheers though. They were not the normal supportive shouts that accompany a game. No, this had become more than a game. This had become about cheering for right and wrong, about cheering for David or Goliath. This had become about cheering for impersonal greatness or something quite the opposite. This had become about the collective will of thirty thousand people united inspiring one man to rise above and beyond what he could have done by himself. This was about something far greater than anything Jordan or Montana could have mustered.

I wasn’t thinking that moment, I was lost in it. I had seen dominance, I had seen greatness, I had seen mediocrity. I had seen upsets; I hadn’t seen any silly game test human will. I hadn’t seen support and allegiance raise a broken man from his knees and allow him to fight for greatness. No one had ever seen such a stark contrast in crowd reaction between invulnerable dominance and a united effort. The perfect game, Angel’s perfection, was gone, we didn’t care. He was human, he was our brother, our friend, our neighbor, he was one of us. I stared at Angel as he courageously tried once again to steady his breathing. I thanked this Angel for reminding me why I came, why I cheered, why I cared. I thanked Angel for reminding me why this game was my life. I rose to my feet along with thirty thousand others from different races, classes, religions, and cheered for hope, for love, for spontaneity but most importantly, we cheered.