Baseball Is Cool Because...

So I heard today of a very cool happening that took place in the Blue Jays/Giants game yesterday and it made me think of some of the things that I truly love about the sport. It's not always about the great plays and the reams of stats. It's very often the "human factor" of the game that makes my heart swell. John McDonald, a utility player for the Jays, just lost his father to a battle with liver cancer. He had taken the last week or so off to be with him. He returned for yesterday's afternoon game, but wasn't in the starting lineup. One of his dad's last wishes was for John to hit a home run for him. John apparently told him that hitting a home run was not that easy. If you check his career stats, John McDonald is not what you'd call a slugger. Well, as the Jays were losing 9-3 in the 9th inning, manager Cito Gaston decided to let John hit for a slumping Aaron Hill. Remember, this was his first at bat after losing his father days before. It was Father's Day no less. John McDonald hit a home run over the left field fence!! If you were to watch the video, you can see him holding back his tears as he rounded the bases. The Toronto bench acted as if they just won the game...they didn't of course. It was an unbelievably emotional moment that Vernon Welles said he'd never forget.
Check out the video at this link:
http://toronto.bluejays.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=9201989&topic_id=8878984&c_id=tor

This event made me think of a couple of other plays that have stuck with me for their emotional value rather than the big home run to win a game or the perfect game that wasn't thrown....

The most famous would have to be Lou Gehrig's famous speech near the end of his career...and life. Gehrig was a powerhouse hitter for the New York Yankees and famously was dubbed The Iron Horse for his incredible streak of consecutive games played, 2130 of them. (Later eclipsed by Cal Ripken). He is also famous for contracting the deadly disease ALS, now widely known as Lou Gehrig's Disease. After playing his last game in 1939, barely able to stand straight anymore, the Yankees held a game in his honour. Gehrig made his famous speech at that game where he called himself "the luckiest man on the face of this Earth". He was in physical pain, he knew he didn't have long to live, but the love of the fans made him feel that way. He was dead less than two years later, but is still remembered as one of the best to ever play the game!

Ted Williams is widely regarded as the best pure hitter that baseball has ever seen. He started his career in 1939 and made a splash right away by hitting 31 home runs, driving in 145 runs and batting .327 as a rookie. His career stats are some of the best in any hitting category, and that's with 4 years to service in WWII, where he was a decorated war hero, and most of two seasons to The Korean War. Baseball pundits think Williams may have shattered all career records if he had played those seasons. He is the last player to hit .400 in a season, batting .406 in 1941...and that's where my story begins. On the last day of the season, Williams was batting .400...well, .3997, but his average would have been rounded up to the .400 in the record books. His manager and teammates told him to sit out the last day of the season, a double-header, to secure his .400 average. Ted Williams was never one to take the easy way out. He said .3997 is NOT .400 and he'd be playing both games of the double-header. He not only played both games, but collected 6 hits in his 8 at-bats to finish at .406!! That's my favourite Williams story, but he tried to top it in 1960. Williams was never a fan favourite in Boston. He was rude to the fans and the press. Everybody appreciated him, but nobody really liked him. He vowed to never give the fans the satisfaction of a curtain call after a big home run. On the last day of the season, on his last at-bat for his career, Teddy Williams hit a monster home run in Fenway Park. He rounded the bases and went back into the dugout. The fans knew this would be his last career plate appearance, and to hit a home run was a very special thing. They gave him a rousing ovation for many minutes...but Williams refused to make a curtain call and tip his cap to the crowd! He may have been a jackass, but he was easily one of the greatest hitters ever.

There are many more stories like these, but I'll save some for another time.