Saturday, June 11, 2005

Character, Fortitude, and the Won-Lost Record

I went to two Mets games this week, and it was like watching two completely different teams.

On Tuesday, Karen and I watched Pedro Martinez pitch a brilliant two-hitter against the Astros, striking out twelve, including the last four in a row (the last three looking). The Mets got just enough timely offense and won 3-1. The team seemed energized, playing crisp defense, and the crowd of almost forty thousand was raucously enthusiastic, giving Pedro a standing ovation anytime he poked his head out of the dugout. Shea felt like the place to be, much as it did during the heydays of Dwight Gooden (1984-1985) or Tom Seaver (1969-1973).

Friday night, Mary-Jo and I watched Kaz Ishii pitch almost as well as Pedro for the first five innings, during which he allowed the Angels one hit and struck out eight. The Mets offense again was flaccid, but they managed to take a 2-0 lead into the sixth. Then Ishii lost it all, almost instantly. He walked the leadoff hitter in the sixth; gave up a two-run homer to the next batter to tie the game; and a few batters later gave up a three-run homer to effectively lose the game. By the time Manny Aybar walked and gopher-balled his way into a five-run inning in the ninth, the extra runs were merely academic; the Angels won 12-2.

This time, the Mets looked listless and lost. It seemed as though Angels pitcher Bartolo Colon got ahead of every batter 0-2 before inducing a pop-up or a meek grounder to short. Once the Angels grabbed the lead, the crowd quickly grew depressed and sullen. Mary-Jo and I left early, something we rarely do.

Weird, isn't it, how the personality of a baseball team can appear so changeable from one day to the next? Clearly it's not the case that the Mets players went from being engaged, focused, and disciplined on Tuesday to being bored, distracted, and lazy on Friday. Human personality simply doesn't change that dramatically in so short a period of time. Yet that's exactly the impression one gets when watching from the stands.

It's a cliche to observe that baseball is a game where fractions of an inch make all the difference. Hit the ball just so and you drive it over the left-field fence; hit it a sixteenth of an inch higher on the bat and you pop it up to the third baseman. And in the eyes of the fans (and maybe the players, too), the guy who hits the homer is a hero, a man of guts and character who comes through in the clutch, while the guy who pops up is a bum who's stealing rather than earning his million-dollar salary. Pop up a few more times at the wrong moments in a game and the fans peg you forever as a loser, as the Met fans now seem to have done with Kaz Matsui. And if Carlos Beltran grounds out with runners in scoring position too many more times in the next month, they'll be booing him just as mercilessly as they now boo Kaz.

As fans, we care a lot about the difference between winning and losing on the baseball field. Consequently, we'd like the won-lost record to reflect the players' character and integrity, not tiny, almost accidental quirks of fate. So as fans we shape what we see to make it fit a coherent narrative with a clear moral. On Friday night, the Met hitters failed because they just didn't have the heart and the gumption to get the big hits with men on base, and Kaz Ishii blew the lead in the sixth because he lacks the fortitude and tenacity of a Pedro Martinez.

That at least is the conventional story line as presented on the TV news, in the sports pages, and on radio call-in shows. But I don't buy it. I think winning and losing is driven much more by those tiny sixteenth-of-an-inch adjustments that players make on a largely unconscious level than by character traits like "courage" or "dedication" or "will." Which is why no one will really be shocked if last night's listless, sloppy Mets bounce back tonight with a crisp, well-played 8-2 win behind Kris Benson.
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