LET'S KEEP REDEMPTION
OUT OF THE BOYS' GAME
By Allan R. Andrews
American Reporter Correspondent
WASHINGTON - The New York Yankees are champions,
and Chuck Knoblauch apparently is "redeemed." What about
the Atlanta Braves' Chipper Jones?
This talk of redemption during the baseball playoffs and World
Series boosts my conviction that for many fans baseball has become
an ersatz religion, and the reporters broadcasting post-season
games or writing about them are the self-ordained clergy.
At the risk of being an iconoclast, let me attempt to bring back
some perspective.
What we are watching, fans, is the grown man's version of a boy's
game. A profession that, bereft of its astronomical salaries,
remains an extension of early adolescence.
In baseball, the scoreboard records runs, hits and errors-not
redemptions, penances and sins.
Yankees' second baseman Knoblauch reportedly "redeemed"
himself when he clubbed a three-run home run to tie the first
game of the World Series. His homer, the litany goes, served as
redemption for contributing to a loss in the American League Championship
Series (ALCS) with what most consider a boneheaded play in the
field.
Following the home run, Knoblauch was regaled
with questions about his road to redemption. Even when he shrugged
off any suggestion of redemption, the men with the mikes kept
the talk going.
Knoblauch dismissed the suggestion with what Washington Post columnist
Thomas Boswell noted as the grittiness of a Crusading soldier.
All this talk of religion in the trenches brings an uneasy seriousness
to athletic recreation. As an ardent baseball fan, I say, thanks
Chuck for showing us that boyish mistakes survive in the multi-million
dollar business of baseball.
Forget redemption; forget the sins against Steinbrenner (or, for
that matter, the sins of Steinbrenner); forget the wrath of the
armies of the Bronx, forget foxhole or basepath conversions. Knoblauch's
mistake should remind us that there's still lots of Little League
left in Major League Baseball.
In fact, the league playoffs this year provided two outstanding
examples of major leaguers reacting as they've been drilled not
to react since they were 10 years old.
Knoblauch's alleged need for redemption
arose out of the Cleveland Indians tying the ALCS in game two
with the Yankees when Indians' third baseman Travis Fryman bunted
down the first base line with a runner on first.
The Yankees' first baseman Tino Martinez fielded the ball, but
his throw to second baseman Knoblauch, who was covering first
base, hit Fryman in the back just as the Indian runner crossed
first. The ball rolled slowly toward right field.
Knoblauch immediately appealed to the umpire for an interference
call, claiming Fryman was running inside the baseline and out
of the runner's lane that is marked down the first base line.
While Knoblauch raised his arms in a gesture of appeal, unconsciously
showing everyone his boyish ability to blow bubblegum bubbles,
the ball rolled away, and the Indians' Enrique Wilson, running
full tilt from first base, slid home to score what proved to be
the winning run. Fryman wound up on third base.
Knoblauch, instead of retrieving the errant baseball, stood and
appealed to the umpire, providing the seconds Wilson needed to
circle the basepath and score.
Arguing with the umpire while the ball
is still in play and runners are advancing is something the Yankees'
second baseman surely had ingrained as a no-no when he was first
learning the game. He simply made a Little League mistake.
Almost unnoticed in the hub-bub over Knoblauch and his impending
reedemption" was a similar Little League mistake made by
the Atlanta Braves' outstanding third baseman Chipper Jones.
In an early game of the NLCS, with Reuben Rivera of the San Diego
Padres on second base, Ken Caminiti lofted a fly ball to fairly
deep right-centerfield. Braves' centerfielder Andruw Jones made
the catch, spun and made a strong and accurate two-bounce throw
to third base where Rivera was sliding in and Chipper Jones awaited
the throw.
The third-baseman took the throw and made a sweeping tag of Rivera
then spun and stood to look for the umpire with a grand appeal
for an out call.
Replays show that Rivera clearly was safe
as the umpire ruled. They also show that Rivera overslid the base
and for a second was a foot or two off the base toward the coaching
box. But while Rivera was scrambling back, third-baseman Jones
was frowning toward the umpire.
Had Jones recalled his fundamentals, he would have kept the tag
on the sliding Rivera and easily had him out when he overslid.
Instead, Rivera eventually scored the go-ahead run for San Diego.
Alas, there was no chance for redemption for Jones. His team was
vanquished several nights later. One can only assume that in the
argot of religion so glibly unfolded in the World Series that
Jones stands perilously inside one of the rings of Dante's Inferno
awaiting the redemption-guiding Beatrice of the 1999 season.
I want no redemption from these players. I'm gratified as an old
sandlot player to see evidences of major league players making
Little League mistakes. It brings their outstanding skills down
to our mediocre level.
Forget redemption, let's see re-runs of
Kenny Lofton and Greg Vaughn dropping fly balls, echoes of the
Little League mistakes of not using two hands and not keeping
one's eye on the ball.
Films of Knoblauch's boneheaded pleading and Jones' grandstanding
appeal to the umpire should be sold as instructional videos for
Little League coaches.
I don't want my sons worshiping these guys; I want them to see
that these players excel and succeed despite their vulnerability
to the same mistakes my sons make when playing the game, and I'd
never suggest to my boy that he must seek "redemption"
for an error at first, second or third base.
Allan R. Andrews is a news editor in Washington, D.C., and
a freelance writer.
He can be contacted at allan.andrews@reporters.net
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