Craig Biggio, Second Base, #7
The last milestone that means anything, that will be touched again but feels untouchable, that will be rubbed warm again like a lucky pocket stone - 3000. The 3000th is at once the most important and the least important hit of the run, the twilight single, the last word in the Bible. The Bible's last word: Amen.
And so it felt in the sold out house, when Bidge popped a line drive up the middle, flipped bat his bat away, and rounded first. Barreling towards second, the throw came in an hour early and Bidge hit the dirt, dead out. But it gave him time to bask and wave and forgo what was his expertise, the scored run, the being the run driven in. It was the finest night of baseball I've ever spent, and the luckiest. It was my first home Astros game of the season, having arrived earlier in the day for a wedding, gone a few days later, an utter crap shoot happy-go-lucky "well gee this could be the night but I'm just happy to see the run-up to it" baseball game.
The double that wouldn't quite was one of five hits accumulated on the evening of June 28th, ecstasy piled upon ecstasy even beyond 3000, when Biggio beat a two-out dribbler to first base to start the rally that became a Carlos Lee grand slam in extra innings: a walk-off extravaganza.
Hit 3000 was near to the Biggio paradigm, because it was a sharply struck line drive, with English, defined by a heavy, quick bat-head through the hitting zone, an efficient swing, a double-hitter's swing. A double-hitter's swing too conscientious to uppercut, and too strong-willed to chop a ground ball and bank on speed and the mistakes of others. The true paradigm hit is the Biggio line drive, grabbed from the inner part of the plate and caromed off of the bullpen bench in left field foul territory, sent off to make complementary angles of left fielder's ankles while the hitter rounds second base hard. Another double. Amen.
the career, the hit in question (third item down), the button.
Friday, December 21, 2007
2B - Craig Biggio - Team#1_The Favorites
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