The first full team is in the books. What have I learned from this?:
C - Mike Piazza
1B - Lance Berkman
2B - Craig Biggio
3B - Scott Rolen
SS - Adam Everett
LF - Manny Ramirez
CF - Ichiro Suzuki
RF - Vladimir Guerrero
SP - Greg Maddux
RP - Billy Wagner
Manager - Bobby Cox
I have learned that making a decision and locking it in is difficult. There were issues that I didn't know were unresolved, subtle though they may have been. Choosing a third basemen, for example, left me empty inside. I don't have a David Wright or a Tony Batista to fall back on (wait, Tony Batista might actually be my favorite...). What I had to do instead was evaluate my value system when it comes to baseball players.
Substance, style, history and all of the cerebral highways and byways connecting, dissecting, intersecting and resurrecting in between. Some connections are concrete, some spongy and fibrous. But they are connections, and the resultant construction is, I think, a big happy Frank Gehry building but better: architects have limitations.
What to make of this team of favorites?
There are some defensive holes, filled with slowfoot sluggers. Elsewhere, though, there is speed and wizardry and brute strength. A few selected men have played beyond their best days, and I am shamelessly marketing their pasts. But their pasts are mine as well, in that old familiar peculiar way. Baseball players are different than restaurants--their present deficiencies take nothing from their previous ascensions.
Many of my favorites are great players, Hall of Fame players. But a shortstop who hits like a comp. lit. professor? That is a surprise. I am surprised by that.
C - Mike Piazza
1B - Lance Berkman
2B - Craig Biggio
3B - Scott Rolen
SS - Adam Everett
LF - Manny Ramirez
CF - Ichiro Suzuki
RF - Vladimir Guerrero
SP - Greg Maddux
RP - Billy Wagner
Manager - Bobby Cox
I have learned that making a decision and locking it in is difficult. There were issues that I didn't know were unresolved, subtle though they may have been. Choosing a third basemen, for example, left me empty inside. I don't have a David Wright or a Tony Batista to fall back on (wait, Tony Batista might actually be my favorite...). What I had to do instead was evaluate my value system when it comes to baseball players.
Substance, style, history and all of the cerebral highways and byways connecting, dissecting, intersecting and resurrecting in between. Some connections are concrete, some spongy and fibrous. But they are connections, and the resultant construction is, I think, a big happy Frank Gehry building but better: architects have limitations.
What to make of this team of favorites?
There are some defensive holes, filled with slowfoot sluggers. Elsewhere, though, there is speed and wizardry and brute strength. A few selected men have played beyond their best days, and I am shamelessly marketing their pasts. But their pasts are mine as well, in that old familiar peculiar way. Baseball players are different than restaurants--their present deficiencies take nothing from their previous ascensions.
Many of my favorites are great players, Hall of Fame players. But a shortstop who hits like a comp. lit. professor? That is a surprise. I am surprised by that.
0 comments:
Post a Comment