It was a steamy afternoon and the clouds seemed to grow out of the sickly white sky, as in the paintings of Dutch masters. Mickey Morandini, shorn for summer, took swings in the batting cage. Manager Jim Riggleman, off to the side, discussed in a weary, matter-of-fact voice how difficult it is to get even major-league ballplayers to hustle on every play. Pearl Jam singer Eddie Vedder, in a funky straw hat, played catch with Mark Grace as if they were killing time at a church picnic. Sammy Sosa, in a Fila T-shirt sawed off at the shoulders and midsection, strolled in from the batting cage under the right-field bleachers and went to the clubhouse to get his jersey on; he emerged a few minutes later with a plastic bottle of water bulging in his back pocket, an accessory also adopted by Glenallen Hill. Sosa took his place in the on-field cage and began launching bombs to the bleachers, that little tippy-toe ballet step inward with the left foot triggering the forcible stride and thrashing swing that produced 42 home runs going into this week. Mark Grace followed, deflecting pitches into the left-center-field gap with that stiff-armed old man’s swing of his. Vedder, having shed his hat to unveil a mane of peroxide blond hair, shagged flies and threw the ball in–not to the backstop behind second base but to some nonexistent cutoff man in the infield. Just leaning against the batting cage I cracked a sweat, and a mood settled over me of such calm contentment that not even Ricky Martin’s “Livin’ la Vida Loca” on the PA system could ruin it.
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The Cubs and their fans settled into the dog days with a sort of peaceful resignation this season. Wrigley Field became the land of the lotus-eaters, a place where, for a few hours at a sitting on summer afternoons or evenings, time came to a standstill and all thoughts of achievement were laid aside. It was at a game between the Cubs and the New York Mets two weeks ago that I first recognized myself and those around me in that peculiar state of mind. Drips of rain fell from sullied, black-bottomed clouds, which moved off to make way for intense sunlight–the outdoor-sauna treatment. Watching the Mets’ John Olerud, Mike Piazza, and Robin Ventura take batting practice in the same group, I mused on how it would be a dilemma on the order of the Judgment of Paris to pick the most beautiful swing of the three: Olerud’s crisp brush stroke, Piazza’s woodchopper’s cut with that graceful high finish, or Ventura’s smooth, level, torque-enhanced roll of the wrists. Those three were followed by a group of unsightly hackers including Rey Ordonez, Luis Lopez, and Edgardo Alfonzo, and with my aesthetic sensibilities duly dulled I marched for the press box as fast as the rising steam would carry me.
But talk about sedate and soporific–last Friday’s series opener against the Astros epitomized the affliction. My friend and colleague Neil Tesser, sitting in the upper deck behind home plate, described it as the most boring game he had ever seen. There was no great defensive play, no memorable hitting or pitching–though the Astros’ Jose Lima stymied the Cubs on six hits and one run in seven-plus innings–just a three-run homer in the first inning by Houston’s Carl Everett off the Cubs’ Kyle Farnsworth that gave the Astros all the runs they’d need. The view wasn’t a whole lot better from the bleachers, not when one was looking toward the field anyway. There were the usual bleacher diversions–the laughing flesh, the swirling aromas of beer and sunscreen, the requisite heckling. But even that last element had an obligatory quality: the guy in front of me could find nothing more harsh to yell at Houston right fielder Derek Bell than that his pants were baggy. In the top half of the innings he couldn’t cheer Sosa without adding what a bum he thought McGwire was. Hadn’t he learned anything from Sosa and McGwire’s frequent displays of friendly sportsmanship last year?
