Introduction
STEVE BERTHIAUME WAS worried about me anyway. As one of the hosts of ESPN’s Baseball Tonight, he had seen me clip box scores from the newspaper and tape them in my box score book, a daily ritual that, pathetically, I did for twenty years without missing a day. He had seen me keep a daily tally of all sorts of ridiculous statistics, including players that strike out four times in a game; every year, there are 100-plus, though Bill Buckner never struck out three times in a game. And Berthiaume was in the ESPN newsroom the night I leaped from my chair because something I’d been following every day for years had finally happened: the Angels’ Garret Anderson was hit by a pitch for the first time in 5½ seasons. And Berthiaume was there when I incorrectly referred to the movie as The Devil Wears Prado, no doubt having much-traveled infielder Martin Prado on my mind, to which ESPN colleague Wendi Nix quickly corrected me, saying, “Tim, it’s Prada, not Prado. The Devil Wears Prada. What is wrong with you?”
But on the night of July 1, 2007, Berthiaume had had enough of me and my baseball obsessions. The Astros’ Carlos Lee had hit a sacrifice fly, his 13th of the season, which set the club record, and he wasn’t even at the All-Star break. So, in a fit of excitement, and in another lack of clarity, I blurted out on Baseball Tonight, “I’m fascinated by sacrifice flies.”
Berthiaume stopped the live broadcast and said, “Wait a minute! Did you just say you are fascinated by sacrifice flies?” That was followed by a minute of warranted chiding from Berthiaume and my fellow analysts Orel Hershiser and Eduardo Pérez. My comeback to them was even lamer than my declarative sentence. I shot back, “Stop making fun of me!”
I deserved it, but the fact is I’m fascinated by sacrifice flies. I am fascinated by so many aspects of baseball and, in this book, I’ll attempt to show you from where my fascination comes, and where and how you can find it for yourself. In the wake of fading attendance and TV ratings, in the aftermath of the Steroid Era that stained the game for so many, in a time where so many players are so rich that they have a sense of entitlement that they haven’t earned, I will show you how to love the game for the first time, or more than ever.
There are chapters in this book that have appeared on ESPN.com: Hit by Pitch, Sounds of the Game, Superstitions, and Unwritten Rules. They are among my favorite stories that I’ve ever written because I learned so much writing them and, hopefully, so will you. Adam LaRoche told me the pain in his knee was so fierce after being hit by a pitch, “I almost threw up.” In Sounds of the Game, there are Jake Peavy’s primal screams from the mound, and Adam Dunn talking to himself while playing first base. In Superstitions, there are Torii Hunter’s perfectly shined shoes, and a poker chip in Sean Burnett’s back pocket. In Unwritten Rules, imagine the reaction if a player texted while running around the bases after hitting a homer.
I will explain why baseball is the best game: Pete Rose taking batting practice only minutes after getting out of prison is one of my favorite new stories. I will explain why baseball is the hardest game to play: please, don’t ever wear a watch while trying to catch Robb Nen. I will explain where I work, ESPN, and what it’s like to sit alone with Buck Showalter in a room with games on fifteen TVs, and how he taught me to watch a game, what to look for when evaluating: never draft a player with bright blue eyes, or an 18-year-old with a full beard. I’ll tell you about Terry Francona’s one year on TV, from which I learned so much, and laughed so hard: one night in Philadelphia, his closer came into a game with mustard all over his uniform jersey. And I will tell you of the day when John Kruk randomly asked me, “Did I ever tell you about the time that I shot a deer in a hot tub?”
I will explain what the late Don Zimmer, Mike Flanagan, Earl Weaver, and Tony Gwynn meant to the game, and how they made the game so much more fun and interesting to watch: Gwynn nearly started to cry after breaking his favorite bat in 1995. I’ll explain my fascination with names, and why, for hours, I pored over Barry Bonds’s home run victims, 449 of them, including Abbott and Castillo, Dustin and Hoffman, Green and Bere. I will explain the beauty of the box score, and why I cut out every one of them for twenty years: 9-0-0-0-0-15 had never been seen before 2014, and likely will never be seen again.
I will explain what a Quirkjian is, and how to find them in box scores, at a game, or in The Shawshank Redemption. I will explain why strikeouts are so prevalent today: more hitters struck out 100 times in 2014 than in 1900–63 combined. I will explain the role of an official scorer: don’t do that job, it is too hard. I will explain the future of the game, which remains bright as long as the Joe Maddons of the world are always taking an active role.
And, of course, I’ll tell why I’m Fascinated by Sacrifice Flies.
Copyright © 2016 by Tim Kurkjian