Andruw Jones Effectively Summarizes Own Career

On May 1, 2007, Andruw Jones was hitting .264/.405/.527 and was on his way to winning his tenth gold glove. His Hall of Fame status was all but assured. Five years, three months, and fifteen days later, this happened:

Here, embiggenable at the reader’s discretion, is a snippet of the play-by-play for that inning:

The official scorer of the game, wise to the crippling pressure that age and expectations place on us all, and especially on the rounded shoulders of one Andruw Jones, scored the play as a double. An error, you say? Until the alchemists and the existentialists can brew some elixir that can, at the very least, dull the incremental pain that is the endless life, none of us can claim that Jones had any choice in his actions. We are all, in time, struck down by our own potential.

Ivan Nova does not understand this; he is young. But someday, if he’s fortunate enough, he will be Freddy Garcia, and he will know.