Archive for Feast Days

Today, we herald a single member of the baseballing canon.

Life: Though he played for sometime in the Dodger and Phillie organizations, Sparky Anderson is most well known for his long managerial career, which includes World Series titles with the 1975 and ’76 Reds, and then the Tigers in 1984. He’s also known for having looked about 75 years old for the greater part of his life.

Ritual: To recognize the life of Sparky the Eldest, yell at someone to turn their rippity-rap music down. Or describe what life was like in the Great Depressions. One or the other.

Prayer

You were called Sparky
not, as history maintains,
for your spirited play
as a minor leaguer
but because
much like African American superhero
Black Lightning
you were born with the ability
to generate and magnify
external localized
electromagnetic phenomena —
a power you used to great effect
when creating from inorganic compounds
winner of the 1984 Cy Young Award
Willie Hernandez.

Today, February 21st, is the feast day for two notable figures, as follow.

Life: Over a career that spanned 20 years, Trammell compiled 69.5 WAR, appearing at shortstop for the Tigers — for whom he played the entire time — in over 2000 games. Beyond his on-field accomplishments, which include a 1984 World Series ring and MVP trophy, he’s also widely praised for his leadership abilities and currently serves as the bench coach for the Arizona Diamondbacks.

Ritual: To recognize the life of Trammell the Sinewy, practice a Stoic gaze in the mirror.

Prayer of Trammell the Sinewy

Alan Trammell!
It’s impossible to imagine you
in any other pose
besides the one you’re assuming
on your 1978 Burger King baseball card:
hands on hips, the brim of your cap raised,
as you stand and survey a field
littered with Confederate dead.

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Today, February 20th, we acknowledge and celebrate the life of Hernandez the Prolific.

Life: A Cuban emigre, Hernandez received national attention very early, starting and winning Games 1 and 5 of the 1997 World Series and winning the MVP trophy for same. Noted for his durability, Hernandez led the league in innings pitched for three consecutive years, from 2003 through 2005, and has thrown more innings since 1998 (his rookie season) than any other active pitcher, leading the second player on that list (Javier Vazquez) by 200 innings. An above-average pitcher at his peak, Hernandez has become merely serviceable, relying more on guile and something called “pitchability” than actual stuff.

Ritual: To remember Hernandez the Prolific, either (a) invent a pitch with a mysterious name or (b) read Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea and ask yourself, “Am I the old man, the sea, the tireless marlin, all of the above, none of the above?” (Hint: you are not the sea.)

Prayer of Hernandez the Prolific:

Included among the many pitches
you’ve introduced to this country
since your debut in 1996
is one called Rice with Mango
another called The Eleven-Yard Shirt
and a third, The Melancholy Peanut Vendor,
that’s only possible to throw
on the day of a loved one’s funeral.
Hail!

Today, February 19th, we remember and celebrate the life of Stewart the Menacing.

Life: Stewart is known for his intimidating mound presence and durability. With the Oakland teams of the late-80s, he posted four consecutive 20-win seasons. While not necessarily exceptional on rate basis — never, for example, leading the league in ERA or ERA+ — he led all pitchers with 1061.2 IP over his four-year peak.

Prayer

On August 1st, 1987, you killed
a career-best 14 batters against Minnesota.
Your personal record for killing batters
in a season is 205, also in 1987 —
i.e. the same year you killed an average
of 7.1 batters per nine innings.

You maintain that your greatest regret
is killing Reggie Jackson,
with whom you famously co-managed
an Oakland-area Salvation Army.

The world will never forget
the time you killed Ernest Riles
in the ninth inning
of a World Series shutout,
his body twisting grotesquely
yet comically
like in an actual game of Twister.

Today, we canonize and remember just a single figure.

Note, per canon law, that this does not necessarily mean that other candidates from this day won’t be added in the future, but merely that this is the only player we’ve seen fit to add at the moment.

Life: A native of the Dominican Republic, Mota played in the majors for part of 20 seasons. For the last six-plus of those seasons, he served as a pinch-hitter almost exclusively, and, in fact, is third all-time with 150 pinch-hits (which was the record when he retired). He finished his career with a lifetime batting average of .309.

Prayer

No less a personage than Vin Scully
once said you “could wake up on Christmas morning
and hit a line drive to center.”
In conclusion, it’s a fact:
I wish Vin Scully were my grandfather.

Today, we learn about and learn from three essential characters in baseball’s unwieldy canon.

Life: As someone named R.J. Anderson has noted in these pages, Wally Pipp was a more-than-serviceable first baseman for the Yankees for 10 years, accumulating 35.1 WAR from 1915 to 1924. He’s considerably more well known, of course, for being replaced by Iron Man Lou Gehrig on June 2, 1925 and effectively losing his place with the New York team.

From Pipp we learn that, sometimes, there are other people who are way, way, way, way more talented than us.

Prayer

The Italian expression che sarà
does not literally describe,
but is certainly applicable,
to the circumstances
surrounding your career
starting in June of 1925.
On the bright side of it all,
you got to live for three years
in that great American city, Cincinnati,
birthplace to professional baseball
and popular boy band 98 Degrees.

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Today, we remember another three lives in our ongoing — and totally not futile — effort to canonize baseball’s worthy figures.

Regard:

Life: While useful enough as a player, posting a 7.8 WAR over 1729 plate appearances, Pecota has become most famous for lending his name to the eponymous projection system developed by Nate Silver and still hosted by a certain enemy website.

It should be noted, also, exactly how fitting it is that Pecota’s feast day falls in what is basically the middle of forecast season.

Prayer:

You inspired probably
one of the most famous
backronyms ever.
Also, now I just learned
what a backronym is.
Thanks, Billskis!

(Note: Other relevant honorifics are acceptable in place of “Billskis.” Use your discretion.)

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Today, we commemorate three lives — and examine, more thoroughly than we have, the lives of our remembered.

Regard:

Life: Urbina was an animated and, for some time, very talented relief pitcher. Currently, however, he’s serving a 14-year prison sentence in his home country after being convicted on two charges of attempted murder.

Prayer:

You’re not a saint in the traditional manner,
but you’ve certainly reinforced that old adage,
“Don’t attack people with a machete and/or gasoline,
even if you’re totally convinced they stole something.”

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Today, in our attempt to canonize the game’s most important figures, we remember four lives.

Note, please, that (a) all of today’s players were actually born February 12th but also that (b) this is wholly in compliance with theological law, which states that, and I quote, “All saints’ lives occurring on a weekend day shall be celebrated on the first business day directly proceeding said weekend.”

So, it’s totally legal, is what I mean to suggest.

Now, today’s lives:

Your older brother
totally got with the hottest possible woman,
but, by most accounts, yours was the more enviable life.
We’ll never forget your spectacles —
all meanings intended!

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If the reader has somehow found him- or herself under the impression that I would halt these awkward attempts to combine baseball with the feast-day tradition of Orthodox Christianity, then the reader is tragically mistaken.

Today we celebrate three lives, as follow.

Every league is a beer league to you, oh Brian Daubach!
Hear our prayer!

You hit 41 home runs with Milwaukee in 1980,
and yet studies show that even you
have never heard of yourself.
Whatever the opposite of hype is,
don’t believe it!

You’re one of the few players in history
to punch reporters on two separate occasions —
which is only once more than the number of times
you punched a train conductor.
Regardez, everyone: it is 19th-century man!