I struck out Frank Thomas the other day. He was sitting on an 0-2 count when I blew a 58 mile-per-hour rocket past him. A little something I like to call my high heater. He never had a chance.
It wasn’t the real Big Hurt, of course, just a computer video simulation at the National Sports Gallery, an exhibit at the MCI Center in down-town Washington. But what a simulation! You stand on a mound, dig your foot in against the rubber, and throw a baseball at a life-size video image of a hitter. Then the computer decides — depending on the speed and placement of the ball and the hitter’s particular proclivities — whether it’s a ball, strike, or hit.
There are other sports simulations at the Gallery, too. You can take slap-shots at an ice-hockey goalie, play Horse against a pro basketball player, and throw passes against a blitzing zone defense in a football simulator. I ran from one game to another, squealing like a 6-year-old. It has become clear to me that I want to be a professional athlete.
Most men have this fixation during their boyhoods, but not me. When I was little I had other dumb career aspirations: One week I wanted to be a fireman, the next week I wanted to be a senator. I spent years thinking I wanted to be a doctor. But why? Who wants to hose down fires or sit in committee or listen to people with the sniffles? Or write, for that matter? Truth: I would rather play AAA ball than be a senior editor of the New Yorker.
Even minor-league baseball players get the good life. They travel to exotic places, like Jacksonville and Toledo, and have groupies waiting for them at every stop. But it’s more than just the groupies. They get a life that is clearly defined. They know that work is nine innings, 162 days a year. They know when they’re successful and when they’re not. When you’re a ball player, you have tangible numbers to show for your work. You get to carry around a .300 batting average or a 2.20 ERA. Try getting that sort of satisfaction from office work: Hey Bob! I gave a great presentation at the team meeting; I’m 7 for 11 on the season with 3 projects batted in!
And the actions behind the numbers are even more satisfying. There is no purer joy in life than sport. Anyone who has ever tracked down a fly ball or spotted up for a three-pointer can attest to the unalloyed pleasure of doing these simple tasks well. But maybe more than anything else, the allure of sport lies in the thrill of working with great men.
The National Sports Gallery is full of memorabilia from legendary players. You can touch a bat used by Babe Ruth and admire the last pitched ball from Game 7 of the 1909 World Series where Honus Wagner’s mighty Pittsburgh Pirates bested Ty Cobb’s Detroit Tigers. A small room houses a collection of baseballs signed by some of the game’s titans. There’s one from a Roger Maras of the Fargo-Moor-head Twins (he changed the spelling of his last name when he made the bigs). There’s one from Mickey Mantle that reads “My First H.R. in the MAJORS / May 1, 1951 / 450 FEET / Chicago.” Another has the scraggly printed signature of Shoeless Joe Jackson. These were big, heroic men doing big, heroic things. They’re Donald Kagan’s boys.
Today’s athletes have been demythologized. You think of baseball players and you picture a coked-up Darryl Strawberry, basketball conjures images of thugs like Latrell Sprewell, and football triggers the murderous Rae Carruth. The movie Any Given Sunday shows the world of pro football to be an orgy of screaming sex and violence, filled with late-night parties and locker-room wars. But for all of these outliers, I suspect the day-to-day life of most athletes is much more staid. Workouts, practices, and travel schedules are rigorous. Most athletes spend hours doing homework by watching tapes and studying the game, and besides, many of them have families to get home to. To them, the game is solid, extremely well-paid, blue-collar work. Sure, the Mantles and DiMaggios of the world may be gone, but the sports universe is still full of guys like Jordan and Jeter, Manning and Gretzky. It’s still a good time to be a jock.
The only thing keeping me out of the pros is the fact that I’ve never been much of an athlete. I had the misfortune of being a mediocre talent in a number of different sports — I fell in love with lots of games and excelled at none of them. Meanwhile, the few people I knew who eventually made it to the pros were fine athletes and generally nice, but they lacked my sophisticated and heartfelt appreciation of sports. They didn’t have, as we say, the love.
For now I’m stuck with the National Sports Gallery and Cyber Hurt, but if there’s any call out there for a slow, undersized point guard or a low-velocity, right-handed pitcher without much curve on his curveball, give me a ring. I work cheap. I’ll be on the next bus to Toledo.
JONATHAN V. LAST
