THE FIRST SENTENCE of an article is called the lede. Sometimes it’s the first several sentences, sometimes just one, but the concept is what counts. A good lede gets your attention and sets the stage. The best ledes can be intriguing, informative, thrilling, even shattering. Some became immortal the second they hit the stands. Two come to mind. The first is Grantland Rice’s famous 1924 account in the New York Herald-Tribune of Notre Dame’s 13-7 win over Army. “Outlined against a blue, grey October sky the Four Horsemen rode again. In dramatic lore they are known as famine, pestilence, destruction, and death. These are only aliases. Their real names are: Stuhldreher, Miller, Crowley, and Layden.” If that doesn’t leave you tingling, I can’t help you, but most of you probably never heard it before. I think it stopped being famous about 30 years ago, during the same tectonic shift when Christopher Columbus became a bad guy, reporters became journalists, spaghetti became pasta, pudding became mousse, and making love became “having sex.”
The other favorite lede I’m thinking of doesn’t need a footnote: “In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth.” Sets a pretty good stage there as well, don’t you think? Shorter than Rice’s, too.
Which brings us to today. Another favorite lede crossed my mind last week. The great George Will wrote a column a while back that began with such a good one I’ve never forgotten it. His was funny, too.
Seems a guy named Washington was running against a guy named Epton for mayor of Chicago, and the campaign was so bruising and dirty it was getting national attention. Both sides were using tactics that would make a groin-kicking contest look like a minuet. These guys needed binoculars to see the low road.
Mr. Will wrote about the election, and his lede ended with: “Chicago politics, like Chicago baseball, is not for the squeamish.”
To use another Will word: Indeed. The Washington-Epton race may be long forgotten, but the part about the Cubs will never be. Same for another team as well, the Red Sox. These poor guys. And their fans! The term “long-suffering” was probably invented for galley slaves, but it sure has summer homes in Chicago and Boston.
First of all, even die-hard New Yorkers and Floridians had to be rooting a little for the Sox and Cubs to go to the big one. It was too romantic not to. Can you picture that Series? Each pre-game show would look like a Ken Burns special. Fox would dig up every living ballplayer with a pocketful of stories, and we’d all be waiting for the next black and white photo of fans wearing suits at a game in the thirties, looking like that guy with the cocked derby in the beginning of “Cheers.”
And imagine the fan-on-the-street interviews. “My great-grandfather was shining Capone’s shoes one day, when Eliot Ness came in drunk . . .”
For the record, I’ve been a Yankee fan my whole life. (Ah, I can hear the computers clicking off all across America.) I saw Bobby Murcer take batting practice as a kid (me, not him), and I was high above third base hanging on the rail when Chambliss homered for the pennant. I was back in foul territory for Reggie’s three, and I sat in awe whenever Goose walked from the bullpen to the mound in the ninth with that low “Jaws” music playing.
My best memories, though, are dozens of games in the right field bleachers with all the regulars: the Puerto Rican guy who stood up every twenty minutes with a cowbell and tapped out the coolest tattoo I’ve ever heard; the fat guy with a cigar who kept score while listening to the game on a transistor radio in his shirt pocket; the guys from a bar team in the Bronx with the same t-shirts; the elderly, silent Chinese couple who never moved.
I can still feel the sun. Some days it rained and we took off our shirts and sat it out. We sang three songs every game, “The Star Spangled Banner,” “Take Me Out To The Ball Game,” and “New York, New York,” and we drank beer before and after at the long, loud bars across from the stadium (The Sportsman, I think).
And the subway rides up were great, because everyone on the train was going to the same place, but the rides back were just as good, because everyone had had such a good time. I liked Steinbrenner, and then I didn’t, and then I did again, and I mourned Thurman Munson and missed Billy Martin. Roger, of course, and Casey. And Mickey, always Mickey.
Then last week I began to love the terrific young Marlins and their great manager. But I kept thinking, it’s the Cubs and Sox, stupid. Every time they missed a chance, or began to slip and lose focus, my heart went out to them. Every time something went against them, or their opponents began to rally, my wife and I would look at each other and shake our heads muttering, “We don’t believe in curses, do we?”
Of course, like everything else in life, you don’t get something just because you really, really want it. As Jack McKeon (and what a wonderful baseball story he is on his own), the manager of the Marlins, kept trying to point out, “Hey, we’re here, too, you know.” They sure were, and like the Yankees, they came to play, and someone apparently forgot to tell them they were supposed to lose.
So they didn’t. By God, the level of play was so high on all the teams, every astonishing effort looked routine: basket catches, dives, killer pitches hit in devilishly difficult spots, all done in split seconds that would have left most other major leaguers looking like statues. Reminded me of Graig Nettles and Brian Doyle in my salad days.
One of those nineteenth century Europeans who was always rolling through America looking for meaning and renewal sailed back home and wrote something like, “Anyone who wants to understand Americans must first learn the game of baseball.” Even though his next thought was probably “Hey, why don’t we all build a really big boat?” the man was certainly onto something about us. Baseball is not only an American game (Who else could have invented it? Finland? Russia? China? Egypt? France? Brazil? Not likely.), its moments and passions and contrasts are a metaphor for America herself.
Devotion. Focus. Individual effort. Team effort. Personal responsibility. Avoiding personal responsibility. Success. Failure. Hits. Errors. Momentum. Stagnation. Faith. Fear. Elation. Heartbreak. Affection. Anger. Humiliation. Resolve. Fear. Strength. Weakness. We won this year; we lost this year; wait ’til next year.
First, last, and always: Never give up. Mourn, learn, move on, but never give up. Never . . . give . . . up.
I HAVEN’T BEEN much of a baseball fan for years. Like so many things, there just doesn’t seem to be time for it. Watching those pennant playoffs reminded me, though. It’s a wonderful game, maybe the greatest game in the world. Ninety feet between bases is a kind of perfect constant, like Pi.
Whatever happens this year with the Yankees and the Marlins, having both the Chicago Cubs and the Boston Red Sox come that close to not only a Series, but playing each other in it, is an astonishing thing that actually came within a hair of existence.
Several plays and movies of the last generation have fancifully invented some very interesting combinations. What if Freud and Einstein were pals? Supposing George Washington and Brahms had spent several summers in France as boys? You know, Salvador Dali and Robert Oppenheimer getting locked in an elevator together. That sort of thing.
But the truly odds-defying craziness of a Cubs-Sox Series came that close to happening, and for real. Amazing. Maybe next year.
In the meantime, all of us can learn something about our country and its place in the world from those 14 games. Working towards a goal, never shirking the burden, and always stepping up to the plate (so to speak).
In other words, being an American . . . is not for the squeamish.
Larry Miller is a contributing humorist to The Daily Standard and a writer, actor, and comedian living in Los Angeles.
