If asked, how would you capture the essence of a Hall of Fame baseball life?  If told you had a limit of 50 words to immortalize and stamp Stan Musial's career, for example, what would you say?  What numbers would you select?  What achievements or moments would you focus upon?  Some time over the past six months, these questions have been pondered and answered for the 2008 Hall of Fame Class:  Goose Gossage, Dick Williams, Billy Southworth, Bowie Kuhn, Walter O'Malley, and Barney Dreyfuss.  The question can be difficult, for there are myriad ingredients that mix and blend into a legendary career or place in baseball history.  Some players become securely attached to a singular number:  Hank Aaron and 755; Lou Gehrig and 2130; Ted Williams and .406; Cy Young and 511.  Others rest their foundation on a singular moment:  Bill Mazeroski's bottom of the ninth home run in game seven of the 1960 World Series that enabled the Pirates to vanquish the mighty Yankees; Christy Mathewson's three shutouts in the 1905 World Series; Carl Hubbell's five straight strikeouts of five future Hall of Famers in the 1934 All-Star Game, Carlton Fisk's arm-directed pleading for his ball to stay fair in the 1975 World Series.  Others don't have a unique moment or number to serve as the beacon:  Don Sutton employed an amazing consistency and remarkable durability on his way to 324 wins:  20 straight seasons of 200 innings pitched, Sutton reached double-digits in wins in 21 of his 23 years; Eddie Murray would churn out home runs and RBI like clockwork, each year looking amazingly like the one previous, no particular season leaping to the forefront:  yet, when all was said and done, Murray placed himself alongside Hank Aaron and Willie Mays as only the third player in history to accumulate 3000 hits and 500 home runs.  Still, any exercise in which we try to extract the heart and soul of a Hall of Fame career cannot rest solely on any one of these elements alone.  Lou Gehrig's true story lies beyond the 2130 straight games; Hank Aaron's puzzle contains countless pieces, Christy Mathewson's extraordinary time in the Majors begins before and continues long after his 1905 World Series performance, and to truly understand what Don Sutton or Eddie Murray meant to the game, particular moments can be placed under the microscope for examination and celebration.  

The greatness lies in the stories and memories that surround the special ballplayers - those dictionary definitions and encyclopedia images that seek to add breadth to the statistical foundations.  In those stories and images, we can gain perspective and add context, and a ballplayer can leap from the page and take on thickening dimension.  A story from Dock Ellis on what is was like to watch Bill Mazeroski receive a throw from Gene Alley and turn the pivot on a double play transforms Maz from a Goliath-slaying David into something fuller and more appreciable.  Ted Williams' magical run and attainment of a .400 batting average expands in the mythology when we look into the final day of the season, when he played in a doubleheader in Philadelphia and collected six hits in eight at-bats to speed by .400 and park at .406.  Carl Hubbell's mastery of Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx, Al Simmons and Joe Cronin on July 10, 1934 retains a degree of the mystical  until we seek to learn about his screwball and we hear the story of Lou Gehrig muttering to Foxx after the Iron Horse struck out, "You might as well cut away.  It won't get any higher.  That guy won't give you anything to hit."

Of course, a Hall of Fame plaque cannot meander through these trails - in its outline of the ballplayer's career, the words must draw out the core and proclaim the essential.  For the plaques at the National Baseball Hall of Fame serve as abstracts:  sketches that introduce, bow, and then (hoping we will follow) turn to begin the journey toward deeper understanding and appreciation.  The plaques and their words are invitations to the millions of people who pass by every year: inducements to seek other sources of stories and images that bring our baseball heroes to life.  

Later this week, I will be traveling to Cooperstown for the Hall of Fame Induction Weekend.  For two days, I will have the privilege of sitting down with some of the Hall of Famers and listening to their stories.  No matter what tales are told, what memories are awakened, or what moments are recalled, the game's history will be brought back to life.    I will sit there with a widening smile, and with each phrase, sentence, and storyline, the plaques in my mind will expand and take on a more discernible texture and a deeper substance.  But there are other sources available for those of you who aren't so lucky.  Five books sit in my library at home:  they are smudged with fingerprints, roughed at the edges, and their dust jackets are holding on for dear life, but the contents remain vibrant and clear.  These five books - oral Histories compiled and edited by Lawrence Ritter and Donald Honig -  bring the game's history to life.  I heartily recommend any and all of them to anyone who has ever looked at a Hall of Fame plaque and wondered about the stories that are not mentioned.


The Glory Of Their Times: The Story Of The Early Days Of Baseball Told By The Men Who Played It, by Lawrence Ritter

The October Heroes : Great World Series Games Remembered by the Men Who Played Them, by Donald Honig

Baseball When the Grass Was Real : Baseball from the Twenties to the Forties Told by the Men Who Played It, by Donald Honig

Baseball Between the Lines : Baseball in the Forties and Fifties As Told by the Men Who Played It, by Donald Honig

The Man in the Dugout : Fifteen Big League Managers Speak Their Minds, by Donald Honig

Thanks to baseball-reference.com for information that helped with this piece, and acknowledgement to Ray Robinson's Iron Horse: Lou Gehrig in His Time for the quote by Gehrig.

Ted Williams once said, "They invented the All-Star game for Willie Mays."  More than any sentence, any statistic, or any phrase etched on his plaque in Cooperstown, this statement outlines the substance of Mays and captures his essence so perfectly as to render all of the numbers accrued over the 22-year career as mere accessories to the historical storyline.  More than the Polo Grounds, Seals Stadium, Candlestick Park or Shea Stadium, I think of the All-Star game as the truest and most definitive home for The Say Hey Kid.  Willie Mays manned the biggest and most eye-catching booth in a traveling carnival known as the Midsummer Classic on 24 separate occasions, and hit, ran and slid his way beyond the imaginations of the thousands of fans who saw his star take center stage and command the brightest spotlight among a troupe of iconic ballplayers.  The All-Star game indeed was made for talents like Willie Mays, for on one special day each summer, this baseball genius found a singular home for the expression of the exceptional, the magical, and the everlasting.  In ballparks, stadiums, and fields, the Giants' centerfielder settled into whatever city was lucky enough to host his abilities, and left behind an encyclopedia of images, memories, oohs, and aahs which comprised a collective experience known as watching Willie Mays.

The Midsummer Classic, like Opening Day or the postseason, offers a concise and impressionable tablet onto which baseball etches its storyline.  Once a year, the game's best challenge each other and measure themselves against their peers - the results can often carry on in our memories and mythologies in a manner that sometimes subtly and sometimes directly encapsulates the past and present.  Pedro Martinez' performance in the 1999 All-Star game, in which he struck out Barry Larkin, Larry Walker, Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire in succession to begin the game lies beside Carl Hubbell's mastery in the 1934 Midsummer Classic, when he struck out five future Hall of Famers - Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx, Al Simmons and Joe Cronin - in a row.   Just this past week, Josh Hamilton capped a fairytale first half with his jaw-dropping display in the Home Run Derby.  With home plate in Yankee Stadium his stage, with 50,000 fans on their feet chanting his name, Hamilton rocketed and moon-shot ball after ball into the upper deck, into the black seats in center, and even flirted with that Holy Grail of home run hitting - knocking one completely out of the stadium.  Hamilton's turn under the spotlight made me think back to the All-Star game in 1941, when another left-handed batter with prodigious talents symbolized an iconic season with a single swing of the bat.  That year in Detroit, Ted Williams won the game with a three-run home run in the bottom of the ninth.  For Williams, whose two-for-four-day was not a part of his .406 batting average in 1941, that home run always stood at the apex of his accomplishments on the ballfield.  

Reggie Jackson hitting the transformer in the 1971 game and Bo Jackson going way beyond yard off Rick Reuschel in 1989.  Curt Schilling daring Alex Rodriguez to try and hit three fastballs in 2002 and Ted Williams swatting Rip Sewell's eephus pitch into the stands in 1946.  A 1-0 game in the year of the pitcher in 1968 (in which the only run was scored by Willie Mays, who led off the game with a single), and a 13-8 slugfest at Coors Field in 1998.  Hank Blalock's two-run home run against a previously untouchable Eric Gagne in 2003 (it was Gagne's only blown save the entire year).  Babe Ruth hitting the first home run in All-Star history in 1933.   The 1934 game in which 17 of the 18 starters eventually were inducted into the Hall of Fame (Wally Berger is the only outsider).  Terry Steinbach - hitting .217 in the first half of the season - winning the MVP in the 1988 game with a two-run home run that accounted for all the AL scoring in their victory.  Each moment stands alone in our All-Star scrapbook, while also claiming a place as an important block in the ever-expanding timeline of baseball.  The All-Star game serves as a microscope, into which we peer, examine, and celebrate the nuances and elements that separate good from the great.

As a space in which to shape, witness, and impact an amazing tableau of achievement, Yankee Stadium has stood atop the baseball mountain for the better part of nine decades.  Yankee Stadium is the Grand Canyon, Mt. Rushmore, and Washington Monument rolled into one.  People come to its gates to sit atop the baseball world - always cognizant of what has played out on the field in the past; and always hoping to witness one more iconic moment.  Few have ever walked away disappointed.
The iconic and the grand  - Babe Ruth christening the Stadium with a home run on April 18, 1923, Lou Gehrig's speech on July 4, 1939, the perfect games twirled by Don Larsen, David Wells, and David Cone, two ninth-inning, game-tying home runs on two consecutive World Series nights in 2001, Roger Maris' 61st home run in 1961, Mickey Mantle Day in 1969, All-Star games in 1939, 1960, 1977 and 2007 - have permanently lifted the ballpark to a singular position in the national pastime.  But the intimate has also thickened the space with ghosts, constricting the vastness of Yankee Stadium to a deeply personal set of diary pages.  We all have our own moments at the Stadium:  the small gestures,  accomplishments, connections and performances that have melded and contrasted to construct innumerable homes that we each call our own.  These are the elements that give life to any ballpark, for the ghosts have no animation without our memories or stories.  The ballpark holds onto each and every one of our recollections - protecting, burnishing, storing safely until we sit down in a seat, look out to the field, and say, "I remember when."

On September 26, 1981, in the bottom of the ninth inning of an Orioles-Yankees game on a Saturday afternoon in the Bronx, a pinch-hitter walked to the plate.  The Yankees, trailing 4-3, had the tying run on second and the winning run on first with one out.  The pinch-hitter on this early fall afternoon strode to the plate, heard the volley of cheers cascading down from the nearly 31,000 fans in the seats, and took his place in the left-handed side of the batter's box.  The pinch-hitter had been in this spot many times before, and was accustomed to being the epicenter of great expectations and hopes.  16 years earlier, the pinch-hitter had made his debut for the New York Yankees against the Washington Senators.  On that day, he was a 19-year-old shortstop from Oklahoma whose hometown, powerful left-handed swing and original position on the diamond necessitated comparisons to a baseball legend, Mickey Mantle.  Although the 19-year-old never did match the career of Mantle, he carved out a memorable and long-lasting entry of his own.  For a time, when the Yankees were suffering their worst World Series drought since their first pennant in 1921, Bobby Murcer gave fans a reason to hand a ticket over, walk through a turnstile, and take a seat at Yankee Stadium:  three consecutive Top-10 MVP finishes from 1971-1973, five straight All-Star berths from 1971-1975, a Gold Glove in 1972, a few positions atop the leaderboards in various categories, the most runs driven in and scored in the AL from 1971-1974.  Bobby Murcer also provided a link - he had not only been compared to Mickey Mantle, Murcer had played with him, and had eventually taken Mantle's spot in centerfield.  And so the legacy continued - from DiMaggio to Mantle to Murcer.  And if that connection was interrupted by a trade to San Francisco after the 1974 season (Murcer was traded for Bobby Bonds, who had come to the big leagues saddled with comparisons to that other centerfielding legend, Willie Mays), the separation and eventual return in 1979 only reaffirmed how much Bobby Murcer meant - as both ballplayer and symbol - to the franchise and to the fans who had grown up with tales of Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Yogi Berra, Whitey Ford, and Mickey Mantle.

On September 26, 1981, with the crispness of autumn issuing a soft reminder of what was to come, I sat and watched pinch-hitter Bobby Murcer walk to the plate.  Whatever chants Murcer was hearing were drowned out by a singular voice to my right.  For above my right shoulder, my mother stood, hands clasped in front of her, smiling, intoning "BobbyBobbyBobbyBobby......(pause)....... BobbyBobbyBobbyBobby...... (pause)....... BobbyBobbyBobbyBobby."  And then, somewhere in the moment between a pause and the intake of more air, Bobby Murcer swung and hit a ball into seats in right field to win the game.

As I watched Brooks Robinson, Ernie Banks, Bob Feller, Willie Mays, and all of the other Hall of Famers standing at their positions before this year's All-Star game at Yankee Stadium, I thought about Bobby Murcer for a moment.  Once upon a time, scouts, fans and writers saw this lefty from Oklahoma and felt enough excitement and hope to compare him to Mickey Mantle.  Other comparisons to Mantle had been heard the night before the All-Star game, when Josh Hamilton stood into the left-handed batter's box during the Home Run Derby and launched majestic home runs to very part of Yankee Stadium.  And then when four Yankee legends - Reggie Jackson, Yogi Berra, Goose Gossage, and Whitey Ford - took their baseballs from George Steinbrenner and made their graceful and deeply personal gestures of a hug or a kiss on the cheek, I again thought of Bobby Murcer and all the deeply personal images I have witnessed at the Stadium.  Don Mattingly walking from third to first after the last out in the bottom of the third inning on September 23, 1995, when the fans rose as one and gave him a standing ovation for everything that he had represented; a chant - in order to express all of those same sentiments - for Paul O'Neill in Game Five of the 2001 World Series; Tom Seaver retiring Don Baylor on August 4, 1985 to record the final out in his 300th win; Bernie Williams crushing Randy Myers' flat slider in the bottom of the 11th inning in Game 1 of the 1996 ALCS; sitting with a friend down the left field line and watching Andy Pettitte beat the Orioles in a prelude to his wonderful 2003 playoff run; taking my own personal walk through Monument Park to gaze at the plaques.  And of course, listening to my mother chanting BobbyBobbyBobbyBobby and watching a connection to the past introduce himself to a new generation.

We never know when a moment will arrive and hand us another tile for our ever expanding mosaic.  Sometimes - like waiting anxiously for the moment when Mariano Rivera was going to enter this year's All-Star game - we anticipate and hope and sweat out the proceeding moments.  Sometimes - like Josh Hamilton's awe-inspiring performance in the Home Run Derby - we consider but hold our hopes in check.  Sometimes - like the pregame ceremony before the All-Star game - we are content to sit back and absorb.  Sometimes - like Fernando Valenzuela striking out five straight batters in the 1986 All-Star game - the moment instantly connects to a different era and moment and seamlessly bridges generations and decades.  And sometimes - like a pinch-hit home run by Bobby Murcer in 1981 - a moment lies beneath the surface, waiting for the proper amount of time and context to reveal its hidden meaning and importance.  But always, our ballparks welcome us, patiently offering us the chance to witness and connect to the game and the men who assemble the shapes and memories that we know as baseball.   

Thanks to baseball-reference.com and retrosheet.org for information that helped with this piece.

Once, July 4 meant doubleheaders. On America's birthday, Major League ballparks would host thousands of fans paying once to sit down and watch their favorite players and teams play nine, rest, and then trot out for a second ballgame. Although that particular tradition belongs to another era and lives only in the memories of an older generation, the Fourth of July still commands a unique and vibrant niche in the game. It serves as a resting place along baseball's seasonal journey - an offer to sit down for a moment, take stock of what we've seen, ponder what may come, project accomplishments (are there any sweeter words to the baseball optimist than "he's on a pace for...), look forward to the Midsummer Classic, and prepare ourselves for the revving up of pennant races. And although July 4 no longer issues an opportunity to "play two", it can still serve as the stage for some of the finest, most absurd, and most spine-tingling moments in the game's history.  

To a certain baseball population, July 4 will always connect to memories of a lanky left-hander battling extreme heat and an historic rivalry to toss a no-hitter in the Bronx. On July 4, 1983 Dave Righetti struck out Wade Boggs in the first and ninth innings (Boggs struck out only 36 times that entire season), bookending a most extraordinary performance on a day when the temperature reached 94 degrees.  

To others, July 4 might induce vague memories of another left-handed pitcher not performing quite as well as Righetti. On July 4, 1956 in the first game of a doubleheader between the hometown White Sox and the visiting Kansas City Athletics, Tommy Lasorda made his penultimate appearance on the mound in the Majors, throwing five-and-two-thirds innings in relief of Jack McMahan (who had been lifted after allowing three runs in only one third of an inning). 

In 1985, Dwight Gooden rose and grabbed a spot as the unquestioned ringleader in a festival that came to town every fifth day. When Dwight Gooden pitched, we watched. We watched with the anticipation of witnessing something heroic and unprecedented. We watched with the incredulity of youngsters at a magic show. We watched and we clapped and we stood, amazed by the virtuosity of a 20-year-old who had established himself as the best pitcher in the world. And even when he didn't have his stuff, Dwight Gooden still stood securely at baseball's epicenter. On July 4, 1985, Doctor K started for the Mets and through 49 pitches, two-and-a-third innings, and buckets of rain, allowed two hits, four walks, and a run to the Atlanta Braves. After a 41-minute rain delay, the game resumed without Gooden, who turned into a spectator for the remainder of a 19-inning affair that witnessed both teams score two runs in the 13th inning, Keith Hernandez hitting for the cycle, a home run in the eighteenth inning by pitcher Rick Camp (who had entered the game with a career batting average of .060) to tie the game at 11, and a conclusion in the 19th in which the Mets scored five in the top half (off of Camp) and then just barely held on to win 16-13. At 4:01 am on July 5, the planned fireworks show began.

Finally, to virtually anyone who has had the opportunity to grow up with and around the game, the Fourth of July directs a somber, yet celebratory finger in the direction of July 4, 1939. On that particular Independence Day, in between a doubleheader with the Washington Senators, in front of thousands of fans in Yankee Stadium, Lou Gehrig issued his farewell to baseball. Overwhelmed by the attention, uncomfortable with the words extolling his character and illustrious playing career, with only two years left to live, Lou Gehrig stepped up to a microphone at home plate and proclaimed, "[T]oday, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the Earth." These words came at the beginning of the speech that is broadly acknowledged as baseball's Gettysburg Address and hold the essence of a man who crafted a exceptional career through a singular style and grace. The poignancy of the moment and the humility of the man shall always reverberate, for such sharp exposure to unrelenting strength is rare, and the image of Gehrig's undeniable fortitude stands even brighter with the knowledge of how a disease ravaged his body and turned a man who once looked like a Greek statue come to life into shell of unresponding and atrophied muscles. But Gehrig's speech offered another conclusion, for when he uttered his final words into the microphone at home plate on July 4, 1939 an era - one that had witnessed three of the greatest first basemen in the history of the game share the same league and spotlight - came to an end.  

From 1933 (Hank Greenberg's first full season) through 1938 (Gehrig's last full season), three first basemen dominated the offensive landscape in the American League. Over those six seasons, Jimmie Foxx, Lou Gehrig, and Hank Greenberg finished 1-2-3 in their league in home runs, RBI, and OPS. On the career OPS list, they rank third (Gehrig at 1.0798), sixth (Foxx with a mark of 1.0376), and seventh (Greenberg at 1.0169). From 1933 through 1940, one of them started for the American League in the All-Star game at first base. The competition was so fierce at the position that in the first All-Star game in 1933, Jimmie Foxx - despite winning the Triple Crown and MVP that season - didn't even play: he was reduced to a nine-inning spectator as Gehrig manned first base for the duration. The following year, Foxx did get to play in the game...at third base. Once again, Gehrig had first all to himself. But Foxx had it better than Greenberg. In 1935 - a year in which he amassed the seventh-highest RBI total in American League history, won the AL MVP and helped lead the Tigers to its first-ever World Series title - Greenberg didn't even make the All-Star team. It seems almost unfathomable, until we remember Foxx and Gehrig. Hank Greenberg, Jimmie Foxx, and Lou Gehrig are three of the greatest players ever at their position. They are three of the greatest players to ever walk on the field at any position. Their stat lines in the Macmillan baseball encyclopedia are littered with bold highlights, indicating league-leading totals. Their power numbers - produced during an earlier live-ball era - remain astonishing even today. Before Roger Maris, Foxx and Greenberg each challenged Babe Ruth's magical record of 60 home runs: Foxx hit 58 in 1932 and Greenberg matched that total in 1938. Gehrig holds the highest single-season RBI total in American League history, with 184 in 1931. In 1937, Greenberg fell one short of matching Gehrig and produced the second-highest total in league history. Foxx hit more than 30 home runs in 12 straight seasons: the second-longest streak in baseball history. Gehrig and Foxx drove in more than 100 runs in 13 straight seasons - the longest streaks in baseball history. Each won two league MVP's (Foxx won three). Gehrig (.921 RBI/game) and Greenberg (.915 RBI/game) have the second and third-highest RBI to game ratios in history. These three men hit for power, hit for average, and drove in runs at prodigious rates. And for a six-year period between 1933-1938, they were all doing it in the American League: it remains one of the greatest concentrations of talent for a specific time and place in baseball history.

Although Greenberg, Gehrig and Foxx stand at the apex, they were not the first representation of a trio of first basemen dominating their game in the same era. The ABC first basemen - Cap Anson, Dan Brouthers, and Roger Connor - staked their own claim on the game during its infancy. Anson made his debut in 1871 for the Rockford Forest Citys in the National Association and when America was celebrating its 100th birthday in 1876, Anson was playing for the Chicago White Stockings during the National League's debut season. Anson was the first player in baseball history to amass 3000 hits, and when he retired after the 1897 season, he left as the career leader in games, runs, hits, total bases, doubles, and RBI. Brouthers - at six feet, two inches and over 200 pounds - was a giant among men in the game's early years. He led the NL in slugging percentage in six straight seasons from 1881-1886, led the league in OPS on eight occasions, won five batting titles, and finished his 19-year career with a .342 batting average - still the ninth-highest all-time. Roger Connor became the all-time leading home run hitter in 1895 - it was a post he would own until 1921, when a pitcher turned outfielder named Babe Ruth continued his gargantuan quest to claim all of baseball's home run records for himself. Connor, who also retired as the game's all-time leader in triples, played first for the National League team in New York during the 1880's when they were known as the Gothams. Connor's stature and power stood out on the team that became known as the Giants when in 1885, manager Jim Mutrie looked at his assembled talent on the field and exclaimed, "My big fellows, my Giants." Like Foxx, Greenberg, and Gehrig after them, the ABC first baseman were immense figures- both in stature and accomplishment. By the sheer force of their numbers, through the broadness of their bodies, these men dominated the game and the baseball consciousness in ways that still echo today.

Today, we are being treated to amazing concentrations of talent at other positions. In the NL East in 2007, a quintet of shortstops introduced themselves as the newest definition of a natural progression that began in the late 1970's and early 1980's. Jimmy Rollins won the NL MVP, banged-out the most extra base hits for a shortstop in NL history, and became just the fourth player ever to collect 20 doubles, 20 triples, 20 home runs, and 20 stolen bases in a season. And just maybe, it was not the best offensive season in the division. Hanley Ramirez powered the ball all over the playing field on his way to the second-most extra-base hits by a shortstop in NL history, batted .332, slugged .562, stole 51 bases, collected 212 hits, and scored 125 runs. Ramirez did all of this at the age of 23 in his second full season in the Majors, causing us to struggle to suppress our giddiness over what we may witness in the future. Jose Reyes stole 78 bases in 2007, the highest total by an NL'er in 15 years and the best effort by a shortstop since Maury Wills completed the 1965 season with 94 thefts. Edgar Renteria finished the season batting .332, which tied him with Ramirez for the fourth-highest average in the league. And when Renteria missed a considerable amount of time with various injuries, a rookie named Yunel Escobar stepped smoothly into Renteria's role and then hit .326. All of this took place during the course of a single season in one division, a decade after the holy trinity of shortstops built upon the ground laid by Cal Ripken, Jr., Alan Trammell, and Robin Yount. In the late 1990's, Nomar Garciaparra, Alex Rodriguez, and Derek Jeter jumped atop the baseball landscape with a vibrant ability to play the game. Nomar won a couple of batting titles, flirted with .400, and instigated talk of the next Red Sox icon to play at Fenway. Rodriguez won a batting title at the age of 21, went 40-40 at the age of 23, and emerged as perhaps the most feared right-handed hitter in the game. Jeter - the man who would be named the Yankees captain in 2003 - collected hit after hit and ring after ring, and affected a humility, class, and grace on the field which fell directly in line with the man who was instrumental in developing the signature style and impression of the New York Yankees, Lou Gehrig.

Ballgames are just as much a part of the Fourth of July as parades to celebrate the birth of our country, barbeques in the elongating shadows of late afternoon, and fireworks to conclude the day's celebrations. Any time Major League ballgames are played, we have the opportunity to reflect on what has led us to a point. The pace of the game allows for the conversations to build and wander and the numbers entice us into conversations about the here, there, and now. The game not only instigates these musings, it benefits from them. For when we remember, we instill life, and when life is renewed, we are reintroduced to themes and ideas that have perhaps lain dormant for decades. And although July 4 doubleheaders have been relegated to the dusty shelves of memory, they too have a place, for the images of those days and sensibilities will take us on a journey from 1876 to the present, and will perhaps allow us to recall Dave Righetti, learn about Dan Brouthers, and celebrate the lives and times of Jimmie Foxx, Hank Greenberg, and Lou Gehrig.

Thanks to baseball-reference.com for information that helped with this piece.

In the eighth inning of the Dodgers' 4-3 win over the Indians this past Sunday, Juan Pierre stole his 29th base of the season. Although the throw from catcher Kelly Shoppach beat Pierre to the base, the savvy baserunner pulled out one of his tricks and drew his left arm away from the glove angling down for the tag, then shifted his weight toward his right side and finally, neatly touched the far edge of the base with his right hand. High above the field, in the booth he has occupied since 1962, Vin Scully described the action, and in a move as smooth and adept as Pierre's, immediately connected the present with the past. Before Pierre could conclude his dusting off, catching-his-breath routine, Scully was back in the early sixties, reminiscing, reminding his viewers of another base-stealer who could confound and frustrate his opponents with his own brand of aggressiveness, speed, and boldness. In an instant, Juan Pierre and Maury Wills found a home together: tied into a package known as Dodger baseball, they were intertwined by a man and voice whose experiences and memories reach back across more than a half-century of our national pastime.

Listening to a ballgame described by Vin Scully is like sitting down with a thousand baseball yearbooks. Over the course of the two or three hours of any contest, interspersed within the balls, strikes, swings, putouts and hits, in coordination with the hundreds of slight pauses in between the action, Vin Scully travels the baseball universe. The early season struggles of James Loney in 2008 may be juxtaposed with Duke Snider's difficulties in 1947. A full-bore, all-out dive by Ryan Freel can evoke the name and attendant story of Pepper Martin. A heavy sinker from the right arm of Derek Lowe might instigate a rumination on Clem Labine. Eras and ballplayers mesh in a Vin Scully broadcast; the present - the game's moments and actors always elevated by the narration of the broadcaster - plays out before us and offers myriad opportunities to reflect and relate. With the past sitting patiently on the stoop, waiting to be offered an opportunity to join in on the fun, Vin Scully sews together the elements, creating a colorful and vibrantly resonant quilt we know as "baseball." 

Vin Scully came to the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1950. From Carl Erskine's first no-hitter in 1952 to Hideo Nomo's first in 1996, from Bobby Thomson's "Shot Heard 'Round the World" in 1951 to Kirk Gibson's improbable blast in Game 1 of the 1988 World Series, from Don Drysdale's 58.2 scoreless innings in 1968 to Orel Hershiser's streak of 59 consecutive shutout innings in 1988, from Ebbets Field in Brooklyn to the Los Angeles Coliseum to Dodger Stadium, from Roy Campanella to Mike Piazza, from Duke Snider to Shawn Green, from Maury Wills to Davey Lopes to Juan Pierre, from Johnny Podres to Fernando Valenzuela, Vin Scully has watched and described the game, and has conducted a symphonic version of the events which simplifies and expands their place in baseball's timeline. Vin Scully serves as baseball's great connector, in which his woven threads tie him and his audience to the game and its rich history and produce a cohesive vision and understanding many layers deep: illuminating, organizing, deciphering, and instilling affection.  

In the middle of every Scully-called Dodger game, the Hall of Fame broadcaster takes a moment before the sixth inning to share a particular memory or thought with his audience. He might speak about Tommy Davis and the year in which the 23-year-old outfielder drove in 153 runs. He may talk about the 100th Anniversary of "Take Me Out to the Ballgame." Perhaps he'll share a memory of Jackie Robinson in his last game with the Dodgers on October 10, 1956, when #42 swung, missed, and was thrown out at first for the final out of the 1956 World Series. These 20-second essays offer a distillation of Scully's sensibility and character, and reveal the breadth of a man who, when it comes to the ballfield, has seemingly seen it all. On the same afternoon when Pierre collected his 29th steal of the 2008 season and Scully harmoniously connected the past with the present, Sandy Koufax stood in the center of Scully's reminiscence. Scully spoke in reverential tones - 49 years after the fact - of a night on June 22, 1959 when Koufax struck out 16 Philadelphia Phillies during a 6-2 complete game win. "Later on in August of that year," Vin Scully added, "He would strike out 18 Giants, leading the Dodgers to the pennant and the World Series." And then, as he always does, Scully concluded with his warm invitation, "Let's go back to this one."  

Vin Scully and Sandy Koufax. For me, they will forever be connected.  

On a late summer night in the second week of September in 1965, at 9:46 pm, Sandy Koufax threw his final pitch in the eighth perfect game in history. Koufax's performance on September 9 stands at the apex of an extraordinary run of excellence which found its home in the distance between mound and home plate, and flashes upon our baseball world like the brightest star in a galaxy littered with sparkles and flickers. On September 9, 1965, over the course of one hour and 43 minutes on a ballfield in Los Angeles, Sandy Koufax achieved perfection. Appropriately, this achievement was brought to life and given its due by Vin Scully's unique voice and acute perceptions. The announcer's description of the action on the field, his attention to the small ancillary details like the time, the attendance, and the date, his empathy for Koufax's isolation amidst the expectation and hopefulness, and his ability to see and describe the unseen and indescribable painted a vibrant picture that elevated the action and laid magic upon the field. On September 9, 1965, at Dodger Stadium, perfection was achieved in two places: on the mound and in the broadcast booth.

The images of the present. The tones of the past. The timelessness of the game truly arises when the twin features of old and new meld their particular components and fashion a world where it all fits together. Since 1950, Vin Scully has arranged these elements in a beautiful, evolving work that invites us to remember, look ahead, and always, return to the game on the field.  

For a transcript of Vin Scully's ninth-inning call of Sandy Koufax's perfect game, visit: http://www.salon.com/people/feature/1999/10/12/scully_koufax/

Thanks to baseball-reference.com, retrosheet.org, and mlb.com for information that helped with this piece.

"A milestone is one of a series of numbered markers placed along a road at regular intervals.  Milestones are constructed both to reassure the traveler that the proper path is being followed and to indicate distance traveled, or the remaining distance to the desired destination."

Incredibly, Ken Griffey, Jr.'s  Major League debut occurred more than 19 years ago.  On April 3, 1989, Griffey - batting second and playing centerfield in the Mariners' lineup on Opening Day - doubled off Dave Stewart in the top of the first for his first big league hit.   Junior's first milestone.  On June 9 - 2,438 games later - the man who was once called "The Kid" drove a 3-1 pitch over the right field wall for his 600th home run.  Perhaps his last milestone.  For all of us who had watched and waited for the drive that placed him in the company of Bonds, Aaron, Ruth, Mays and Sosa, the surprise lay not in the achievement itself, but in how long it took to get there.  At some point in the mid-1990's, most of us assumed the journey would be shorter and straighter, more celebrated, less confusing and painful, and would end with spectacular fireworks heralding the completion of a once-in-a-generation career.  In between over-the-wall catches to snatch away home runs, a gazelle-like sprint from first to third to clinch a Division Series, and rifle-powered throws to cut down base-runners, Griffey launched majestic fly balls over outfield walls with rapid-fire frequency.  The milestones seemingly occurred every year during his first decade in the Majors: he hit his 100th home run on June 15, 1993 at the age of 23; one year later, he collected his 500th career RBI.  His 1000th hit followed in 1995, and then Griffey powered out his 200th home run in 1996.  His first 50-home run season came in 1997 and served as a prelude to his 300th career home run in 1998.   The milestones were flying by at breakneck speed, continually reminding us of the seemingly inevitable conclusion which grew larger and more defined as the distance closed.  But when he finished the 1999 season with 398 homers, the road - one he had followed spectacularly for 11 seasons - branched off to offer a new path toward the expected destination.  Griffey chose to take his march to Cincinnati - the city where his father had helped the Big Red Machine win back to back World Series titles in 1975 and 1976.  And although the path changed, the milestones maintained their presence:  early in that first season with the Reds in 2000, Griffey became the youngest player in Major League history to collect 400 home runs.  Just 141 days past his 30th birthday, Junior was more than halfway toward equaling Hank Aaron's majestic 755.  The magical ride appeared steady, home was in sight, and Ken Griffey, Jr. was confidently driving toward immortality.  And then the milestones ended and the journey - once so concise, so straight, so resolute - meandered, bogged, stuttered, and broke away from the course that we all expected.  In the four years between 1997 and 2000, Ken Griffey, Jr. hit 200 home runs.  Over the next four seasons, he hit 63.  Injury-watches replaced gazing at the markers, and Ken Griffey was largely forgotten.  

The next milestone on the road finally appeared in the middle of the summer in 2004 when Griffey became the 20th member of the 500-home run club.  The rare achievement - once expected and anticipated as just another marker on the road to a feat even more unique - had been dulled by the mishaps that prolonged the march toward what we once perceived as inevitable, and Griffey's 500th home run symbolized more of an exhale than a celebratory leap.  The milestones that we had followed for so long had led us down a road we never could have expected.

The baseball encyclopedias and storybooks are littered with the unexpected.  Dazzy Vance didn't win his first game in the Major Leagues until he was 31-years-old, and then he compiled a mountainous peak of excellence that saw him lead the Majors in strikeouts in the twenties, record 197 wins, and earn induction in the Hall of Fame.  A half-century before Ken Griffey, Jr. delighted us with his display of talent, another centerfielder opened up his career with immense promise and then found his path derailed by injury.  In 1941, Pete Reiser won the NL batting title and finished second in MVP balloting at the age of 22.  He was the youngest batting champ in league history.  The next season, Reiser was hitting .383 on July 2 when he collided with the outfield wall while tracking a fly ball.  It was the first (but not nearly the last) time he had to be carried off the field.  Leo Durocher once said, "Willie Mays had everything.  Pete Reiser had everything but luck."  In another universe, Reiser's career would have been littered with milestones all pointing the way toward a plaque in Cooperstown.  

There are others, too:  men whose final destinations came from unformed beginnings.
No one could have imagined that when the Yankees made a trade with the Kansas City Athletics on December 11, 1959, their newly acquired right fielder named Roger Maris would go on to pass one of baseball's most hallowed milestone achievements.  Maris' ascendancy in the baseball consciousness coincided with another unanticipated and startling climb.  From 1955-1960, Sandy Koufax went 36-40 with a 4.10 ERA.  After a season of blossoming promise in 1961, Koufax peaked like very few ballplayers in history.  In his final five seasons in the Majors, Koufax averaged 22 wins, 289 strikeouts, and compiled a 1.95 ERA (167 ERA+).  He won five ERA titles, led the league in wins on three occasions, struck out a (then) Major League record 382 batters in 1965, was named the NL MVP in 1963, and pitched no-hitters in four straight seasons, culminating the mastery with perfect game on September 9, 1965.  Koufax's journey did not follow the usual course, and his milestone achievements stand within his seasonal odysseys:  20 wins, 300 strikeouts, ERA's less than two.  Fall Classic dominance.  Four no-hitters.  A brilliance illuminated by 10,000 foot-candles of brightness.  Koufax's burst of excellence resonates for its immediacy and suddenness and its abrupt conclusion that leaves us only with those memories of greatness.  The attendant milestones mark the trip with the same splendor.  

More than thirty years after Sandy Koufax stepped off the mound for the last time, another left-hander began a similar run of excellence and dominance.  Unlike Koufax's meteoric rise and equally abrupt goodbye, this southpaw's apex evolved from an earlier phase in which the milestones had begun to identify the journey.  Randy Johnson made his first start for the Mariners in the same year Ken Griffey, Jr. debuted for the team, and one year later, Johnson passed his first milestone with a no-hitter against the Tigers.  After that, the markers began to appear with greater and more impressive frequency.  His 1000th strikeout victim swung and missed in 1993.  His 99th win (not quite reaching the normal marker, but getting close enough to squint and see it in the distance) came on the last day of the 1995 season when he pitched a complete game and allowed just one run in Seattle's victory over California in the third one-game playoff in American League history.  His 2000th career strikeout came in the final game of the first season of Johnson's rise to the top in 1997, and began a run of dominance that would end in 2002.  From 1997-2002, Randy Johnson averaged 20 wins and an astounding, jaw-dropping, still hard-to-believe 340 strikeouts.  There have only been nine seasons since 1893 when a pitcher struck out 340 batters in a season - Randy Johnson averaged that total for more than a half-decade.  His ERA over that span was 2.58, and his ERA+ was better than Koufax's during his run.  And then, when the lightning and thunder portion of the journey wound down, the milestones kept appearing, kept passing, and kept leading toward the realization of the truly historic.  3000 strikeouts appeared before the blur of 2001, when Johnson recorded the third-highest strikeout total in modern history, won his third straight Cy Young Award, recorded three wins in the World Series, and was named co-MVP of the Fall Classic.  His 4000th strikeout came in 2004, as did a perfect game - the 17th in Major League history.  After a brief time in New York, Johnson has followed the signs leading the way back to Arizona, back to the place where he reshaped the image of the strikeout pitcher in the dictionary, where he leapt to the top of the headlines, where he continued to travel toward a destination reserved for only the greatest of the game.

Randy Johnson currently sits on 288 wins.  The milestone 300th win beckons, offering itself as one final indicator on this Hall of Fame journey.  Ken Griffey, Jr. currently stands 269 RBI short of 2000, a few re-energized seasons away from becoming only the fourth player in history to achieve that nice, round number.  Neither man needs to play another day in the Major Leagues to ensure his legacy and place in the baseball timeline.  Ken Griffey, Jr. was the face of baseball for a decade - he played with a flair and poetry and dynamism that few have ever approached.  He made us believe in the attainment of achievements that we previously considered unapproachable.  Randy Johnson revived the sensibility of another era, when pitchers could instill fear into the jelly-legged torsos of batters, and along the way, established himself as one of the greatest to ever toe the rubber.  Both men - teammates for more than eight seasons - have reached and passed enough milestones to solidify their places among the game's most elite.  They will always serve as reminders of a particular place and time in the baseball world, when Griffey's sweet swing and backwards baseball cap offered a joy and a counterpoint to the menacing glare of Randy Johnson as he prepared to unleash another slider on an overmatched batter.  But Griffey's 600th home run milestone and Johnson's 300th win milestone remain important and essential to the story.  In connection with their achievements, we will be given the opportunity to remember and recall those times when these two ballplayers showed us something all too rare and fleeting.  We will be given the opportunity to relive and reassess, and the thousands of images and moments that we associate with Ken Griffey, Jr. and Randy Johnson will coming flooding back to us in a gust not unlike the refreshing sensation of feeling the wind against our face with the window down on a journey to anywhere.  For that is the job of milestones - to remind of us where we've been and to give structure to where we are headed.

Thanks to baseball-reference.com for statistical information that helped with this piece.

He was larger than life.  Sustained by a gargantuan appetite, he crisscrossed the countryside and exhibited a prodigious ability to dominate his chosen craft.  He was a paragon of strength, as brave as could be, and his exploits captivated anyone lucky enough to bear witness.  As he continued to wield the tool of his trade, the stories of his journeys expanded, growing even larger than the man himself, until finally, they evolved into the stuff of legend.  This was Babe Ruth.  This was Paul Bunyan.

There are heroes and villains in the story of baseball.  Improbable adventures, epic battles, glorious victories, and bitter defeats color the boxscores.  Larger than life characters populate the record books and encyclopedias.  In the first edition of The Bill James Historical Abstract, James wonders if Hal Chase might have been a character created by Robert Louis Stevenson.  In his wonderful book, Baseball America, the author and baseball historian Donald Honig sets up the historic convergence between Walter Johnson and Smoky Joe Wood on September 6, 1912 by borrowing imagery and language from the American Wild West.  Baseball even has its own creation myth:  the story of  Abner Doubleday inventing baseball in Cooperstown in 1839.  Although this particular tale has been repudiated, and we now have a much clearer and realistic timeline to associate with the evolution of the game of baseball,  the myth retains its importance.  It provides insight into a specific desire to understand and claim, and as such, lends itself to our understanding of the national pastime and its place in the history of our country.  The stories of our baseball heroes - polished by fantastical stories and grounded in empirical evidence - illuminate the game and lend a sense of otherworldliness to our love for it.  In a sense, the stories make our heroes come alive, and add color and depth to the numbers.  Did Ruth call his shot in the fifth inning of the third game of the 1932 World Series?  We don't know.  But it falls in line with everything else we know about the Babe, and the myth creates a finer-tuned image of him.  The stats and stories of ballplayers align themselves into thousands of photographs which imprint themselves in our conversations and memories, and the resulting assembled pictures reverberate with a liveliness and tangibility that would otherwise remain static and unimpressionable.

Last week, Major League Baseball held its annual First-Year Player Draft in Orlando, Florida, and the yearly excitement of predicting greatness, prospecting for unrefined gems, and assembling components of the future had its few days in the sun.  This year, 29 men and one woman - all in steep contrast to the youth surrounding them - lent a poignant counterpoint to the stories of kids chasing their dreams to become the next great baseball star.  Andrew Porter, Mahlon Duckett, James "Red" Moore, Harold Gould, Emilio Navarro, and Mamie "Peanut" Johnson were among the 30 former Negro League players invited to Orlando to participate in a Negro League Player Draft in which each MLB club selected one of the former players in attendance.  None of thirty - when their arms were strong, when their bats were powerful - were given the opportunity to play in Major League Baseball.  When I read the news of this additional element to the draft, began to study the names and bios of players like Bob Mitchell, Jim Colzie, Otha "Li'l Catch" Bailey, Bill Blair, "Prince" Joe Henry and Charley Pride, and started writing questions for them (MLB Productions was given the opportunity to conduct interviews with some of the invitees), I began imagining their baseball lives:  the players they had seen, the battles (on and off the field) they had fought, the myths they had created.  Despite the profound advancements in research and scholarship that have given substance to the careers of players like Bert Simmons, Mack "Mack the Knife" Pride, Cecil Kaiser, Robert Scott, Ulysses Hollimon, and Walter Lee Gibbons, we still know too little about the exploits, achievements, glorious victories, and bitter defeats of the Negro Leaguers.  But, in place of the solidity of the statistical evidence, we do have stories and myths that can foster an appreciation for their careers and abilities.  These ballplayers - men like Irvin Castille, John "Mule" Miles, Hank Presswood, Bill "Lefty" Bell, James Tillman and Enrique Maroto - may have played against Satchel Paige when he would saunter into the game, call in his fielders, and dare to strike out the side.  They may have seen Josh Gibson exhibit his prodigious strength on the ballfield - the powerful ability to hit the ball as far as anyone which gave life to a myth of the time he hit a ball so high that it didn't return to earth until the next day.  They may have been awed by the blinding speed of Cool Papa Ball, who ran so fast, it was asserted, he could flick off the light switch in his room and then be in bed before it got dark.  Some saw a 15-year old Willie Mays before the was the "Say Hey Kid."  Some  played alongside a baby-faced Ernie Banks as he worked out the rough portions of his game with the Kansas City Monarchs.  Some watched Hank Aaron hit cross-handed and wondered if the kid could ever amount to anything.  And some even played against Jackie Robinson when he was a sore-armed shortstop just out the Army.  The former ballplayers - men like Joseph B. Scott, Neale "Bobo" Henderson, Carlos Manuel Santiago, Walt Owens, Charlie Davis and Walter McCoy - saw games and played against players who, for the most part,  have been confined to incomplete sketches and caricatures.  But for the thirty former Negro leaguers who attended the draft in Orlando this past week, they own more than hazy outlines.  Their memories can take us back to another era; their stories can enliven our impressions and evaluations, and their myths can add incomparable depth to our considerations.  For a time last week, the Negro Leagues lived and breathed again, and the stories of a particular time and place were passed on from 30 former Negro Leaguers to another generation. Without their stories, without their graciousness and willingness to sit for a time and share their oral histories, our game would not be so rich and textured.

The story of baseball resides not only on the playing fields and in the statistical evidence of performances.  The connected stories and myths that accompany our knowledge and expand our recollections remain essential.  They color, illuminate, magnify, and reveal.  They sharpen our arguments, augment our conclusions, and add spice to our assertions.  Every performance or achievement we witness today begins a time-line of connectivity that reaches back into the past, imploring us to remember and contextualize.  The timelessness of baseball originates here - in the stories and myths of the ballplayers and moments that echo across the fields and reach into our memories.

"Hitting is timing.  Pitching is upsetting that timing."

When a hand cradles a baseball and the fingers settle upon one of the myriad possibilities that arise, a subsequent artistry can be created.  The forefinger and middle finger can lie along the seams, each digit exerting equal pressure on the ball.  The same two fingers can also rest across the seams, again with equal amounts of force being placed on the connection.  The ball can be choked back into the base of the palm.  The ball can be held delicately with the fingertips.  The amounts of pressure can be altered.  With a twist or flick of the wrist, different torques of spin can be generated.  When the ideal combination of these elements and possibilities is achieved, the flight of the ball from pitcher's hand to catcher's glove moves across the three dimensions and into a fourth - a place in our mind reserved for the best that we have seen:  a collection box for pitching perfection.

Over the course of three successive seasons in the 1980's - 1986, 1987, and 1988 - three particular pitchers began their Major League careers and struggled to find those grips, pressure points, twists and flicks that would spawn artistry.  In their respective debut seasons, their aggregate numbers produced a 6-15 record and a 5.51 ERA.  Two decades later, they have combined for 865 wins, a 3.29 ERA, 8,930 strikeouts, 154 saves, seven Cy Young Awards, and countless moments and pitches that all reside in that collection box of memory.  From inauspicious beginnings to celebrated conclusions, John Smoltz, Greg Maddux, and Tom Glavine have intertwined their careers, and the sum totals of moments and exhibitions of virtuosity resonate like few other confluences in baseball history.  For me, they are the Willie, Mickey, and the Duke of a generation.  A trio of ballplayers, refracted and reflected against one another by the twin variables of time and geography, forever connected by their similarities, contrasts, and adeptness on the ballfield.  Their identities and numbers do stand alone, but they are also subsumed by the connection.  SmoltzMadduxandGlavine.  A breath and phrase that speaks volumes about three extraordinary careers that found a home together for a decade.  

Working the extremes of the strike zone with the patience of a sculptor who quietly and methodically chips away at his stone, Tom Glavine never gave in.  His countenance on the mound always even, his focus never wavering, Tom Glavine explored and then claimed the outside black of the plate.  Change-up after change-up, pitches drifting to the plate, falling away as if pulled toward a home six inches off the plate - a safe haven away from the ferocity of the bat.  This unassuming but powerful interpretation of pitching that led to 305 wins, two Cy Young Awards, and a World Series MVP to acknowledge a masterpiece in the 1995 Fall Classic.

When he stood atop the mound and placed his fingers on the ball, Greg Maddux became Picasso.  He reinvented the art form, causing us to reconsider how we saw and appreciated the dance of the ball from mound to batter's box.  With the slightest alteration of pressure upon the ball, with the unperceived change in the speed of the ball, Greg Maddux painted master works that we hadn't even considered.  The pitch bores in on the left-handed hitter's hip, bee-lining itself till the very end, when, as if it has just remembered an errand on the next side street, the ball darts back toward the center of the plate.  It whispers across the black, and the batter, having already given up the battle, consigns himself to serving as just another print autographed by "Greg Maddux."  17-straight seasons of 15 or more wins.  350 victories in all.  Four Cy Youngs.  A magical sequence of two summers in 1994 and 1995 when he was as good at pitching as perhaps anyone has ever been.  Greg Maddux was devious, artful, mischievous, aggressive, and one of the greatest pitchers to ever stride to the mound.

I close my eyes and see John Smoltz standing on the rubber, looking in for the sign.  Underneath his jersey with the number "29", his ubiquitous t-shirt with the blue sleeves ending around the elbow.  The classic delivery unleashing lightning.  Sliders that exploded.  Splitters that disappeared.  A first-pitch fastball that never changed plane or direction but simply eluded bats by its sheer force.  And even on a few rare occasions, a fluttering knuckleball emerged - just to confound, bemuse, and add to the legacy.  At the age of the 24, facing his boyhood idol Jack Morris in Game 7 of the 1991 World Series, he took a shutout into the eighth inning - it would be the start of an iconic postseason career that has witnessed 15 wins against only four defeats.  John Smoltz was lightning - the brightest light illuminating its surrounding with such force that an imprint was left long after the flash.  Whether it was his 1996 season, when all of that talent and all of those magical pitches joined forces to contribute to 24 wins and a Cy Young award, or whether it was his career as a closer when, allowed to direct that fierce arsenal into the contracted experience of one-inning, John Smoltz was neither patient nor mischievous - quite simply, he was filthy.

Smoltz, Maddux, and Glavine.  If the mound and the distance between the rubber and home plate served as their tapestry, their gallery owner was Leo Mazzone.  The rocking sage - perched on the bench in the dugout - quietly overseeing his charges, watching them, aiding them in their development from apprentices to journeymen to master craftsmen.  Quietly passing on the accumulated knowledge that he had learned from Johnny Sain, who perhaps passed on a bit of wisdom that he had heard from his former teammate, Warren Spahn:  "Hitting is timing.  Pitching is upsetting that timing."  And through the thunder and lightning of sliders and splitters, through the perfected patience of changing speeds and living on the corners, and through a playfulness that gave the batter just enough of a of a pitch to ground it or lift it weakly somewhere on the diamond, SmoltzMadduxandGlavine - in the alternating shadows and sunlight of thousands of innings - pitched like few others, and in the process filled enough collection boxes with enough images and memories to last three lifetimes.

John Smoltz.  Greg Maddux.  And Tom Glavine.  They are all near the end now, winding down and putting the finishing brushstrokes on their magnificent visual autobiographies.  Selfishly, I hope they continue to pitch.  I want to see Tom Glavine continue to mystify batters with that same falling-away change-up.  I want to see Maddux make a run at Spahn's 363 wins and then maybe take on Christy Mathewson and Pete Alexander, who, with their 373 wins, have always seemingly stood beyond the grasp of modern-day pitchers.  And I want to watch John Smoltz pitch one more time - pain free, loose and happy, the master in the middle of diamond - and invite some helpless hitters to try and hit that darting slider.  And perhaps not so selfishly, I also hope they retire together.  I hope that one day, in the same space in the plaque room of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, three plaques will rest together.  In my mind's eye, they will always be together - three gunslingers, three artisans, three paragons - each working his own unique magic, each defining his own brand, each illuminated by the other - Smoltz, Maddux, and Glavine.

Thanks to baseball-reference.com for statistical information that helped with this piece.

Earlier this week, a centerfielder named Jay Bruce made his highly awaited and eagerly anticipated Major League debut for the Cincinnati Reds.  This hot prospect - the 12th overall pick in the 2005 draft, the 2007 Minor League Player of the Year - took his spot in the left-handed side of the batter's box in the bottom of the second inning, settled in with his feet planted, body and hands swaying rhythmically in anticipation, waited for the cheers cascading from a standing ovation to flutter away, and proceeded to patiently allow four balls to cross the plate.  Bruce's four-pitch walk didn't measure up to the harbinger-of-greatness-to-come that Ken Griffey, Jr. produced in his first at-bat in the bigs (a double to center against Dave Stewart), nor did it contain the immediate, exclamation-pointed thunder of Jeremy Hermida's initial introduction to the Majors (a pinch-hit grand slam in his first at-bat); instead, Bruce's first plate appearance (which isn't even recorded as an official at-bat) served as an introductory, tentative note in a forceful opus that built each successive foray into the batter's box on this first night.  Each was prefaced with a standing ovation from the hometown crowd and punctuated with another productive conclusion of hit or walk.  Jay Bruce finished the night with an unblemished record:  five plate appearances, three hits, two walks, two runs scored, two runs driven in, one successful stolen bases attempt, and one triumphant shaving-cream pie in the face.  

Of course, no one knows where this will all lead.  Bruce's bold hello to the rest of the Majors could be the apex.  On the final day of the 1963 season, an 18-year-old named John Paciorek made his Major League debut for the Houston Astros against the New York Mets in a battle between the two worst teams in the National League.  Paciorek went 3-3, drew two walks, scored four runs, and drove in three.  And he never played another Major League game.  Or Bruce's magical first night in the Majors could eventually stand out in a career most notable for that first flash.  In 1977, Mitchell Page finished second in American League Rookie of the Year voting - he slugged over .500, stole more than 40 bases, and put up the fourth-best OPS in the league.  Page would play seven more seasons in the Majors, but never again reached the heights attained as a 25-year old rookie.  Or perhaps (and this is, of course, the hope that anyone watching Bruce in his first game holds onto, quietly, smilingly), Jay Bruce's perfect night at the plate in his very first Major League game will someday be viewed as the starting gun that announced the beginning of a very special, iconic, once-in-a-generation career.  The beginning.  The lightning flash of the rookie season resonates like few experiences in the game - for over the extended debut season, we are allowed to give full leash to our hopes of witnessing and participating along every step of a Hall of Fame career.  

Tom Seaver and Herb Score.  Dwight Gooden and Bob Feller.  Cesar Cedeno, Johnny Bench, Willie McCovey and Vada Pinson.  Mark Fidrych.  Al Kaline.  Eric Davis and Will Clark.  Fernando Valenzuela.  Jim Bouton, Ted Williams, Joe DiMaggio, Joe Black, and Tony Conigliaro.  All cannonballed into the Majors, producing a splash that delighted the amassed audience.  Each created - through outward expressions made up of equal parts talent, youth, and exuberance - the sense of excitement, awe, and hopefulness that attaches itself to any rookie sensation.  And then?  Some fizzled, leading us to wonder, "what if?"  Others continued to build upon that early explosion, using that first step as the building block on a glorious ascent toward baseball's Olympus.  And many others hung around, grinding our admirable careers, flashing here and there, evoking (but never fully realizing) the brilliance of the beginning.    

Of course, not all stories announce their start with a meteoric, blinding flash that remains imprinted on our collective baseball consciousness.  Sometimes, a career will meander here and there, picking up themes and adding to the totality, until a final moment serves as the refiner's fire, out of which a true and definitive shape stands before us.  

On June 2, 1998, at County Stadium in Milwaukee, Dennis Martinez took the hill for the Atlanta Braves.  Martinez stood on the mound that day, the winner of 242 Major League games, a 43-year-old pitcher in this third decade, and stared straight into the last vestiges of a career that witnessed glory (a perfect game in 1991) and disappointment (two poor performances in the 1979 World Series that found he and his team on the losing end).  He had led the AL in wins in 1981, won an ERA title in 1991, and pitched in four All-Star games.  Perhaps most importantly, Martinez stood on the mound on June 2 one victory shy of tying Juan Marichal for the most all-time wins by a Latin-American pitcher.  In his start five days earlier, Martinez had left the game with a 4-1 lead, only to see the Braves' bullpen blow the lead and the game and shorten El Presidente's window for tying the Dominican Dandy.  The Braves and Brewers were wearing the uniforms of the 1958 Milwaukee Braves this particular game, and when Martinez, wearing a blousy #32 on his back, double-pumped his first windup (in a pitching motion more in line with 1958 instead of 1998), his quest to match Marichal began.  I remember watching this game live, hoping for Martinez to get through five innings with a lead, hoping to see this aging pitcher fight off the realities of the years and the wear on the arm, hoping that I would get to share in the magic that springs from the meshing of the past and present.  A walk and two singles against Martinez in the first did not improve my hope, but when the second single (by Dave Nilsson) hit a Brewers runner for the last out of the inning, some of that optimism returned.   

By the time the ninth inning rolled around, Martinez was still on the mound.  Incredibly, he had allowed ten hits but no runs in the first eight frames.  And with the Braves holding a 9-0 lead, Martinez could afford to try and get the final three outs of an improbable shutout.  Following form, Martinez allowed two more hits in the ninth, but still was shutting out the Brewers.  Martinez (from Nicaragua) took the sign from Javy Lopez (from Puerto Rico), and made his pitch.  With 26 outs in the book, pinch-hitter Bobby Hughes chopped the ball over the mound, and was declared out when shortstop Ozzie Guillen (from Venezuela) ranged behind second base, cradled the ball in, and threw on the run to Andres Galarraga (also from Venezuela) at first.  Martinez's 12-hit shutout (the first in 24 years, and one of only five thrown since 1956) had tied him with Marichal, and as Martinez celebrated with Lopez, Guillen, Galarraga and the rest of his teammates, his career seemed complete.  El Presidente would never make another start in the Majors, but he would pass Marichal on the all-time wins list on September 25, when he pitched one-and-a-third scoreless innings in relief.  Martinez - whose story had begun in 1976 as a 21-year old earning the win in relief in his first Major League appearance - had concluded a 23-year career back where had begun - in the bullpen, pitching in September.

Beauty resides in every story told by a ballplayer, and all stories remain unique.  The sum totals of hits, strikeouts, home runs, wins, and errors read like braille on an always-evolving text, directing and imploring us to read between the lines to truly celebrate and acknowledge.  But no matter what the middle will tell us, there is always a beginning and an end.  Each reflects on the other, lending poignancy to the entire story.  Bobo Holloman pitched a no-hitter in his first Major League start and finished his one-year career with a 3-7 record.  In his first Major League at-bat, Will Clark hit a home run off Nolan Ryan.  In his last 59 games (14 years later), Clark hit .345, slugged .650 with 32 extra-base hits, and drove in 47 runs - all after being acquired by the Cardinals for the pennant race.  At the beginning, Ted Williams was a beanpole, the brash and antagonistic kid who compiled an historic rookie season that still dazzles.  In the middle, he was the man who hit .406, and the man who won the 1941 All-Star game, and then the man who hit .388 at the age of 38.  At the end, he hit a home run at Fenway Park in his final at-bat and then disappeared into the dugout.  

Beginnings and ends.  We have no idea of the finality that awaits Jay Bruce, nor can we imagine when that end may occur.  But his beginning on May 27, 2008 will always reverberate and ring with the excitement and intimation of what may follow.

His hands come together as the arms begin to rise over the head.  As the arms elevate, the head bows, and the connection between the eyes and the catcher's target breaks.  The head continues its descent, anticipating the full bend at the waist, which spurs a break in the connection between the hands as they fly to either side of the pitcher's torso.  And then, the momentum of the arms swinging forward carries them up and over the head of the now straightened-up pitcher, and the eyes reconnect with the catcher's glove.  As the motion continues, the right leg, bent, is raised to the "Cincinnati"  in blocked letters across the jersey.  Gloved right hand and right shin almost touch, while the left hand (cradling the ball) remains hidden behind the lower portion of the pitcher's torso.  From the batter's perspective, the pitcher's midsection twists just enough so that the outer portions of the "57" on the back of the jersey become visible--just a flash of number before the motion enters its final stage.  The delivery - almost overhand - reintroduces the ball to the equation.  The pitcher uncoils, moving in direction from first base toward the plate, head on a perfect line with the target, and the right leg kicks out.  The fastball, now free, explodes across the last part of its journey, and pops into the catcher's glove.   

Over the span of two starts through five June days in 1938, this motion (and its shorter, less complex, more contained version - the stretch) baffled hitters and led a pitcher previously known more for his bouts of wildness than for his artistry and accomplishments toward a unique, rapturous, and omnipresent niche inside the baseball hall of records.  Before this magical run finished its breathtaking course, 63 consecutive batters* had failed to get a hit against this unique and artistic pitching motion.  On June 11th in Cincinnati, and then on June 15th in Brooklyn, Johnny Vander Meer commanded the stage and played the leading role in what can only be described as the baseball equivalent of being twice struck by lightning.  In back-to-back starts - in a day game at Crosley Field and then in the first night contest at Brooklyn's Ebbets Field - Johnny Vander Meer contested the definition of impossible, restructured the bounds of the believable, and twirled back-to-back no-hitters.  

When Johnny Vander Meer strode to his home mound on June 11, he was 5-2 on the season, and his club - the third-place Cincinnati Reds - was 23-20, five-and-a-half games behind the front-running New York Giants.  His opponent on that day was the team from Boston (called the Bees that year), just a half-game behind the Reds in the standings.  The Bees would finish the season at the bottom of most offensive categories, and on this day, Vender Meer's blazing fastball and controlled curve rendered the bats especially ineffectual.  The Reds would score a run in the fourth, two more in the sixth, no Bee would make it to second, and before 10,311 fans, Johnny Vander Meer - nicknamed the Dutch Master - claimed a definitive spot in the baseball ledgers and concluded this one hour, 48-minute affair by inducing pinch-hitter Ray Mueller to bounce to third.  It was the first no-hitter in the National League since 1934 and the first by a Reds pitcher since Hod Eller turned the trick on May 11, 1919 (Eller would go on to claim more fame later that season, when he - on his way toward a three-hit shutout - struck out six straight White Sox batters in Game Five of the 1919 World Series).  Vander Meer's no-hitter was the 48th in National League history, and like Eller's, faced the very real possibility of fading into the dusty recesses of boxed-up memories and mythologies.

Johnny Vander Meer pitched in three All-Star games.  He lost two seasons when he served in the Navy during World War II, and missed more time because of arm injuries.  He threw three scoreless innings in relief in Game 5 of the 1940 World Series - a game which the Reds lost 8-0.  Johnny Vander Meer fought wildness throughout his days in the Majors (leading the league in walks on two separate occasions), struck out a bevy of batters throughout his career (leading the league in three different seasons), and finished his 13 years in the Major Leagues with a 119-121 record.  In the ninth edition of the Macmillan Baseball Encyclopedia, his career is delineated on page 2311.

The depth of Vander Meer's story - a tale told with broad strokes in the encyclopedia and given additional texture by his no-hitter in Cincinnati on June 11, 1938 - becomes altogether unique and resonant because of the chapter written when he took the mound in Brooklyn, four days after his performance against the Bees.  It was there that the lefty ensured that his performance at Crosley Field would always stay fresh and unboxed.  Paradoxically, he began the night as a footnote to a different sort of historical precedent, just one of many players participating in the first wave of a new, wobbling, tentative milestone in the history of the game.  On June 15, 1938, Vander Meer pitched in front of the second-largest crowd in Ebbets Field history.  The majority of the crowd had not chosen to attend the game because of the starting pitcher for the Reds; most were not there to see a 6-2 pitcher for a third-place team  take on the batters for their seventh-place hometown Brooklyn Dodgers.  Johnny Vander Meer did not begin the game as the main focus for the fans, whose attention was directed somewhere above the pitching mound, trained on the lights illuminating the field, stands, and men ready to find their positions.  This particular contest marked the first ever night game in Brooklyn baseball history, and 38, 784 men, women, and children had descended on the ballpark to both witness and impinge themselves on the proceedings.  

And so on this night, Vander Meer added the shadows created by night baseball to his already impressive arsenal of blazing fastballs and sharp curves.  But if the curves were breaking more, and if the fastballs were popping with greater intensity, the Dutch Master's control was less.  Eight Brooklyn Dodgers would earn a free trip to first base on this summer evening.  But seven others would also trudge back to the dugout after failing to even make contact in their at-bat.  And all failed to hit safely.  Future Hall-of-Famer Kiki Cuyler would go hitless.  As would a power-hitting first baseman named Dolph Camilli.  And so too, Brooklyn's weak-hitting shortstop named Leo Durocher.  Durocher, whose name and presence litters and contextualizes so much of what was important in baseball between 1925 - 1973, found himself at the plate, facing Vander Meer with the bases loaded and two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning on June 15, 1938:  found himself, once again, in the middle of baseball history - a  history at this moment defined and sculpted by a 23-year old left-hander named Johnny Vander Meer.

On this upcoming Sunday afternoon, sometime after four pm (Eastern Time), a 24-year-old lefthander named Jon Lester will stride to the mound in Oakland, California.  Lester will be following his Red Sox teammates onto the field, and will be shadowed by the  indiscernible, but very real shadow of Johnny Vander Meer.  The walk will mimic one taken by every pitcher who has thrown a no-hitter since Vander Meer pitched his back-to-back gems, and will connect Lester with every  mounds-man who had taken a shot at duplicating Vander Meer's handshake with immortality.  Unlike Lester's previous outing, the expectancy and tension will live from the outset of the very first pitch.  Each fan in the park, every television viewer and radio listener, all of the teammates and opponents, and perhaps even Lester himself, will be anticipating and wondering.  And as Lester begins his windup for his very first survey into the possibility, the past and the present will collide and then dance together on the ballfield.  

Over a span of five days that occurred sixty years ago, Johnny Vander Meer did his own dance with the impossible and emerged from the performance as an unlikely definition of the attainable.  No pitcher has matched Vander Meer since, but this weekend we will all have the opportunity to watch the newest member of the no-hit club try to join him at a table reserved for one.  And as we watch Lester's dalliance unfold, we'll also be treated with an opportunity to peer back toward the past, when there was a team in Boston nicknamed the Bees, when the Reds played at Crosley Field, when nighttime baseball was a controversial new concept, and when a young left-hander named Vander Meer rode a powerful, twisting, winding delivery on an ageless and unforgettable wave toward the impossible.

* A Note:  After his back-to-back no-hitters, Vander Meer's next start took place on June 19, and his dominance continued.  He got through the first three-and-a-third innings without allowing a hit before Boston's Deb Garms singled.  Starting with the first batter on June 11, Vander Meer threw 21.1 hitless innings.  The 63 batters figure referenced above includes just the hitters Vander Meer faced in the two no-hitters.

Thanks to baseball-reference.com, baseball-almanac.com, and No-Hitters, by Rich Westcott and Allen Lewis, for information that helped with this piece.  The book by Westcott and Lewis is a fun read, filled with interesting facts and anecdotes (not to mention box scores and line-scores for all of the no-hitters thrown between 1893 - 1999), and comes highly recommended for any of you wanting to learn more about the history of no-hitters.

The lefty came from California, just another face in a sea of baseball prospects bobbing here and there among the rolling tide of a vast and expansive farm system.  The righty came from the south, plucked from playing fields of the Negro Leagues.  The switch-hitter - named for a Hall-of-Fame catcher - came from the Midwest, an unpolished jewel full of jaw-dropping potential.  Each would find himself inextricably connected to baseball's story in his first season in the big leagues and emerged as a footnote in a larger and more dramatic essay.  The switch-hitter would play alongside Joe DiMaggio in the Yankee Clipper's final campaign in the Majors, a rookie quietly deferring to the icon and waiting for his chance to roam centerfield.  The righty would be waiting in the on deck circle with a unique vantage point for Bobby Thomson's home run that gave the Giants the pennant.  The lefty would make his Major League debut just two days after his teammate Jackie Robinson trotted out toward first base for his first game in the Majors.  Each would struggle in that first season, too.  The switch-hitter famously considered leaving the game after failing in his first taste of the Majors.  The lefty batted only 89 times in his debut season, and failed to hit a single home run while striking out in more than a quarter of his plate appearances.  And the righty would start off hitless in his first 12 at-bats before homering off Warren Spahn for his first big league hit.  Each would patrol centerfield in a ballpark in New York.  Each would blast out home runs in prodigious quantity.  Each would be held up by his fans as the best the town had to offer.  And each would settle into a magnificent playing career whose chapters would find a permanent home in baseball's Hall of Fame.  Willie, Mickey, and the Duke.

In the nineteen-fifties, Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle, and Duke Snider stood at the epicenter of the baseball world.  In ballparks as famous and iconic as the players would someday become, they ran down long fly balls, hit searing line drives, and led their teams to pennants.  Willie Mays flew around a playing field in Manhattan and exhibited a style, grace, and innate sense of baseball-ness that made it seem as if he were born to play the game.  Over in the Bronx, Mickey Mantle turned his unique and unprecedented blend of power and speed into the focal point of a dynasty that placed his image atop a totem of greatness and dominance.  And Duke Snider, overseeing his kingdom in Brooklyn, followed a path of quieter consistency and demeanor, issuing resounding thwacks with his sweet and powerful swing, offering counterpoints to the cowbells and ringing instruments; the Duke, the regal centerfielder always pushing to elevate his team to the golden promises of next year.

Willie, Mickey, and the Duke.  In 1956, Mantle led the Majors in batting average (.353), home runs (52), and RBI (130).  The triple crown season remains an apex and symbol of all that could be accomplished when this man was healthy and able to mesh his vast talents and abilities in a concentrated drive toward excellence.  In 1957, Willie Mays became the first player in Major League history to steal 30 bases and hit 30 home runs in back-to-back seasons.  The accomplishment represents the total package of Mays on the ballfield - the running and hitting, the power and the speed, the promise of any given moment flashing and resonating with wonder.  As Leo Durocher once said, Mays could do it all.  In the nineteen-fifties, Duke Snider hit more home runs (326) and drove in more runs (1031) than any other player in baseball.  Day-in, day-out, year-in, year-out - the remarkable resume of a remarkable ballplayer fulfilling his responsibilities and making manifest the magical qualities that could turn a power-hitting centerfielder into a magnetic and smile-inducing paragon.

Willie, Mickey, and the Duke.  The summers were their stage.  And the autumns, their encore.  Mickey Mantle hit more home runs than any other player in World Series history.  Willie Mays used up every inch of his centerfield to run down a drive by Vic Wertz.  Duke Snider remains the only player in World Series history to hit four home runs in two different series.  In every year from 1951 - 1964, at least one was playing in the Fall Classic.  Each brought a title to his team, and each became a little more special for that contribution.

Every ballplayer has his own unique story to tell.  For Willie, Mickey, and the Duke, those stories resonate like few others, and sturdily stand on their own myths, facts, numbers, and anecdotes.  Still, their juxtaposition to one another expands their legacies, and adds depth and color to their mythologies.  Without the others, perhaps they don't shine as far or with as much wattage.  There are numerous combinations like this that texture the baseball timeline.  When geography and timing exert their influence, certain pairs, trios, or quartets become so linked that they forever stand together.  And when that does happen, we are left with a sum that stands above its parts.  Tinker, Evers, and Chance.  Ruth and Gehrig.  Raschi, Reynolds, and Lopat.  Trammell and Whitaker.  Mathewson and McGraw.  Garvey, Lopes, Russell and Cey.  Smoltz, Maddux, and Glavine.  And of course, Willie, Mickey, and the Duke.

Willie, Mickey, and the Duke.  As the Hall of Fame writer Red Smith once quipped, Snider, Mantle and Mays. You could get a fat lip in any saloon by starting an argument as to which was best.  Thanks in part to a song by Terry Cashman, the three names have become one - a rolling, effluent, harmonious combination that immediately speaks to a different era when three of the greatest to ever play the game shared the same city and magnetized the same baseball universe.  A trio of ballplayers - forever linked, forever resonant,  forever connected in a perpetually sparkling centerfield of their youth.  Willie, Mickey, and the Duke.

To be continued...

Thanks to baseball-reference.com and baseball-almanac.com for information that helped with this piece.