esrosedotblog

ONE HIT AT A TIME

I have sort of fazed out of baseball. Palm Springs' Power is in season now, a summer league no longer a farm team. The old Palm Springs Heat. Affiliated with the Angels.

I so wanted to go there when we came here but they left before we made it.

Any way, I still admire some of it from afar. The old guys. Some of the new.

This op-ed in the NYTimes really rang my baseball bells.

What Derek Jeter's 3000 Hits Really Mean

by Doug Glanviille, a good player and now an ESPN head as well as an author.

This is about the baseball that I know. No taint of the steroids. Just plain good ball playing.

And a very good metaphor for life.

Jeter’s career has been more like a plateau curve. He came on the scene at 20, made a near-instant impact, then stayed remarkably consistent and virtually injury-free year in and year out, cruising on a plane of excellence. In many respects, he spoiled us. When you progress on a flat line, outside observers are lulled into the tacit expectation that this is how it’s supposed to be. Players like this produce so deceptively that we miss the escalating work ethic required to stave off age, the sheer dominating focus it takes to be so steady at such a high level.

Now we are watching him slow down, finding out that not even Jeter can avoid the human condition. The fact that the Yankees won 14 of 18 games during his recent time on the D.L. is a reminder that even great personal accomplishment stands on shaky ground when it comes to a humming team machine. So Jeter has two ways to go. He could take his foot off the pedal and ride gravity down the gradual curve to the bottom. Or, it could end much as it began for him and he’ll go down as precipitously as he rose in the game, though his superhero status in the eyes of his supporters may grant him a parachute to soften the landing.

Meanwhile, we’ve enjoyed the counting, hit by hit. And once my kids start to learn about numbers in the thousands, I will tell them that the story of Derek Jeter’s journey to 3,000 wasn’t about numbers at all. It was really about the infinite nature of human possibility.

Of course he got paid a fortune and all. That is what happens now if you are good. This isn't about that.

It is about the hard work a day at a time. And staying with it.

All of our lives could be measured this way including the inevitable decline. I can tell you about that from my own experience.

At the end, you have to let the parachute take you down. And go with it.

And enjoy thinking about the trip that got me here.

Labels: sports