April 6, 2015

BP Unfiltered

A Story About Baseball and a Father and Son I've Never Met

by Sam Miller

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Fifteen years ago, in a used book store in Madison, Andrew found a copy of Roger Angell's Late Innings. There was an inscription in it, addressed to Andy—which, at the time, is the name Andrew went by. He loved that inscription, and a few weeks ago he sent it to us. Let's read that inscription, and then let's talk for a minute:

If you struggled with the handwriting it goes like this:

To Andy—

Baseball is a jewel of many facets. It is the innocence and emerging skills of a Cub Scout softballer. It is the cavorting delight of a pick-me-up neighborhood sandlot game. It is the semi-comic adult intensity surrounding a Little League contest, and the sub-conscious adult affectations of the Little Leaguers.

It is the hopes + expectations on Opening Day of an otherwise amorphous horde, unified and partially civilized by their allegiance to a common dream.

It is the bitter-sweet experience of attendance at a late September game of two teams who are by then running not in a pennant sprint, but only out the season’s clock.

It is a harmony of mind and body—like ballet—except that baseball’s skills are forged and honed in a furnace which demands not only grace, but victory, and in view of millions.

It is something which enraptures ever as it saddens.

It is something which uplifts even as it frustrates.

It is subjective, and yet it is honest.

It is something we have shared, and I am grateful.

Dad.

Now then.

There are four possibilities to explain how Andrew came to have this beautiful and heartfelt inscription from another man's father:

1. Andy died, and the book was given away with the rest of his estate. Based on the actuarial tables I looked at, and assuming he was around 20 years old when he received this book, the odds are very low: About 2 percent.

2. Andy and his father had a falling out, perhaps because Andy's father didn't approve of what Andy became, perhaps because Andy didn't approve of what he would learn as he grew older his father had always been. Or perhaps just because two substances rubbing against each other for too long will eventually erode even the sturdiest substances.

3. Andy accidentally gave the book away or lost it, and once a year on a day like today he regrets. For him, opening day no longer represents hopes and expectations, but loss and resignation. This is the most likely scenario.

4. Andy's dad wrote this inscription in every book; open up the phone book in the Andy household and there's a long and mellifluous inscription about baseball on the inside flap. The inscription, in this scenario, is simply not worth anything. This is the least likely scenario.

All sad.

So does the inscription capture the soul of baseball? You bet it does. Every season starts with hopes and expectations and ends with, in most cases, disappointment, and, in all cases, abandonment. We can dwell on this. But we don't need to. Each season's inscription is worth the risk of being hurt.

Sam Miller is an author of Baseball Prospectus. Follow @SamMillerBB
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