Cole St. Clair and His Father: What Is The Story?

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I only share this because it is beautiful, it speaks to the inherent unfairness in sports and of a fathers love.

This is not an attmept to in any way claim LSU did not deserve the win. So there is no need to reply with trash talk or stupiidity have the class to read and enjoy something that is well written and beautiful.Defeat

[Note: it is now Friday, not Tuesday. Work has been non-stop, including two days of travel, yet I am still processing Tuesday. As Roy Scheider hears in “All that Jazz:” “Shock, Anger, Denial, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance.” I don’t know where I am.

Defeat.

How one outwardly reacts to the experience is to some extent controllable. So one adopts the lexicon: “Turn the page…A privilege to simply be here…it’s a crapshoot…all about who’s hot.” Or as John McKay once told his USC football team after a loss in the Rose Bowl to Ohio State, “One billion Chinese didn’t know the game was played.”

How one feels is not as controllable, for emotions must run their course, and while they differ in and for each of us in intensity and ability to deflect, based on situation, proximity, personality and self-awareness, we share far more of the feelings flowing out of defeat than we hold alone.

We all suffer, some more than others. Suffering is the common bond, as is love. We suffer because we have chosen to love:

“Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket--safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”
~C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

While these very present feelings do run their course, in addition to sadness I feel guilty, sorry, and empty, almost as if we had suffered a “small” death (we recently had a death in the family, so I am careful not to equate the two). I cannot explain why, but these feelings create guilt. This is senseless, we have an existence, my son, my family and I, which many would want for themselves insofar as he has completed a nearly-ideal career at a major academic university, which simultaneously provided the opportunity for a nearly-ideal career in college baseball—and the immediate prospect of playing professionally, truly a universal dream for boys all over the world. The fall from the dream to reality of defeat, though, is precipitous and instant.

“From the sublime to the ridiculous is but a step.” -- Napoléon Bonaparte,

After proclaiming himself First Consul of the French Republic in 1799, Napoleon waged war on three continents against every significant military power of the known world. After a string of victories that altered world history, he suffered an unexpected and massive defeat, chiefly due to an excess of ambition that overstretched supply lines and put his troops at the mercy of a Russian winter which took no prisoners.

Napoleon kept a journal during his campaigns, which is still published today, and is worthy reading. I loved the book 20 years ago, and some quotes came to mind in reflecting on our Tuesday game, the last defeat in my son’s amateur career.

“Send me 300 francs; that sum will enable me to go to Paris. There, at least, one can cut a figure and surmount obstacles. Everything tells me I shall succeed. Will you prevent me from doing so for the want of 100 crowns?”

It’s the little things, isn’t it? For want of a nail, and so on.

Now, I didn’t say “losing pitcher” to my son. Rather we talked about the perfect storm of seemingly survivable events and perceptions that cost Rice a game that was all but won. I spoke, angrily at times, about little things that collectively took the game out of his hands, so that he could be then blamed for the result (aka in BA, “Requiem for a College Career”). That’s how it is for pitchers. Remember that, all you who wish for your sons to become one.

Amateur umpires abound, proud ones, particularly in the College World Series. They are of a single mind—and the other one. Either they exploit their moment in the spotlight to demand attention, as was the case in the ridiculous Savery called strike three last year, or they refuse to be anywhere near the determination of an at-bat by refusing to call the best pitches strikes in late innings, suddenly frightened to admit to the zone they had imposed so pridefully thus far. The called third strike Cole got to end the sixth, a fastball on the inside corner at the knees on an 0-2 count, a ball that hit the glove, that was a call he would never see again. I feel as if I am Adam Zornes, holding my mitt in the frame, time after time, emphasizing that the pitch was a match to the target. “This is a strike now, as it had been a strike all game long”, Adam says. A little thing.

In this conversation my son was still taking responsibility, another reflection of the exact attitude that allows him to stand on that mound at such times when the sport feels larger than life (it isn’t). He spoke mainly about fastballs selected too often, bounding balls that found holes, standing over his wounded catcher pleading, “pick up the ball, tag him again.” I replied that he threw so many fastballs up because that is what he was given, as breaking balls, the corners and the knees had been taken away. I replied that this freshly rained-on mid-western infield had dried into concrete. A batter was hit by a ball he was attempting to swing at. Yes, it ran inside, your fastball can do that, it could have gone either way…a little thing.

Or, a dead-to-rights pick-off on a move that I saw from a good angle in right field as one of his best ever…ever! That is until I saw the umpire point to second base, transforming it into a run-scoring balk (please, do not attempt to persuade. Nothing in the rule book speaks of “bending the back leg,” because it is impossible to throw anywhere without doing so.) I felt, still feel, as if it were my balk (or not).

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Or, a dead-to-rights pick-off on a move that I saw from a good angle in right field as one of his best ever…ever!

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