Kid Fan Bids Hub Adieu

Matt Bruce

It finally stopped raining here. I suppose Bay Area residents have a reason to call this "the rainy season," though I'll be happier when this ends. Greetings from San Francisco, however, where the temperature stays about 50 degrees and blizzards are a foreign concept.

My new office is across the street from the site of old Seals Stadium. The space is now occupied by a Safeway parking lot, with various other outlets. I get the best of both worlds: The historical significance of what once was but the convenience of shopping on my lunch hour.

If our company motto is "Eleven Single Men Living in San Francisco" then our house must contain "Five Single Men Sharing One Phone Line." At least my possessions are all basically settled. My bedroom even has room for a comfy chair and bookshelf, from which I happened to pull out The Best American Sports Writing of the Century, a recent Christmas gift.

David Halberstam gets top billing as editor of this excellent anthology, though it appears that series editor Glenn Stout has done most of the heavy lifting. You may recognize Halberstam's name from his own historical writing. Stout is someone I had thought of as a local celebrity, a columnist for the underground Boston Baseball magazine whose picture shows some impressive shoulder-length hair.

Boston is not only Stout's home base but also the place of origin for the finest piece of baseball writing ever produced, John Updike's "Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu." Any trivia buff could tell you that Ted Williams hit a home run in his final at-bat but only Updike could narrate the game as he did. He ran the bases with his head down and did not tip his cap or make a curtain call. As Updike puts it, "Gods do not answer letters.""Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu" is good for a memorable quote or two. Updike's observations about "the tissue-thin difference between a thing done well and a thing done ill" were the subject for, of all things, a year-in-review newspaper editorial last December. Yet for all of Updike's amazing prose, the most intriguing quote in his piece comes from another writer.

Updike relates the following criticism from a local columnist:

Williams's career, in contrast [to Babe Ruth's], has been a series of failures except for his averages. He flopped in the only World Series he ever played in (1946), when he batted only .200. He flopped in the playoff game with Cleveland in 1948. He flopped in the final game of the 1949 season with the pennant hanging in the outcome (Yanks 5, Sox 3). He flopped in 1950 when he returned from the lineup after a two-month absence and ruined the morale of a club that seemed pennant-bound under Steve O'Neill. It has always been Williams's records, the team second, and the Sox non-winning record is proof of that.

Harsh words for a legend. Updike, who vehemently disagrees with the newsman he quotes, later describes a home run hit over the Green Monster. "Williams, who had had this wall at his back for twenty years, played the ball flawlessly. He didn't budge. He just stood there, in the center of the little patch of grass that his patient footsteps had worn brown, and, limp with lack of interest, watched the ball pass overhead."It was that last passage that put a connection in my head. A few weeks ago, I contrasted Ted Williams with Willie Mays. The comparison works on some levels but there is a better analogy to the Giants' current left fielder. Imagine the newspaper quote from above, recast 5-10 years from now:

Bonds's career, in contrast [to Willie Mays's], has been a series of failures except for his averages. He flopped in three straight National League Championship Series (1990-1992), when he batted below .200. He flopped in the final game of the 1993 season with the division crown hanging in the outcome (Dodgers 12, Giants 1). He flopped in the playoff game with Chicago in 1998. He flopped in 1999 when he returned from the lineup after a two-month absence and ruined the morale of a club that seemed pennant-bound under Dusty Baker. It has always been Bonds's records first, the team second, and the Giants' non-winning record is proof of that.

Based on my second-hand knowledge, such a paragraph would not be too far removed from what the Bay Area writers already say. Therefore, someday soon I will be a Bonds apologist paraphrasing Updike:

Against the ten crucial games that make up the Achilles' heel of Williams's record, a mass of statistics can be set showing that day in and day out he was no slouch in the clutch. The correspondence columns of the Boston papers now and then suffer a sharp flurry of arithmetic on this score; indeed, for Williams to have distributed all his hits so they did nobody else any good would constitute a feat of placement unparalleled in the annals of selfishness.

Like Williams, Bonds has carried otherwise average teams just short of greatness. Both men were underrated among their contemporaries for their ability to draw walks, cast as selfish for showing one of baseball's most unselfish traits: plate discipline. Bonds is a much better outfielder and baserunner, the all-around player in contrast to an all-around hitter.
If you throw out the stark difference between their home run trots, the comparison seems reasonable enough.

Will Bonds finish his career in San Francisco? It would not mean quite as much to this city as the Williams retirement meant to Boston, since Bonds began his career in Pittsburgh. Two of his contemporaries, Mark McGwire and Ken Griffey Jr., have been traded in spite of what they meant to their first home cities. The biggest stars never stay in one place, though it would be nice for an underrated great to get his due from the same fans that saw his best years.

Will Bonds finish his career in greatness? If his skills declined, the Giants would be perfectly justified in trading him when his market value exceeded his worth. The late 1990s saw a dearth of player retirements, to say nothing of players who were great or remained great. I doubt anybody shed a tear over the departure of Chili Davis. Then again, Cal Ripken and Tony Gwynn, a pair of franchise icons, may both leave with dignity in the next year or two.

Will I be in San Francisco to see Bonds finish his career? So much is made of player movement, at a time when even their fans are relocating too fast. My new company started out in Kansas City, gradually migrated to San Francisco, and already has leads back east.

One reaction I had to "Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu" was the wish that I could have seen this game in person. Whether or not I am still here for the Bonds swan song, I will miss the exits of Ripken and Gwynn. I did get to see Pedro Martinez fan 12 men in a two-hit shutout his next-to-last September start, not to mention his performance in Boston's only ALCS win last year. Pedro will still be in Boston I come back to visit.

Between now and then, he will get shutouts and strikeouts. Bonds will hit home runs. Both teams will win games, with the luxury of knowing that this achievement is not the last one. I will watch as much as I can. But first, we make sure the rain stays away. Spring training is around the corner.

about the author

Matt Bruce now knows the difference between Tony Kubek and Bobby Richardson but thanks everyone who wrote in with the correction. Send nitpicks and housewarming gifts to mb@strikethree.com.