Rookie
Game 42: May 21, 2005
Braves (24-18), 7
Red Sox (24-18), 5
W: Kyle Davies (1-0)
L: Tim Wakefield (4-3)
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: a rookie makes his debut against a hard-slugging team of veterans and shuts them out, going 5 innings with 4 hits, 3 walks, and 6 strikeouts. It sounded quite familiar to me, reminding me of Erik Bedard and Scott Kazmir of last year. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss, except this boss barely shaves yet.
Despite a late rally in the 9th led by a Johnny Damon single, the Red Sox again suffered lack of timely hitting. They had 10 players in terms of men left on base, as Don Orsillo would say. I watched the game through the filter of the TBS broadcast team, who had the same threadbare observations that everyone does about knuckleball pitchers. I’ve never truly appreciated that brilliant gem of insight that Bob Uecker bestowed upon us, “The way to catch a knuckleball is to wait until it stops rolling and then pick it up.” My eternal thanks, Joe and Chip, were it not for you, I would not have this treasure in my store of knowledge.
Cooperstown is a quaint, walkable place. In the course of the day, I would see the same folks over and over again. There was a Yankee fan with family in tow who oddly lingered long over the Ted Williams exhibit on the science of hitting and tarried in front of Mickey Mantle’s plaque while I was trying to take a picture of Cool Papa Bell’s plaque. I later saw him in the Shortstop Cafe. There was also a helpful Red Sox fan who told me that the Red Sox part of Babe Ruth’s career presented near the turnstile of his shrine and to skip the Yankee parts, which was glutted with pinstripe fanatics anway. I saw her multiple times in the course of the weekend and we always had a smile for each other. Citizens of a nation, greeting each other in foreign lands.
