Empyreal Environs

Game 101: July 25, 2007
Red Sox	0	L: Josh Beckett (13-4)	61-40, 1 game losing streak 20-9-4 series record
Indians	1	W: Fausto Carmona (13-4) S: Joe Borowski (29)	59-42, 1 game winning streak 19-12-2 series record
Highlights: Beckett struck out seven and walked none in his eight innings of brilliance. Seventy percent of Beckett’s 114 pitches were strikes; just one mistake slipped from his hand into the stands in the third.

How does one write about nothingness? Last night was not an example of complete annihilation, but four hits and no runs skirts the boundary of immateriality.

Jean-Paul Sartre wrote about the nature of being-for-itself in Being and Nothingness. It is conscious being rather than the passive acceptance of being-in-itself. A being-in-itself accepts the roles and mores thrust upon him by others. They are the type of people who glow with pride when selected as Employee of the Month or bellow about being Division Managers of 49 people while driving Dodge Stratuses.

A being-for-itself is conscious of its own consciousness, knows that it is not the sum of the perceptions of the people around it. Such a person is not predetermined by an immutable essence but creates himself by action.

Josh Beckett is the paradigm of being-for-itself. When on the mound he pitches as if he were unconscious of everyone else’s expectations; he merely directs his energies to the task, ever actuating his self.

He carries this into his post-game interviews. He calmly comments on his performance and much to the dismay of Dodge Stratus-driving Division Managers’ kith and kin throws in a few blue words here and there.

NESN now puts a delay on Beckett’s interviews.

Fortunately for NESN microphones weren’t near Dustin Pedroia in the sixth when Fausto Carmona pitched the second baseman high and tight. Pedroia’s temper was already stoked in the fourth when Carmona hit the slight infielder with a pitch.

Despite the scare, Pedroia’s ground ball out moved Coco Crisp into scoring position. The center fielder reached on an infield single which coincidentally broke up Carmona’s no-hit bid. Crisp, however, was obliterated at home by Josh Barfield’s throw.

Speaking of unconscious of others, Manny Ramirez was no where near the dish to help Crisp know where to slide. Crisp also let up as he approached home for some reason.

Both speed and the stick failed the Red Sox. Julio Lugo pinch ran for Alex Cora in the eighth when the latter squeaked a single to short with two out. Victor Martinez, whose arm isn’t stellar for a catcher, erased Lugo to kill the inning.

In the ninth David Ortiz popped out to short to end the game. This season so far Ortiz has not been coming through in game-breaking situations, but if anyone can bridge the gap between what was and will be again, it is he.

Human-reality is free because it is not enough. It is free because it is perpetually wrenched away from itself and because it has been separated by a nothingness from what it is and from what it will be. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness