Hard Times

Baseball is not sweet. Baseball is not a good guy. Baseball is judgmental, a tough dad. Baseball is tougher than manganese molybdenum. Those who ignore this and want to cling to its sweetness—a sixty-six-year-old manager getting into the World Series for the first time after more than forty years in the game, a beloved team captain hitting a home run in a winning cause after painful struggles with physical disability, a local kid pitching in front of his mom and dad—will get their heads handed to them later in the evening. Never mind what’s happened, baseball says, Go and be perfect again tonight.