Baseball in Autumn--Please Come to Boston

(from guest blogger Matt V--enjoy)

Torii Hunter ended up flat on his back in the Red Sox bullpen.

A nine-time Gold Glover in center field, the 38-year-old patrols right field now, and had run hard after a tracer heading 380-plus feet from where wood had met leather a handful of seconds ago. Hunter missed his quarry by a foot...no, less, six inches at most. His hard charge had taken him into the low bullpen wall at full speed, had flipped him, dropped him hard. He got up, and stayed in the game, a visible strawberry on the back of his head before he snugged his cap back down.

When Hunter hit the wall, his Tigers had a four-run lead. By the time he landed on his back, the game was tied.

The man who had hit the ball is a former teammate of Hunter's, and is exactly four months younger. He's already had three walk-off hits in his postseason career, the most of any player in the history of the sport. In the present spot, he technically couldn't add to that unique total. Nothing he could do with one pitch, in the eighth inning of this game, could tarnish his legend. Nothing he could do with one pitch could add to it. With the possible exception of what he did.

Baseball is the sport that's the hardest on its greatest players. Ty Cobb, Ted Williams, Ernie Banks, Ken Griffey...they're all ringless. Banks and Griffey never even played in a World Series. No matter how great you are, you have to wait for your turn at bat, for the ball to be hit within the outmost ranges of a dive or a mad dash. Torii Hunter is playing in his seventh postseason, and he hasn't been to a World Series yet. He might finally make it this year, but he might not.

His former teammate, by virtue of his position, has to wait even more than most players. Even when he gets his chance, he doesn't always get his chance; he was intentionally walked a league-leading 27 times this year. He needs a moment, and a pitch, and he's not guaranteed either. He's not even guaranteed to do anything with the chance if he gets it. He's just made it seem like he is.

Red Sox fans know waiting, and we've learned to resent it even as we could do nothing else but embrace it.The litany that marked our longest, sourest wait--Gibson, Dent, Buckner, Stewart, GradyBoone--was a weird badge of honor/Kick Me Sign hybrid. One might have made the argument, prior to nine years ago,that the team had better fans than it deserved. A fair number of Red Sox fans would have told you so, unsolicited. No longer. We've reached the point where David Ortiz, no matter what happens the rest of this series--hell, the rest of his career--is pretty clearly better than Sox fans deserve.