 |
| is first base, socially, a "third space"? |
Counseled by his lore-wise father Vladimir Guerrero Sr. (aka Dadimir Guerrero [I can't believe this has not caught on outside of my home]), Vladdy offered brief words of regret Friday about the totally reasonable and indeed sympathetic things he has said recently about the way things have weighed on him throughout this difficult season that now draws to its close. "Sorry you got mad about it, but this says way more about you than it does about me" (words, to be clear, he did not speak) would have totally sufficed, in my view, but Vladdy arguably chose the more sensible path of trying to get beyond it all as soon as possible. "I regret my comments the other day," Arden Zwelling reports Vladdy to have said. "I felt from my heart that my fans and my teammates needed an apology from me. I'm going to continue to work hard to make my contract great." This seemed to largely appease (if I may) "the haters," which is quite odd, in that that final sentence is no different from anything he has said or done previously, and yet "the haters" are seemingly now like "uh, finally" about it. Baffling! And yet it seems to have been the thing to do; his father was right. "He told me what I did was wrong and to make sure that I do what I’m doing right now—to give my fans an apology." Senior has been around for a minute; he knows how these things work (also do you remember how it was almost heartbreakingly beautiful to watch him play baseball? because that's something I remember quite clearly). For my part, I found this discussion between Nick Ashbourne and Andrew Stoeten to contain so close to all of my thoughts on the subject that it might as well have been literally all of them (there's no practical difference), including, but not limited to, that, yes, if you chose to take everything Vlad said in the absolute least charitable way possible, it's true that anyone already mad about him, anyone looking for the coarsest possible explanation for the inexplicable ("Vladdy is not trying to be good at baseball anymore because he is like 'got paid, lol'"), was pleased to feel that they had yet more reason to be mad, or that their existing grievance had been validated by Vladdy's scheming indifference, or whatever, but that if we afford him anything even remotely approaching the amount of charity and grace we would do well to afford all people at all times, it is entirely impossible to have minded any of this at all. Ashbourne, with whom I find myself often in agreement, ventured, too, that the way in which Vladdy plays and carries himself (joyously, as Ashbourne characterizes his aspect simply and perfectly) inevitably crashes, and at times crashes hard, against the craggy shore of "playing the game the right way," a fading (yet persistent) miserable redassery that, as Ashbourne notes, is inescapably racially (we can add, too, nationally) coded. And if we think any of that can be avoided, even in a city as wonderful (and with as many historical and ongoing ties to the Caribbean) as Toronto, the answer to that is of course a regrettable but hard "nope" (indeed, it could be argued to rank highly amongst our hardest and most regrettable nopes). Anyway, if you would like to listen to a discussion of all of this silliness by reasonable people ("reasonable" in the sense that they broadly agree with me, rather than with my foes [who don't even know they are my foes; it's sad, really {for them, not me}]), I would say the above-linked podcast is really your only hope to do so.
To baseball proper, though, as in the game itself from Friday night: oh hey we won! And in a fun way! A four-run seventh to come back from a game we'd been trailing five-two for seemingly ever! The highlight, for me, was Vladdy's RBI single, and I like those to begin with, but this time, the broken barrel of Vladdy's bat followed the ball as it made its way towards the pitcher's mound and redirected it into right field beyond the second baseman's reach; I have honestly never seen anything like it. Have a look! The Reds' dugout afterwards was kind of like, is that okay? Is that a thing that is okay? And the umpires, to their credit, all got together, shrugged for a little while, and essentially concluded that, I mean, yeah, I guess it has to be, right? And play resumed, as it so often does.
KS
No comments:
Post a Comment