I write these words in the afterglow. The Philadelphia Phillies and San Diego Padres just finished a wild and wonderful playoff game. You can still see the goose bumps on my arms. The Padres led the game by a run in the eighth inning; they were trying to extend the National League Championship Series. The Phillies, meanwhile, were trying to end it. Philadelphia fans were soaked—it had been raining pretty much the whole game—and they were hoarse and manic and utterly desperate for a hero.
Up stepped Bryce Harper.
TherewaseaseinCasey’smannerashesteppedintohisplace;
TherewasprideinCasey’sbearingandasmilelitCasey’sface.
A man named Ernest Lawrence Thayer wrote those words—and the entire poem, “Casey at the Bat: A Ballad of the Republic”—in 1888. Do you know how long ago 1888 was? It was long before iPhones and television, long before movies, long before radio, yes. But it was also before air conditioning, vacuum cleaners, cardboard boxes, and ice cream cones. It was before “America the Beautiful” or “God Bless America” was written and some four decades before “The Star-Spangled Banner” became America’s national anthem.
How long ago? Sherlock Holmes debuted only a year earlier. Dracula didn’t exist. Harry Houdini was a factory worker named Erich Weisz. Walt Disney wasn’t born. Henry Ford had not yet built his first automobile. The Wright Brothers were trying to start a newspaper. That year, 1888, was before Hershey’s bars and Wrigley’s gum, before Coca-Cola and credit cards and the paper clip. The zipper had not been invented.
And in sports? There was no modern Olympics. Basketball had not been conceived. There wasn’t a single 18-hole golf course on American soil. Football was being played by only a handful of universities, and the forward pass did not yet exist.
But in 1888, already, there was baseball—joyful and recognizable major league baseball. A pitcher named Tim Keefe won 19 consecutive games. Cap Anson led the league by hitting .344. A slick-fielding second baseman called Sure Shot Dunlap signed for the unheard-of price of $5,000,* the biggest contract in baseball history.
In “Casey,” Thayer was writing about his own time. But his words still rang true as Harper stepped to the plate 134 years later.
San Diego’s pitcher was named Robert Suarez, and he was very much a modern creation, a type of pitcher Thayer could not have imagined. He stood 6-foot-2, 210 pounds, and he threw so hard that there was nothing to compare it to in 1888.
Suarez’s first pitch was 100 mph, and it raced by Harper for a strike.
Fromthebenches,blackwithpeople,therewentupamuffledroar,
Likethebeatingofthestorm-wavesonasternanddistantshore;
The two men battled for a time after that. Suarez threw two kinds of pitches—a 100-mph fastball and a changeup that, coming out of his hand, looked to be going 100 mph but was actually moving 10 mph slower. This second pitch made hitters look ridiculous.
Bryce Harper, meanwhile, was destined for this moment. He had been a baseball prodigy. He was on the cover ofSportsIllustrated at 15. He was the first pick in the baseball draft at 17. He was Rookie of the Year at 19. He was the National League’s most valuable player at 22.
He signed with Philadelphia for the largest contract ever handed out, $330 million in all, quite a journey from Sure Shot Dunlap.
“At the end of the day,” Harper said on the day he signed, “I want to be able to go to sleep and know that I gave it my all and was able to bring back a title to Philadelphia.”
This was Harper’s moment to make good.
Andnowthepitcherholdstheball,andnowheletsitgo,
AndnowtheairisshatteredbytheforceofCasey’sblow.
Suarez threw a 99-mph fastball. It was close to the outside corner of the plate … it does not seem possible to hit such a pitch. But Harper connected, and he knew that he’d hit it well. He stopped and watched it with his mouth open. That’s a wonderful time for hitters, that instant when only they know just how well they’d hit the baseball.
It took everyone else in the ballpark only a second to catch up. The ball soared to left field and Harper watched the ball fly into the stands, and all together the city of Philadelphia made a sound of incomprehensible joy.
I thought to myself—and surely I was not alone—God,Ilove baseball.
weknowthereasonssomedonotlovebaseball.it’sa slow game with lots of meetings, lots of standing around, lots of aimless jogging on and off the field. Over the past 25 or so years, the game slowed to the point that Major League Baseball changed a series of rules just to get the players to pick things up. Baseball can feel repetitive, one ground ball to second looking just like the rest. There is no clock—other than the new pitch timer—and games sometimes drone on interminably, and there always seems to be some scandal going on.
Baseball has no slam dunks, no breakaways, and little violence. There is no goal and no goal line, no basket, and no finish line. There are no blocked shots, no blindside hits, no blocked punts, no electrifying runs, no alley-oop passes, no kick saves, and no bicycle kicks.
Baseball does have math, though. Lots of math.
“You made me love baseball,” Lisa tells Bart onThe Simpsons. “Not as a collection of numbers but as an unpredictable, passionate game beaten in excitement only by every other sport.”
With all that, why do we love baseball?
I asked around.
“I love baseball,” Willie Mays said, “because it’s a game you can play every day.”
“For me,” Bryce Harper said, “I think it just began by being able to go out with my family, enjoy a game of catch. There was nothing better than going out on a Saturday and hanging out and smelling the weather and the fresh-cut grass, crack of the bat, and you’re dreaming …”
“You have to understand,” Henry Aaron said, “in Mobile, Alabama, where I grew up, we didn’t have many things to do. In fact, we didn’t have anything to do. You either had to play baseball or you probably taught school or did something else. So I loved baseball. I just felt like it was made for me.”
“Why?” Theo Epstein asked. “I honestly don’t know. My parents tell me that from the age of two on, I was just obsessed with baseball … They say I’d be down in Central Park, swinging the Wiffle Ball bat, and the crowds would gather because I’d be hitting homers, which I doubt is true. But if it...
