The last game of the season
Hello, friends!
I've been in a baseball mood lately. No surprises there; it's the start of a new season, all possibilities and fairy tales waiting to be written.
This weekend I watched Moneyball (for the dozenth time); I love this movie for how quiet it is, and how unlike any other baseball movie it is. The main characters aren't the players on the field, but the staff in the offices who are trying to build a championship team on the smallest budget in the league. And yet it's still a perfect depiction of how hard it can be to find meaning in what you do.
There's a big moment in the film where a high-pressure game scenario gets a beautiful, satisfying conclusion. Afterward, while most everyone is riding high on this turn of events, the general manager (Billy Beane, played by Brad Pitt) says, What's the point? The assistant GM says, We just got the record.
Beane's answer:
I know these guys. I know the way they think, and they will erase us. And everything we've done here, none of it'll matter. Any other team wins the World Series, good for them. They're drinking champagne, they get a ring. But if we win, on our budget, with this team...we'll have changed the game. And that's what I want. I want it to mean something.
I get where he's coming from, but this is one of the most tragic moments in the movie to me. It's a painful illustration of the notion that enough is never enough, that legacy is more important than being happy. Earlier in the movie, Beane says to Art Howe, his team's manager, If you lose the last game of the season, nobody gives a shit. (Context: He's talking about the stellar season the team had just had, before flaming out in the playoffs. Lose the last game in the playoffs, he's saying, and the great season means nothing.)
Which...come on. Even the team with the losingest record is still made up of some of the best ballplayers on the planet, who still produce magical moments, little micro-stories of joy, every single day of the season.
I also watched Facing Nolan, a documentary about Hall of Famer Nolan Ryan. I was a kid when Ryan came to pitch for the Houston Astros; I don't remember if I ever saw him throw, but I definitely remember going to many games in those orange and yellow seats.
Ryan, if you're not familiar, will likely be remembered by history as the greatest pitcher in the game. He finished his career with 5,714 strikeouts, the most of all time; the pitcher with the second-most strikeouts, Randy Johnson, has nearly a thousand fewer. Ryan threw seven no-hitters; two other pitchers are tied for four. Ryan played professionally from age 19 to 46, which is just unheard-of. His fastball was measured at 108.1 mph.
But in the beginning he was wild, all that raw talent causing havoc in games. In high school, the documentary asserts, he hit a batter in the arm, breaking the kid's bone.
In the majors, he spent five years playing for the New York Mets, who, according to the film, never quite figured out how to get the most out of Ryan. Ryan was homesick, doubting whether baseball was his calling, and ready to quit the game when he was traded to the California (now Anaheim) Angels, a team nobody considered a viable contender.
In California, however, Ryan's career got its first break. The pitching coach there recognized Ryan's lack of polish. After all, Ryan says in the film, he'd never had a real pitching coach before; no one taught him the fundamentals of how to throw. The coach pointed out that Ryan's pure power, improperly channeled through his windup and follow-through, was the cause of the wildness: Ryan threw so hard he often stumbled off the mound after every pitch. The coach solved this by standing in front of Ryan when he was on the mound. Ryan would have to correct his delivery to throw past the coach, or he'd hit him, and that's what he did.
That small piece of mentoring, the film suggests, was the necessary adjustment to produce a legend, and the rest is history.
And yet Ryan himself said that when he stepped onto the field he didn't like himself. Every game he started, he said, he intended to finish. Every game was a chance to push himself to be better than he'd ever been. His teammates noted that he was incredibly demanding, often angry in the dugout when games weren't going well or when he wasn't throwing the way he wanted to.
There's a lot of Billy Beane in Facing Nolan, I think. And don't get me wrong: There's an angle here that's understandable, even admirable, which is that to be great at baseball you have to push harder than anyone else, and you have to keep it up for 162 games and then some.
But there's also a moment in Moneyball where a scout sits at a dining table with a prospective player and his parents, and says:
We're all told at some point in time that we can no longer play the children's game, we just don't...don't know when that's gonna be. Some of us are told at eighteen, some of us are told at forty, but we're all told.
It's a nice reminder that, no matter how important the game might seem—whether that's baseball, or writing books—it's still just a game. We're meant to enjoy it, aren't we? And maybe there's a balance to strive for: To push ourselves to be better, but to remember how fortunate we are to be there in the first place, doing a thing we love, and recognizing the little everyday peaks that really do matter.
The movie gets this, too: Beane's daughter plays us to the credits, singing a cover of Lenka's "The Show," but improvises a new ending. Instead of repeating I want my money back, the girl sings:
You're such a loser, Dad
You're such a loser, Dad
You're such a loser, Dad
Just enjoy the show
In that regard, the movie embraces the idea that winning isn't everything. Sometimes trying, it seems to say, even if you fail (hard, and publicly), is more valuable than getting the thing you wanted.
Something to remember any time you pick up a baseball bat, or sit down at your keyboard, or tune your guitar, I think.
✏️Until next time,
Jg
Thanks for subscribing to Letters from Hill House! You're reading the free edition.
- The Edge of Sleep is coming June 2023. Pre-order here!
- If you'd like to also receive The Dark Age letters, here's how to do so
- If you're enjoying the newsletter and would like to buy me a coffee, here's how to do that
- My web site has more writing, and info about my books
- If you just want to say hello, just click Reply, or email me
Note: This newsletter may contain affiliate links for which I earn a small commission from qualifying purchases.