Any day now, the power will return. With any luck at all, it will bring the passion along with it.
It is spring, and so we await the rebirth of elegance. We look for uncommon grace. We look for artistry under pressure, for a flow that will carry from here until October.
Along the way, we will grimace a time or two, also. There will be errors. There will be lame-brained, ham-fisted performances. There will be a blown lead or two in the ninth inning. Some will choke. Some will fail. It happens.
Ah, but then there will be those who provide excellence on a daily basis, those who can dazzle you with their ability, those who will make you shake your head and wonder: How did he do that?
When it comes to baseball, it is always that way.
When it comes to writing about baseball, you can say the same.
The games have resumed. The music of baseball, and the lyric of writing about it. To some of us, the rhythms are the same.
Maury Wills was on second base the other night and stole third. Upon seeing that Frank Howard was at bat, Wills promptly stole second again." - Jim Murray, Los Angeles Times
There are those who would like to turn back the page. They will tell you that baseball, as a sport, will never again hold the charm of olden days.
Likewise, there are those who will tell you that baseball, as a subject, also has lost something. That it was somehow better in the old days, before cliches were invented, when the written description served as the ESPN highlights.
Then there are the modernists, the ones who look at Babe Ruth running, all round and jerky in the films, who figure today's athletes have it all over the legends. What? If Ted Williams were alive, and thawed, would he struggle to hit, say, Wilson Alvarez?
Again, you hear the same thing about sportswriting. If you listen in the press box, you will hear foolish young writers boldly tell you Smith wasn't that good. They'll talk about how no one asked tough questions. What? Murray couldn't have worked in a couple of quotes?
Recently, I was asked to give a presentation on baseball writing to the St. Petersburg International Museum when it had its Baseball as America exhibit.
It was while doing research for that presentation, spending hours reading the old stuff, that another similarity between baseball and writing about it occurred to me.
No, the big guys didn't play quite the same game in those days. Yes, there was some power to behold.
"Defensively, the Red Sox are a lot like Stonehenge. They are old, they don't move, and no one is certain why they are positioned the way they are." - Dan Shaughnessy, Boston Globe
Don't get me wrong. I am not suggesting the player and writer are chums here, saddle-tramping it along down the trail, singing songs and telling tales.
Writers drive players crazy, to tell you the truth. We come in after losses and pick at the wounds. We ask the same question the last guy just asked. Often, it's a question the player would just as soon not answer.
Then there is the reasoning of former Dodger Pedro Guerrero, who once said of sportswriters: "Sometimes, they write what I say and not what I mean."
And this from Joaquin Andujar: "There are 300,000 sportswriters, and every one of them is against me. Every one."
And this from Mike Schmidt: "Philadelphia is the only place where you can experience the thrill of victory and the agony of reading about it the next day."
Go ahead, guys. We can take it.
The first star to openly war with the media was Ted Williams. To be fair, the media started it. The Boston press had its way with Williams. They were almost delightful in their savagery, as if they were in some sort of contest to find new ways to call Williams a choker.
When they would approach him, Williams would sniff the air. Without turning around he'd say: "What's that smell."
Then he would turn and say "No wonder. Not with that s-- you wrote this morning."
And on it goes. Writers have been swung at, spit upon and had water poured over them. Dave Kingman once sent a woman reporter a rat. No one was surprised he had one available.
Then, there were the words of former Giants manager Alvin Dark. Late in life, he said, he found peace.
"The Lord taught me to love everyone," he said. "But the last ones I learned to love were the sportswriters."
"A lot of people have asked me why Marge's husband, Charlie Schott, died 28 years ago. I tell them "Because he wanted to.' " - Bill Conlin, Philadelphia Daily News
Okay, okay. I can see you sneering. What, you are asking, has a sportswriter ever done for baseball?
Let's see. It was three sportswriters, most notably the dogged Hugh Fullerton, who exposed the 1919 Black Sox scandal.
It was a sportswriter, Franklin P. Adams of the New York Evening Mail, who opened the doors of the Hall of Fame to Joe Tinker and Johnny Evers and Frank Chance. Without his 1910 poem, Baseball's Sad Lexicon, it's doubtful any of the three would be in.
It was the sportswriters who took the brunt of the criticism for the harsh treatment of Roger Maris back in 1961. Funny, but no one seems to remember that those writers were quoting former stars such as Rogers Hornsby and Hank Greenberg. Ah, well.
It was a sportswriter who first noticed the androstenedione in Mark McGwire's locker. Score that any way you want.
Writers introduced us to Alibi Ike and Casey at the Bat and, of course, Sydd Finch, who was supposedly ready to make his debut in St. Petersburg. (Hey, count this newspaper as fooled. After George Plimpton wrote his April Fool's joke in Sports Illustrated, the Times sent two reporters and a photographer out to find Finch.)
"Someday, they'll hold (Barry) Bonds' funeral in a fitting room . . . He isn't beloved by his teammates. He isn't even beliked." - Rick Reilly, Sports Illustrated
In the spring of 1948, the famed Grantland Rice was in St. Petersburg to talk about the famed Babe Ruth.
Maybe you care about what he wrote:
"There is a story marching the rounds of Florida today that is beyond all telling. Its setting is deep in tragedy, but its outline is as brilliant as any rim of stars.
"It is the story of Babe Ruth, suffering beyond all comprehension, yet valiantly retracing his path of nearly thirty years ago for the good of baseball, for the good of all kids, and for the good of suffering humanity in general - whatever the cause may be . . .
"He was Babe Ruth. Recently, I've sat and watched him suffer through ball games. His face is drawn. His old bold voice is gone. Physically, you wouldn't know him. But the old spirit of sport's all-time man still carries him along, almost jauntily at times.
"The sheer courage of this man is appalling. It more than matches the power and skill of his home run days. For here is something I had not seen before - the story of a great star remarching his old paths in agony, with his aching head still held high."
On the day baseball fired its all time hits leader, Rose wore a navy blue suit, a white shirt, a red tie and a look of deadpan anguish. Cincinnati simply wore black." - Paul Daugherty, Cincinnati Enquirer
In 1962, Red Smith came to St. Petersburg, too.
The Yankees had left town. Instead, the Mets were going to train here.
Smith wrote:
"Once, it was called Crystal Lake park, and the spikes that gouged its clipped turf were worn by Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Bob Meusel. Then it was rechristened Miller Huggins Field, and the idlers who clustered in the uncovered stands each March morning watched Joe DiMaggio, Bill Dickey, Tommy Henrich and Mickey Mantle. It is still Huggins Field, but only the name is unchanged.
"The flannel playsuits have orange and blue trim with "New York' in block letters across the bosom. stretched about Fourth Street, where for years and years the city fathers hung a sign saluting the Yankees, a new banner reads: "Welcome New York Mets.' "
"It asks for nothing, this voice. It never scolds. It never whines. ... It is the game the way the game would sound if only the game could talk. It is the voice of baseball. It belongs to Ernie Harwell." - Mitch Albom, Detroit Free-Press
Sometimes, it's a one-liner, clean and hard.
Murray was the master of the one-liner, filled with prose that begged you to read it out loud to the guy next to you. Murray once suggested that Rickey Henderson's strike zone was as small as Hitler's heart. He said that ex-A's owner Charley Finley was a self-made man who was "in love with his creator." He suggested that when Boog Powell went into the Hall of Fame, his foot would be used as an umbrella stand.
There is a story about the best one-liner never to see print. Perhaps you should hear the story.
In 1976, the Phillies' Eddie Waitkus was shot by an adoring, disturbed fan. If it sounds familiar, Waitkus' shooting was the inspiration for The Natural, the book and subsequent movie.
Waitkus didn't die, but he did miss the All-Star game that year. When his replacement, Johnny Mize, made two errors, writer Charles Einstein wanted this to be his lead:
"Ruth Ann Steinhagen shot the wrong first baseman . . ."
The lead was changed.
If the one-liner is a sharp single, however, there are longer, captivating pieces. Grand slams.
Joe Posnanski of the Kansas City Star wrote a piece about the funeral of former Royal Dan Quisenberry that managed to capture both his life and his death with rare eloquence.
"It is impossibly sad inside Colonial Presbyterian," Posnanski wrote. "Every sound from the piano and organ sweep. Every word tears into the soul. So many people buzz in and out of our lives, faded friends, enemies who no longer matter, high school sweethearts, fifth-grade teachers, cabdrivers, auto mechanics, secretaries, sports heroes. All of them so important one minute, so forgotten the next, but Quiz was different. You met him, you knew him, he pierced something in you."
If you didn't know Quisenberry, you felt you did by the time you finished Posnanski's piece. That's the beauty of wonderful writing. It's a testament to its time and its subject.
"Don Zimmer is 35 years old, and he will do anything to keep his job. In 1953, for example, he matched his head against a fastball thrown by a young pitcher named Jack Kirk. The ball won and Don Zimmer damn near died." - Jerry Izenberg, Newark Star-Ledger, 1962
And so it goes. Hits and misses. Screwballs and late-inning substitutions. Every day's a blank page.
You say Babe Ruth? I say Ring Lardner. You say Lou Gehrig? I say Red Smith. You talk about Willie Mays making an impossible catch to save a game? I'll tell you about Jim Murray turning an incredible phrase to beat a deadline.
