the bottom of the ninth

"You want to be like me? Hell newbie, most days I don't want to be like me."
-Dr. Cox, Scrubs

In every sense of the word, he had an unorthodox style for closing games. He would(almost intentionally) get at least two people on base with a maximum of one out before he would turn it up a notch and actually begin to pitch. Of course, I'm referring to Mike "The Cardiac Kid" Williams. His 12 year career included stints with 5 different teams, including my hometown Pirates. Every time Williams would enter a ball game in the ninth inning, you had to strap in your seatbelt, because anything could really happen. Nobody that I knew could understand why Williams would seemingly attempt to put himself in the absolute most dangerous situation to lose the game that was possible. Then, almost miraculously, he would realize that his role as a closer was to not blow the lead and would begin to pitch like Cy Young himself. His style often reminds me of the little kid who you keep telling to not touch the hot stove yet continues to do it because he thinks he won't get burned. The problem is, if you touch a hot stove too many times, you're bound to leave your hand on there for too long.

I woke up today feeling kinda lacksadasical. I spent the better of the day slamming into my head accounting and stat formulas that I'll need to know for the final and ones that I'll more than likely forget the second I stop using them. Accounting has been great for the brief time that we spent on the stock market. I loved that part of the course and it really just confirmed something I knew already, that I wanted to go into the financial part of the business world. Stat has been a watered down version of an educational statistics class that I took in my first semester at PSU. There haven't exactly been any great insights that I've had while taking the class and I expect to have an A in there at the end of the semester. Calculus is always a little bit tricky for me because I remember the basic formulas for doing the work yet I always seem to miss one little thing that costs me a few points per problem. In other words, I need to study a lot and do a lot of practice problems to secure the A. Unfortunately, I only have brief flashes of inspired greatness where I lay out this grandiose plan to teach myself advanced calculus and physics so I won't even have to worry about studying for future exams. Problem is, the process becomes incredibly tedious and my patience begins to wear thin after about five minutes of handling difficult concepts. I have always said that the most trying time in the school year is the last two weeks of the second semester because you are flat out burned by that time. You have to dig really deep for a last hoorah, especially if you've been grinding it out since the end of August till early May.

After cramming things into my brain for several hours, I decided to get Subway and attempting to plan out my night. Although I hate being the person behind things, everything tends to go smoother when I'm the "architect" if you will, of these things. Everyone came over Nayhouse's around 9 and we all relaxed in the hot tub until about 10:15. We all went downstairs afterwards to shoot pool. Once again, everything going fine until I saw something that of course I blew out of proportion, because that seems to be the thing that I do best. It left me in a bad mood, and I left around 11:20 to take her home. Out of all my friends, there are two people that stand above the rest, and they are nayhouse and her. I never argue with nayhouse, so that's what makes our constant fights so difficult for me to swallow. After a few minutes of screaming, I just thought out loud, why are we always fighting? And then it hit me: there is a fundamental difference between two people. I, like a true idiot, believe that love can exist under any circumstances if two people try hard enough to make it work. She sees it much differently. I respect her opinion, but I obviously don't like it. I don't really feel the need to expand upon that, so you can guess what else was said in between.

In the spring of 1999, the Pittsburgh Pirates were in the hunt for first place in the NL Central for the first time in seven years. Fans were beginning to turn out to Three Rivers Stadium again in hopes that this team could turn it around like the Pirate teams from earlier in that decade. I only went to one game that year, and I remember it quite fondly. The Pirates, as always, got off to a shaky start. I believe that Francisco Cordova was pitching that game, and he let up two runs in the first inning. After Cordova settled down, the Bucs battled back with a few hits from Jason Kendall, Al Martin, and Warren Morris(yes, I said it, Warren Morris). Anyways, by the eighth inning, the score was 4-2 in favor of the Pirates. Cordova looked like he was getting into a jam, but got a taylor made double play ball with runners on first and third to preserve the two run lead. In what I believed at the time was a dumb and controversial move, manager Gene Lamont made a not so memorable move: he brought Mike Williams in for the ninth inning. This is a move that we started to see a lot in the last decade and led to the unfortunate(in my opinion) theory that anytime you have a lead by less than three in the ninth inning, you must bring your closer in to finish the game. Williams began the inning by walking the first guy. After getting a strikeout, Williams was struck with bad luck as what seemed like a very routine ground ball was flopped by then first baseman Kevin Young. Kevin Young is best noted for being one of the worst hitters in history that ever earned 2 million dollars in one season. Not only was Young hitting an embarassing .220 at the time, he was also making errors like he was being payed to do it. With runners on first and second, Williams managed to get the next guy to pop out. Then, just as it seemed Williams was going to get out of this with his life and the Pirates were going to be in first place for the first time in seven years, something happened. Williams' patented slider was demolished on the first pitch he threw. I remember watching that ball sail over the right field fence at old Three Rivers thinking that we still had the bottom of the ninth. Unfortunately, the Pirates weren't able to mount any comeback in the bottom half of the ninth and ended up finishing the season in third, despite rumors preseason that they were ready to make a charge for the pennant that year.

I tell you that very long story because I was reminded of it while watching Baseball Tonight sometime recently. They were doing a story about the Pirates and how they had been such a terrible team for so long. They ended up going back to the 1999 season and pegging that game as the game that sent them into decline for the next seven seasons. Anyone with a brain knows that isn't true though. Poor management, inability to keep young talent, and a string of atrocious offseason acquisitions prevented the Pirates from returning to anything resembling glory. Even though there may be a breaking point, we need to examine everything else that built up to that point to know what really went wrong. As they showed the clip of Williams' slider tailing on the outside corner, I realized something: it wasn't that bad of a pitch. Free swinging Sammy Sosa just decided that he was going to go after the first pitch and his steriod enhanced performance allowed him to bury the Pirates that day. It got me to thinking that sometimes when you're in the ninth you can throw a great pitch and still have it get hammered. The thing is though, you can't just give up after you have a rocky outing. Williams showed that by rebounding to finish with twenty or so odd saves that year and the next before retiring. Because the truth of the matter is, in life, you're going to get more than one chance to close down the game in the bottom of the ninth.



mh