Rewards.
The game can fire you up, and punch you in the gut. It can forge your belief in the strength of numbers, and just as easily blindside you with something you could never have expected.
Like Erik Bedard, staked to an early 5-0 lead, failing to hold it and falling to 0-1, 5.79 against Texas in three 2008 starts – after coming into the season as a lifetime 4-1, 2.42 pitcher against the Rangers. The dramatic transformation in the Rangers' approach against Bedard, forcing him regularly into high pitch counts, is every bit as big as the impact that the unconventional infield shift the club employs against Vlad Guerrero.
Like Cha Seung Baek continuing to deal against this team: he's now 4-0, 3.38 against Texas in his big league career, and 6-9, 5.44 against everyone else.
Like Josh Hamilton and Milton Bradley, in the space of four pitches, hitting two of them a combined 857 feet.
Like Doug Mathis, a day after getting an unexpected call to the big leagues, calmly throwing nine pitches and emerging from the dugout to join the home plate scrum with a major league victory to his credit.
The game, if you let it, can bring out the worst in you, and the best. It's inspiring and depressing and relentless and good.
And in the end, it rewards you for hanging in there.
From the May 9 Newberg Report:
"I chose Mark DeRosa as the utility infielder on my all-time Rangers team in this week's MLB.com column, but Ramon Vazquez is in the conversation. That guy can play on my team any day. He's not an everyday player, but there's not one facet of the game that he embarrasses himself in."
Sure am glad he was playing on my team tonight.
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(c) Jamey Newberg
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