Take Me Out To The Metaphor
Frank Salerno
October 13, 2005
When choosing baseball’s Most Valuable Metaphor this season, strong consideration must be given to Jason Giambi of The New York Yankees. With his 30+ home runs and prodigious ability to draw free passes, Jason proved to be a marvelous metaphor for redemption during a year woefully short of this durable quality. Starring in The YES Network’s metaphorical miniseries “Let’s Spend Money Like Crazy And See If It Makes Us Happy,” Jason stood tall as the hardworking fellow who (more or less) owned up to his wayward ways, and then trained his way back to competitive form. He never gave up on himself, refused to be fired (or layered) by those who had and then carried himself through all 162 episodes in a professional manner. With no weeping, finger pointing, or clowning, he fielded his position with economical, understated dignity.
But it is Jason’s ability to hit from both sides of the metaphorical plate that excites me most about his qualifications. Let’s suppose for a moment that The Jason did not slide safely into second this season, hooking around the hard to elude tag of bitter consequences? What if he stayed stuck in his early season slump, like a salesman whose quota stubbornly remains out of reach? This seasoned veteran would have simply turned himself around in the batter’s box, to bat lefty I suppose, to confound us all as a free swinging metaphor for lost faith, squandered personal gifts and the perpetuation of fraud. Fans longing for at least a moment’s distraction from the nagging injuries of their own personal and professional shortcomings could have rained scorn, moral outrage and a general holding of their noses down upon him.
Barry Bonds, baseball’s Mr. Metaphor, didn’t play in enough games this season to qualify for the award. Nevertheless, he served warning that he is still able to tear up the league. Like Mr. Giambi, this Sultan of Sulk can also turn around in the box. When facing a right hander during his abbreviated 2005 season, the fans were able to cheer as he beat down the fences with powerfully hit metaphors of self determination, independence and a generalized “I don’t really care what you think because I’m only playing with myself anyway” attitude. But when he faced a southpaw with a sinister cutter, the fans were able to indignantly turn away as he mischievously sprayed the field with moral bankruptcy, selfishness and cheating. To borrow another metaphor, for the price of admission fans got to choose their hot dog the way they liked it – with mustard or not.
While this award is only given for individual effort, a number of teams came up big in the metaphor column this year. The Boston Red Sox, who along with the Chicago Cubs are perennial front runners in the Metaphor League, sometimes helped us to better understand what it feels like to be lost and at other times assured us that one can cheat loss no matter how large the deficit. Fans wishing to puzzle through any number of real life curveballs during the coming winter – the war in Iraq, the S&P 500, making a living – can attempt to tease out the layers of meaning while staring dully at home heating bills.
The Chicago White Sox as a team demonstrated an admirable metaphorical agility, so praise must be given. For most of the season they were the strong silent types, building up a seemingly unassailable lead. Late in the season, though, they lost their nerve and, like the gains in a single stock 401-K plan, their lead all but vanished. But then, even after clinching their division, they met their late season antagonists the Cleveland Indians and beat them three straight with a ball and a bat. Rise, fall and then rise again. For those who believe that success is simply the act of getting up one more time than you fall, your metaphor has just pulled up at the curb.
Some metaphors are so powerful that shifting layers of nuance can be conveyed with only four words – The New York Yankees. Arrogance and excellence. Power and control. Tradition and opportunism. In this free country, where one can choose to either observe or ignore the designated hitter rule, one can also choose one’s own metaphor. One can even mix and match, although this practice has been banned in a number of states.
Best metaphorical moment of the 2005 postseason? Again this is not a formal voting category, but who can resist the moment early in the third game of the Yankees – Angels American League Division Series, when Uncle Joe Torre (team manager as paterfamilias) took the ball from the $14 million Randy Johnson and handed it to the career minor leaguer, Aaron Small. And then, for a gallant inning or two, this charming man of faith who held tight to his dream of being called up to the major leagues shut down the quick and ready Angels, while the slow motion Yankees battled mightily against the gloom threatening to prematurely end yet another postseason. Who at the storied House That Ruth Built (slugger as paterfamilias) could have watched the bowed 42 year old Big Unit (nickname as metaphor) walk off to a chorus of cheaply hit, broken bat boos, without being reminded of all the times he or she was chased early from the field to a metaphorical chorus of catcalls? Is Johnson finished as a premier performer? Is any one of us? I can honestly report that I don’t know. But I do know that nearly a half-decade after the stock market collapse, I am still having trouble locating my pitches. And it’s been a while since I hit one over the Green Monster.
I feel that with his league leading 48 home runs, Alex Rodriguez deserves consideration for individual achievement. But with Alex I have a hard time placing the metaphor or, alternately, picking up the sign. Could Alex be the Al Gore of baseball? Overanalyzed, overstylized and overpackaged; but still underdefined. Not this and not that, or rather this and that. Maybe, like Al, Alex is too versatile, able to play shortstop and third base to Al’s politician and social theorist. Could it be that we mere mortals should abandon our dream to both clear the bases and strike out the side? Should we choose one thing, do it well and then allow ourselves to be defined by it? It would be just like the old days. Messrs. Smith and Fisher meet Messrs. Analyst and Advisor. If so, I will have to give my vote to David Ortiz over Alex. He is refreshingly transparent. This batsman is a designated thumper – that’s all.
While managers don’t hit, run or catch, they are eligible to receive the MVM award. Who can forget Sweet Lou Pinella, the feral, always dangerous cat who restlessly paced back and forth in his cage of a dugout in the sticky swamps of Tampa Bay this season? Many times he sent his pitching coach out to remove a faltering starter, knowing that he might tear off the offending arm with one angry swipe of his paw. Realizing that Lou was beyond their control, his trainers released him into the wild at season’s end, raising the alert level for any manager without a strong lock on his own dugout cage.
This year included a particularly strong class of candidates for the Hall of Metaphors. During an otherwise uninspiring spring of 1/4% increases to the Federal Funds rate, Citizen Mark McGwire graciously enabled a nation of Punch and Judy hitters to feel better about their own lack of power at homeplate and anemic workplace statistics, as he cried his eyes out before crew chief John McCain and his committee of federal umpires. Score one for the unheralded benchwarmer who quietly goes home to his wife and children each night, the headlines on the backs of the tabloids seemed to trumpet in 72-point type.
Rafael Palmeiro, the 3,000 hit man formerly of the Baltimore Orioles, was whisked straight into the hall without formally retiring as a metaphorical smorgasbord thanks to his twin careers as a pitchman for Viagra and amped up slugger. With finger pointing the way, it was purposefully difficult to know which metaphor he was swinging in his commercials. I suppose it depended on your own point of view, or perhaps whether you view yourself as a pitcher or catcher, a giver or getter, a boss or the bossed.
In this democracy, it falls to each one of us to choose the baseball metaphor that helps to make life whole and comprehensible. This choice demands care, though, because the metaphor you choose is the metaphor you become. Will you hit for power or for average? Are you playing for individual statistics or for a World Series ring? Will you take time to learn your craft or will you be over and out before becoming eligible for free agency? These are not trivial questions of interest only to baseball enthusiasts. They are of the utmost pertinence to anyone playing the rule bound game of life, because the answers will determine whether you go home early or play into October.
But it is Jason’s ability to hit from both sides of the metaphorical plate that excites me most about his qualifications. Let’s suppose for a moment that The Jason did not slide safely into second this season, hooking around the hard to elude tag of bitter consequences? What if he stayed stuck in his early season slump, like a salesman whose quota stubbornly remains out of reach? This seasoned veteran would have simply turned himself around in the batter’s box, to bat lefty I suppose, to confound us all as a free swinging metaphor for lost faith, squandered personal gifts and the perpetuation of fraud. Fans longing for at least a moment’s distraction from the nagging injuries of their own personal and professional shortcomings could have rained scorn, moral outrage and a general holding of their noses down upon him.
Barry Bonds, baseball’s Mr. Metaphor, didn’t play in enough games this season to qualify for the award. Nevertheless, he served warning that he is still able to tear up the league. Like Mr. Giambi, this Sultan of Sulk can also turn around in the box. When facing a right hander during his abbreviated 2005 season, the fans were able to cheer as he beat down the fences with powerfully hit metaphors of self determination, independence and a generalized “I don’t really care what you think because I’m only playing with myself anyway” attitude. But when he faced a southpaw with a sinister cutter, the fans were able to indignantly turn away as he mischievously sprayed the field with moral bankruptcy, selfishness and cheating. To borrow another metaphor, for the price of admission fans got to choose their hot dog the way they liked it – with mustard or not.
While this award is only given for individual effort, a number of teams came up big in the metaphor column this year. The Boston Red Sox, who along with the Chicago Cubs are perennial front runners in the Metaphor League, sometimes helped us to better understand what it feels like to be lost and at other times assured us that one can cheat loss no matter how large the deficit. Fans wishing to puzzle through any number of real life curveballs during the coming winter – the war in Iraq, the S&P 500, making a living – can attempt to tease out the layers of meaning while staring dully at home heating bills.
The Chicago White Sox as a team demonstrated an admirable metaphorical agility, so praise must be given. For most of the season they were the strong silent types, building up a seemingly unassailable lead. Late in the season, though, they lost their nerve and, like the gains in a single stock 401-K plan, their lead all but vanished. But then, even after clinching their division, they met their late season antagonists the Cleveland Indians and beat them three straight with a ball and a bat. Rise, fall and then rise again. For those who believe that success is simply the act of getting up one more time than you fall, your metaphor has just pulled up at the curb.
Some metaphors are so powerful that shifting layers of nuance can be conveyed with only four words – The New York Yankees. Arrogance and excellence. Power and control. Tradition and opportunism. In this free country, where one can choose to either observe or ignore the designated hitter rule, one can also choose one’s own metaphor. One can even mix and match, although this practice has been banned in a number of states.
Best metaphorical moment of the 2005 postseason? Again this is not a formal voting category, but who can resist the moment early in the third game of the Yankees – Angels American League Division Series, when Uncle Joe Torre (team manager as paterfamilias) took the ball from the $14 million Randy Johnson and handed it to the career minor leaguer, Aaron Small. And then, for a gallant inning or two, this charming man of faith who held tight to his dream of being called up to the major leagues shut down the quick and ready Angels, while the slow motion Yankees battled mightily against the gloom threatening to prematurely end yet another postseason. Who at the storied House That Ruth Built (slugger as paterfamilias) could have watched the bowed 42 year old Big Unit (nickname as metaphor) walk off to a chorus of cheaply hit, broken bat boos, without being reminded of all the times he or she was chased early from the field to a metaphorical chorus of catcalls? Is Johnson finished as a premier performer? Is any one of us? I can honestly report that I don’t know. But I do know that nearly a half-decade after the stock market collapse, I am still having trouble locating my pitches. And it’s been a while since I hit one over the Green Monster.
I feel that with his league leading 48 home runs, Alex Rodriguez deserves consideration for individual achievement. But with Alex I have a hard time placing the metaphor or, alternately, picking up the sign. Could Alex be the Al Gore of baseball? Overanalyzed, overstylized and overpackaged; but still underdefined. Not this and not that, or rather this and that. Maybe, like Al, Alex is too versatile, able to play shortstop and third base to Al’s politician and social theorist. Could it be that we mere mortals should abandon our dream to both clear the bases and strike out the side? Should we choose one thing, do it well and then allow ourselves to be defined by it? It would be just like the old days. Messrs. Smith and Fisher meet Messrs. Analyst and Advisor. If so, I will have to give my vote to David Ortiz over Alex. He is refreshingly transparent. This batsman is a designated thumper – that’s all.
While managers don’t hit, run or catch, they are eligible to receive the MVM award. Who can forget Sweet Lou Pinella, the feral, always dangerous cat who restlessly paced back and forth in his cage of a dugout in the sticky swamps of Tampa Bay this season? Many times he sent his pitching coach out to remove a faltering starter, knowing that he might tear off the offending arm with one angry swipe of his paw. Realizing that Lou was beyond their control, his trainers released him into the wild at season’s end, raising the alert level for any manager without a strong lock on his own dugout cage.
This year included a particularly strong class of candidates for the Hall of Metaphors. During an otherwise uninspiring spring of 1/4% increases to the Federal Funds rate, Citizen Mark McGwire graciously enabled a nation of Punch and Judy hitters to feel better about their own lack of power at homeplate and anemic workplace statistics, as he cried his eyes out before crew chief John McCain and his committee of federal umpires. Score one for the unheralded benchwarmer who quietly goes home to his wife and children each night, the headlines on the backs of the tabloids seemed to trumpet in 72-point type.
Rafael Palmeiro, the 3,000 hit man formerly of the Baltimore Orioles, was whisked straight into the hall without formally retiring as a metaphorical smorgasbord thanks to his twin careers as a pitchman for Viagra and amped up slugger. With finger pointing the way, it was purposefully difficult to know which metaphor he was swinging in his commercials. I suppose it depended on your own point of view, or perhaps whether you view yourself as a pitcher or catcher, a giver or getter, a boss or the bossed.
In this democracy, it falls to each one of us to choose the baseball metaphor that helps to make life whole and comprehensible. This choice demands care, though, because the metaphor you choose is the metaphor you become. Will you hit for power or for average? Are you playing for individual statistics or for a World Series ring? Will you take time to learn your craft or will you be over and out before becoming eligible for free agency? These are not trivial questions of interest only to baseball enthusiasts. They are of the utmost pertinence to anyone playing the rule bound game of life, because the answers will determine whether you go home early or play into October.