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August 22, 2012

Pebble Hunting

The Shame of Your First Big-League Hit

by Sam Miller

There are certain things in baseball that are just always the same. Player gets his first big-league hit. Somebody tosses the ball to the first- or third-base coach, who rolls it into the dugout. If a teammate picks it up before the bat boy does, he’ll pretend to flip the ball into the crowd. The teammates will scuff up a ball and pretend that it is the one going on the player’s mantle. Predictable stuff that makes you realize how much of your life you’ve spent watching baseball, and perhaps how much you hate it.

There are details that vary, though. Like when Irving Falu got his first hit, as he was running to third base, there was a shot of his family. There was a shot of his mother, joyful, sitting near a man who is, I have concluded, not at all: 

And there is the placement of Corey Brown's first-hit home run, cruising just over the last true .000 he’ll ever have beside his face.

And there are the awkward shots of players who have been at first base thousands and thousands of times before, but for once forget how to give a fist bump or make their face look like a human face.