Nothing But Iron: Sitting for the Cycle by Steven R. Lagman, M.D., C.A.S.W. June 26, 2005 Less than two months has passed since the last ill-fated snow flake floated from the chilly gray Wisconsin sky. Dutifully and mercifully, summer has supplanted its predecessor season with sultry temperatures and humidity that makes you think, while you’re gasping for your next breath, that it’s a not a dry heat at all. In ordinary times, my thoughts would be as much on baseball as they would be on hockey or sandal shopping, but these times, are far from ordinary. Not only have I reflected on baseball with a frequency that, at times, unnerves me, I have already attended, of my own free will, in complete absence of coercion, duress or chemical impairment (well, partial absence of that), my second Major League Baseball game of the season. Moreover, for the first time since the 1980's, I paid more attention to the players than the sausage figures racing along the base paths, more attention to the pitch count than the dessert cart and more attention to the batting order than the lateness of the hour. I learned, by observation, that the Brewers are not so bad, which is a whole italicized not better than they were last year, and in most of the years since the glory days of Yount and Molitor and Cooper of the County Stadium and World Series lore. At the time of this writing, the Brewers are a humble 35-39, yet they are in third place, and in the midst of a 4 game winning streak that is not their first such winning streak of the season. Moreover, they are drawing crowds, like they did in yesterday’s win over the Twins. When the Brewers do lose, they don’t lose by a lot. They are in games until the late innings. I learned, too, by listening, especially from the seat between Larry Rothstein’s and Peter Qualey’s when the Brewers hosted the Yankees on a Monday night. Rothstein and Qualey are self-professed, practicing baseball fans who can talk the talk like guys used to be able to talk the talk. At times, being caught in the crossfire of their interleague (Rothstein is a Yankees fan, Qualey a Brewers fan) dialogue was like listening to the Spanish radio channel (1480 AM, if you would like to try it), but they were frequently kind enough to translate for me, and to point out some of the sport’s nuances that would otherwise have gone unnoticed. I learned that hitting the foul pole is good, as long as your team is at bat. I learned that the .500 New York Yankees are vulnerable, and that their woes are a matter of simple attrition. Not attrition in the sense of lost personnel, but lost reaction time, speed, strength and, yes, lost access to performance enhancing substances. In short, the Yankees, despite having the most recognizable roster in all of baseball, suffer from the attrition of youth. "I don’t think they will even make the playoffs," lamented Rothstein quietly. I learned the definition of slugging percentage, which is not a boxing term after all. The calculation is not hard to understand, but its statistical usefulness, well, that still partly eludes me. Maybe its true meaning is that it slugging percentage sounds way cooler than RBI or on-base percentage. Lastly, I learned that the game is 45% mental, if one were to simplify Yogi Berra’s famous phrase: 90% is half mental. I figured that out on my own between innings. So, am I a baseball fan? Fledgling at best, which is one notch above Closet. Two games, parts of a few radio broadcasts and reading the newspaper don’t yet qualify me for a free batting helmet, but there is a good chance, maybe 90% of half a chance, that I will return to loyalty-worthy Miller Park this summer, and if the product it showcases should turn out to sustain its own worthiness, others will do the same. A lot can happen in a 700-game season. I went once in May. Perhaps I’ll go twice in June. Then three times in July. Four in September. I can then say that I hit for the cycle. If I catch five games in October, then I might turn out to be a fan after all. _____________ Nothing But Iron is an amateur sports column, which proudly covers cult sports like lacrosse, bocce, shuffleboard, washoes, frisbee golf, hockey and baseball on an intermittent basis. The author apologizes that the standings information is outdated at the time of publication, but believes that standings in June or July matter about as much as a foul ball on the first pitch of the game. ©2005 DrTM Enterprises. All rights reserved.