Word: fieldings
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Although Beijing has declared that the economic reforms and the opening to the outside world will continue despite its political crackdown, the capital appears torn between leveling the playing field and letting the laws of supply and demand run their course. Not that there is much evidence yet that a province like Guangdong would salute if Beijing insisted that it slow its rush to prosperity. As a Guangdong official says, "When the belly is fat, the emperor is far away." Which is not to say that Guangdong doesn't understand feigned compliance. A visiting Beijing big shot might...
What lifts the September showdowns in the other three divisions onto an almost magical plane is the identities of the contending teams themselves. No celluloid Field of Dreams can compete with the real-life resurrections that are a recurrent theme of this year's pennant sagas. In particular, four teams vying for the playoffs boast a distinct personality. Whoever prevails can be said to vindicate not only a theory of how the game should be played but, perhaps, for those who hail baseball as a religion, a philosophy of life as well...
...games this spring, it seemed the epitaph for a talented but erratic team. Renewal began with a new manager (soft-spoken Cito Gaston) whose unflappable style helped inspire the midseason revival of brooding power hitter George Bell. The August acquisition of spark-plug centerfielder Mookie Wilson added on-the-field leadership. As Gaston, one of the two black managers in baseball, puts it, "If I wasn't sitting in the dugout, I'd buy a ticket to see Mookie play...
...redemption. The Chicago Cubs are blessed with a beautiful ball park (Wrigley Field) and saddled with a tragic curse: no pennant since 1945. Their old-school manager Don Zimmer carries his own albatross: the memory of squandering an 11 1/2-game lead as skipper of the Boston Red Sox in 1978. But with the Cubs in the lead in the National League East, Zimmer can relax enough to tell his ball club, "If you're not enjoying this, you should get a real job." The mood is infectious, whether it is .300-hitting first baseman Mark Grace describing the pennant race...
Perhaps these feverish pennant races are baseball's way of recompensing its loyal fans for the disgrace of Pete Rose and the specter of a strike next spring. But for the moment, the game is glittering like the Wrigley Field diamond in sunlight, as the schedule decrees that the season ends with the Cubs playing the Cardinals, the Giants taking on the Padres and the Orioles trying to knock the Blue Jays off their perch. It is enough to make even skeptics worship at the Church of Baseball...