It’s more then a foornote to metion that Mo’s 2001 ‘blown save’ was really the result of Mo’s throwing to 2nd base, not to home plate. If he turns that DP, we Win. If he just gets the runner at 2nd, we probably still win. Instead it’s 1st and 3rd, with Armageddon on the horizon.

In short, I fucking love cosa baseball nostra, this baseball ting-a-ours.

Such fundamental soundness makes for a certain grace even in defeat. If the cost of Reggie’s prodigious homeruns is that sometimes he comes up with air and falls on his ass like a clown, I’m not sure it’s a price worth paying. I much prefer the “stay within yourself” type whose embarrassments are rare to nonexistent.

Funny. I liked those guys too, but I ended up playing more like Jason Tyner.

Who I loved by the way, don’t front on JT.

i loved reggie, but i ended playing a lot more like mattingly.

Reggie was my first hero, even named my cat after him though denied it because even in fourth grade I knew how corny that was. I was too young to feel awe for him, though, or anything else. Adoration, yes, but not awe.

Mattingly’s skills with the glove coupled with his skills with the bat. He just had no holes in his game (ok, ok, he wasn’t very fast).

And he never struck out. In a sport where just making contact is difficult, his batsmanship was just amazing to me. Especially next to Dave Winfield and his javelin of a bat.

Maybe I was awed by him because I could see the fear he aroused in pitchers. And the lightning-fast way he could turn on an inside pitch and drive an outside one.

I can’t really articulate why Mattingly and not, for instance, Rickey or Winfield, adore them both as I did.

Somehow he, more than anyone else, impressed himself upon my young mind as an unstoppable force. But again, that begs the question. I guess I don’t really have a good answer.

Regarding Mattingly, he was my favorite, but I never looked at him in awe. If anything, what made him so appealing was his every man persona. While hitters like Boggs and Gwynn seemed like machines, Mattingly had to work at it, constantly changing his stance and hitting for hours off the tee.

I don’t see any point in dwelling upon, or even thinking about the Game 7 blown save in AZ. We knew he wasn’t perfect long before then. Remember the Alomar was the headline.
But I’ll indulge the memory with this:
2001 wasn’t our year. Unit and Schilling tied our bats in knots. What did they hit, a buck-fifty in that Series? It was amazing how close we came to winning, but I don’t pin the losing on Mo in any way. He had a bad inning. That’s all there is to it. He’s had a couple bad innings in 16 years. None of those matter. They don’t add up to anything.

The only thing that adds up is the good feelings about the great Rivera. The great memories. And the hope that he’ll be with us a few more years

Thanks for this great piece of work, William. The numbers certify the memories, and good feelings

By the time Mattingly was the star in New York, I thought he was the shit, but I knew, say, Boggs was better. In 1980, I would have fought or cried if you said George Brett was way better than Reggie.