Call me Buckner!

"It's Outta here!" Just one of the million ways to refer to one of the greatest achievements in America's oldest past time. Home runs probably have more nicknames that the membership at a frat house. Bleacher burner, dinger, homer, going yard, long ball, jack, touch em all, four bagger, round tripper, going all the way or maybe it's a grand salami. And that is just for a home run.

Whether it's a metaphor for how far you go with a girl or the "three-strike rule," baseball has impact society in so many ways. I'm pretty sure that the word pesky, meaning annoying, came into American vernacular after Johnny Pesky and the foul pole named after him in Boston.

This week, I pulled a Buckner. I blew it at work and I will no longer be in the starting line up. In fact I've been cut from the team. Am I ashamed? No. Diasspointed? A little. For those of you who don't know, Bill Buckner, a normally good defensive firstbasemen, let a grounder go between his legs in the 1986 World Series that is blamed for the Red Sox losing the World Series and giving more validity to the Curse of the Bambino.

Truth is everyone makes errors. Buckner made 128 of them in his 20 season career. That averages 6 a season. The record holder is Herman Long with 1096. That's 8 times as many. But no one knows Long (maybe because he retired in 1904) and Buckner's error was recently referenced in a commercial for kgb. Moral of the story, if you are going to pick a time to make an error, don't do it when the season is on the line.

My error was a normal everyday error for my ballclub. From those I talked to, it's happened before and they haven't lost their jobs. Difference is, my team was in a playoff race that could culminate in a lot more money for the ballclub. Needless to say that the GM wasn't happy with my performance. However, Buckner didn't leave Boston until the next season.

All that said, don't get me wrong, I'm not mad. I'm not sad. Buckner's error didn't end the game. It wasn't even the end of the series. He even played baseball for another 4 years. In fact, once he retired he moved to out west and invested in real estate. He even named a subdivion Fenway. Are you seeing the similarities, too? So Call me Buckner, the most hated man in Boston, and I'm moving on towards a career in real estate.....with my dog named Fenway.

Including Spring Training and the playoffs, the major league season last 9 months. That means you could go all the way on "Truck Day" and have a new bat boy before Game 7. To be a baseball player, or a baseball fan, you have to have it be a part of your life and you can tell who we are. Have you ever ballparked a figure? Or would rather you play hardball with them? Do you know someone who's a screwball? Does he say things that are totally out of left field?

Baseball mirrors human everyday life because it's an everyday sport. That's what this blog is about. It features your everyday man in ballparks that are more unique than everyday people. That's why we can relate to it so well. We all want to bat a thousand but we know that in life, as in baseball, you are probably going to fail 70% of the time. We step up to the plate and it is one person versus a challenge. You succedd or fail. You get out or you don't Some times life throws you a curve and you strike out. The only guarantee that you have is that even when the game is called on a count of rain, that it will always be made up. So make sure that when it's the bottom of the ninth and the count is full, you aren't in the middle of a slump. And if you are, there's always next season.


-Kevin P. Foley
6/12/09