Fear is a valuable but debilitating emotion. It is one thing to fear God and the tornado tearing across the prairie toward your ramshackle farmhouse, rightfully causing you and Auntie Em to run for the root cellar. It’s another to fear failure and thus invite it. How many putts has Kev left woefully short for fear of sending the Titleist down a sloped green to the rough on the other side?
After a camera carom and a flair for the flare handed New York the game the day before, the fireman- turned-arsonist Brad Lidge helped the pinstripers to the brink of a 27th World Series triumph. Eschewing his best pitch, the slider, scared that a wild pitch could plate the go-ahead run, the Phillies’ Lidge served up a two-out fastball to Alex Rodriguez, who stroked the winning hit in the ninth inning yesterday. Might as well have hit him in the ribs again and fired up your team with -- what? A bench-clearing brawl, of course.
It’s bracing how this sporting life teaches us, even as we age ungracefully, that knee-knocking moments, like fatigue, make cowards of us all. Except for Johnny Damon, who used to look more like the Nazarene than Derek Jeter. After a nine-pitch battle, He singled and then promptly walked on water, stealing second and going on to third, taking advantage of an unguarded third base caused by the shifted infield.
Now the Philadelphia team rests its hopes on James Bond, alias Cliff Lee, who was a work of art in the first game. Fellow Arkansan A.J. Burnett goes for the empire on three days’ rest. Expect no parade on lower Broadway yet. Another game will be played in the Bronx.
Meanwhile, Kev loves to putt. Think I’ll roll a few on the carpet right now.
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