June 5, 2011
Nashville, Tenn. – Have you ever been in the midst of a really good book when somebody notices the cover and says “terrific read. The butler did it.”
Or perhaps you had a conflict and taped the big game so you could enjoy it later as though it were live. After carefully avoiding any mention of the game all night, the guy on the car radio blurts out the final score as you pull into your driveway.
Knowing how it ends spoils the excitement of the moment. The thrill lies in the chase, the moment-to-moment wonder. It’s the journey that matters, not necessarily the destination.
Right now we Vanderbilt baseball fanatics are cruising at 40,000 feet. We’re in first class and the view out the window is breath-taking. Let’s enjoy this flight.
We are following a darn good team. The Commodores have won 50 games of the 60 they have played, an astounding .833 clip for you math majors. If this were professional ball they would be on the cover of every sports magazine in the country.
It’s the nature of sport that we want to peek ahead, we just can’t help ourselves. Kenny Rogers warned us decades ago that “there’ll be time enough for countin’ when the dealings done.” So let’s do what the Commodores are doing and play it one pitch at a time, one game at a time.
Sports journalists get paid to discuss the edgy, write the conflict, see the glass as half-empty. So the theme-du-jour is to remind the team at every opportunity about 2007. Is there a shelf life for misery? History is history but we don’t need to wallow in it. What’s the point?
As a public service, we conducted an intensive study of every thought by every member of the baseball team during the last 24 hours. Here are the top three things on their mind:
· Are we getting Jersey Mikes sandwiches after the game?
· I wonder if we’ll have time to watch Pirates of the Caribbean tomorrow afternoon?
· What is the phone number of that blonde Tri Delt?
When someone mentions 2007 to this bunch, they have absolutely no connection to the inference. It’s like asking us about World War I; we’ve read about it but didn’t experience it.
And while sports fans have all kinds of silly superstitions, they are just that – silly. There are no jinxes, no curses of Babe Ruth. We don’t need a rabbit’s foot or a four-leaf clover. Our lucky socks are a lot luckier when Sonny Gray is pitching or Aaron Westlake is hitting.
If there is any luck in this season, we are the lucky ones. Many of us have waited a long time to cheer a team of this quality. We’re talking more than simply winning on the scoreboard; this team had its best academic semester this spring and it would be hard to find 34 young men more refined and mannerly.
Let’s relish the moment. There are more games on the horizon but right now the captain has turned off the seat belt light and we’re free to move about the cabin. Who could ask for more?