Life Strategies and Baseball

Sunday, October 18 2009

Once again, I'm sitting here at my desk after a sleepless night and day waiting for the Phillies game. At this point, the wait stands at eight hours so I'm not just sitting here waiting for the game. I'm doing lots of other stuff. I've been playing Facebook apps while I can, I've been maximizing the amount of birthday cake that I can get my hands on and also doing a few practical things to prepare for our vacation.

The sheer volume of chaos in my life produces a sort of general numbness spiked by moments of grief and fear. Last night was one of those occasions when the general chaos became a little too much for me. Melissa may not have the process down yet but she helped me apply my new shaving/whittling approach. Big victories are simply out of the question right now because every piece of rubble seems to be holding up another so that moving one piece could cause a total collapse.

Shaving off little pieces of walls I cannot break down is the only option. I do what I can to manage my symptoms. My treatment plan is a mixture of everything I can think to do and get approved by my doctors. Part of it is taking my medication at the best times, in the best combinations and within the doctor's orders. Part of it is finding the right combination of rest and activity. Within activity, I need to find the best combination of physical and mental. I do my long term projects in manageable bits.

Bah! Right now, I need to shower and get in a nap before the game. What can I say? I do better if I get some sleep in each 24 hour period and it hasn't happened yet. I need the sleep but I hate waking up. Every time I wake up feeling like I've had enough sleep, I get hit with feelings of intense guilt. I've wasted time, I've condemned myself to another sleepless night or I've really been hiding from life.

The Phillies won Game 1 against the Dodgers and then lost Game 2. Since the Dodgers started off with home field advantage, both of the first two games were in LA. That also means Games 3, 4 and 5 will be in Philadelphia. By winning Game 1, the Phillies stole home field advantage. If they win all three home games, they win the National League Championship Series without having to go back to LA. This is something I like a lot about baseball's seven game series format.

Game 1 was a wild and wooly affair from the fifth inning until the finish. The Dodger rookie pitcher, Clayton Kershaw, started off dazzling the Phils into the fifth inning. The Phillies countered with last year's ace, Cole Hamels, who made one lousy mistake over the same time period to trail 1-0. It was a tense game and not particularly fun to watch. I knew the Phillies could come back and put up big numbers very quickly but I've also spent entire games knowing this would happen. Sometimes, it doesn't happen until next game.

In the fifth, Kershaw had the wheels come off. He walked two batters and then made a mistake to Phillies' catcher, Carlos Ruiz. Actually, he made almost exactly the same mistake twice but Carlos hit a three run homer the second time. Things didn't stop there. After a postseason record three wild pitches in one inning and a two run double by Ryan Howard, the Phils had a 5-1 lead!

Unfortunately, things didn't calm down there. The Dodgers managed to make the game 5-2 with some timely hitting but everything looked under control. A Dodger hit an easy double play ball to shortstop. Jimmy Rollins caught it and made a slightly off throw to Chase Utley at second. Chase overthrew first base and put the ball in the dugout. Utley has been playing below average second base since late September and, possibly, longer. He's been a rock at second base long enough that you tend to overlook his mistakes. This mistake brought up Manny Ramirez with a man on. Ramirez hit a two run homer to make it 5-4.

Things seemed to calm down again until Phillies left fielder, Raul Ibanez, hit a three run homer to make it 8-4. I'm pretty sure this was the eighth inning and the game looked out of reach for LA. Somehow, they went ahead and almost matched the Phillies' eighth inning to make it 8-6. Of all people, Brad Lidge came out to pitch a successful ninth inning to nail down the win.

That's wild and wooly, my friends. One of your most dependable fielders throws away an easy double play and your supposedly done star reliever shuts things down in the ninth inning. It was never comfortable and, at times, it was more tedious than enjoyable. The good thing is that we won and took care of the home field advantage thing right away.

Game 2 was much different. It featured two of my favorite pitchers in the game today. Former Phillie Vicente Padilla signed with the Dodgers in August after imploding in Texas over the summer. Padilla played well for the Phillies when we were getting serious about rebuilding. For a while, he seemed to be the only guy who could beat Florida. He had two weaknesses. One was that he seemed to be injury prone and the second was that his temper could get the best of him.

The Phils countered with former Expos and Red Sox great, Pedro Martinez. I haven't been sure about him because of an old bad habit the Phillies have never truly given up. The Phils like to sign future Hall of Fame pitchers at the ass end of their careers. Usually, this is done in conjunction with a bad team so that they can sell some tickets. It may be good marketing but it doesn't tend to produce winning baseball. Martinez has shown flashes of brilliance for the team including his seven innings for Game 2.

This game started off as the reverse of Game 1. We got an early 1-0 lead on a Ryan Howard solo homer and both pitchers were spectacular. This lead lasted until the eighth inning when Martinez was lifted for a reliever. I agree that Martinez was out of gas at that point but what followed was something out of a horror movie. For the moment, I can't decide if the bullpen imploded or if Charlie Manuel just over-managed so I'm going with both.

It started off weird when Manuel brought in former starter Chan Ho Park instead of a typical reliever. I don't believe in bullpen "roles" all that much but Park is a long reliever. Bringing him into the eighth inning of a one run NLCS game seemed wrong. It did all go wrong as a collection of relievers managed to combine with a special surprise to blow the game.

With nobody out, the Dodgers had runners on first and second. This wasn't Park's fault since third baseman Pedro Feliz booted a ball and the Dodgers followed with a perfect bunt. In fact, Park induced a perfect double play ball to Feliz who gave Utley a great throw at second. Utley overthrew Howard in a repeat of the previous disaster but it cost us the game this time. The runner who had been headed to third scored instead of being on third with two outs.

I'll be honest and tell you that my recollection of the rest is spotty. Manuel brought out reliever Scott Eyre, I believe, who walked the only batter he faced. Then Chuck brought out starter/long reliever JA Happ with men on. I don't know that Happ had seen that situation before so trying it in a tied eighth inning of an NLCS struck me as overkill. There might have been another reliever between Eyre and Happ but I don't remember it clearly. What I do remember is seeing Happ walk in the eventual winning run with the bases loaded. Finally, Manuel did what I would have done instead of bringing out Eyre or Happ and used Madson. He's used to seeing men on base and I think he finished the game.

It didn't matter because the damage was done and we did nothing against the Dodgers' Broxton. It was a cluster fuck of mistakes, bad luck and timely play by the Dodgers. In a strategic sense, it shouldn't matter all that much. We lost one game on the road to a very good team. At the start of the series, I would have set out a goal of splitting the first two games so that we could have a chance of winning the series at home. Two wins would have been better but so would a million dollar check with no strings arriving at my front door.

I've been trying to turn my recent epiphany into something practical. At the strategic level, I can see how taking small steps is the perfect concept for me. Turning that strategy into a set of workable tactics is a bit more difficult. I've always preached playing defense and going for the big win on the counterattack so this counterintuitive for everyone working with me. Worse, how can you apply a strategy of small steps when big problems threaten to overwhelm at any moment?

As I wrote at the beginning of the month, this is unlikely to be a time when we'll see positive steps. In fact, I predicted that this month could turn out to be terrible and a total disaster. As far as I'm concerned, avoiding disaster is a big win. We need to make our small steps forward in other directions. I need to lead the way and then I can depend on others following.

It is such a naked feeling to step forward calling out, "follow me." When it works, there may be no greater feeling. When it doesn't, you can almost hear life itself mocking you. Ha! You idiot! What are you doing charging me all by yourself? It's enough to make you wish you could be an armchair strategist solving someone else's problems from a nice, safe distance. When it works, it's just that glorious.