Mike O'Connell

Things I thought I’d never hear:

1. Team clinches “first-round bye” in MLB playoffs.
2. Fans upset as team clinches first-round bye in playoffs.
3. Sixty home runs in a single season just not enough for New York fans.

Wait. That last one sounds pretty likely actually.

This past Tuesday night my beloved New York Yankees, team of my youth, trailed the Pittsburgh Pirates 8-4 heading into the ninth and final inning of their relatively meaningless South Bronx contest. I had long given up on the game, settling into an evening reading my new book, Baseball’s Best Ever, a collection of columns from legendary sportswriter Ira Berkow.

Tell Ira to add one more to the list.

Entering the bottom of the ninth with a 1% win probability (they really do track these things), the Bronx Bombers pulled off the 99% improbable and came away with a win over the aforementioned Pirates, the team whose only claim to fame right now seems to be that it does not own the worst record in baseball. (That distinction belongs to my hometown Nats.)

Leading off for the Yanks in the ninth was slugger Aaron Judge, likely the AL MVP, possible Triple Crown winner, and already owner of a historic season at the plate this year. Entering the game Judge had 59 home runs, a total eclipsed in American League history only by Roger Maris in 1961 and a fella named Ruth in 1927. On the fifth pitch Judge saw, he tied Ruth, sending a ball 430 feet into the left-centerfield stands.

But that made it only 8-5.

Note that contrary to every bit of 20th-century wisdom about the game, Judge bats first in the Yankee lineup. What would have been an insult to Ruth, Mantle, DiMaggio, etc. is accepted now as a big-brain, Moneyball-type move.

Batting in more traditional positions were the Yankees’ next three hitters, all of whom got on base to set up the dream scenario. This is the one you conjure in your backyard growing up. Down three runs with the bases loaded, into the batter’s box stepped Giancarlo Stanton. Stanton himself once had a 59-homer season, but that was five years ago when he played for Miami. Stanton’s performance in recent years has been a bit disappointing. During his time in New York he has received $135 million in salary and exactly one undeserved All-Star Game selection.

But that was all forgiven in a moment Tuesday night, as Stanton connected with a Wil Crowe offering for a walk-off grand slam. It was Stanton’s third career WOGS, an unusual distinction held by only three other players in major league history. And doing it when down by three runs? The historic Yankees have done that only four times total in more than a century’s worth of contests.

And they’d lost their last 113 games when entering the ninth inning trailing by four or more runs.

All of this after I’d already given up, and already published Wednesday’s post.

Lesson learned.

Yesterday afternoon I had the pleasure of fulfilling every father’s dream… taking my son to his first Major League Baseball game. O’Connell Trio made the journey to Nationals Park to see our hometown team (that would be the Washington Nationals) take on the visiting Marlins of Miami. Though the game was a loss for the Nats I couldn’t have imagined a finer experience. Prophecy fulfilled.

Of course my thoughts went to my own first MLB game, just a few years ago and a few miles up the road. It was August 25, 1990, and the scene was Yankee Stadium. I was eight years old, same age as my son now, though that’s about where the similarities end. Well, there was one other, but more on that later.

When I was a kid (that’s going to be a theme here) neither the Nationals nor the Marlins existed. There were no teams in Washington or the entire state of Florida. I saw the Yankees play the Brewers that afternoon, and no it wasn’t interleague play. Interleague play wasn’t a thing then; the Brewers played in the American League. One of seven teams in the AL East. (Six divisions of five teams each now.)

When I was a kid you showed paper tickets to get into the park. I’m not even sure how we got the things. Mailed away for them? Stood in a line? Took our chances with a scalper in the parking lot? Yesterday I had the “tickets” on my phone, on something called the Ballpark App, on which I could also buy team merchandise or anything from the concession stand. Anything. I think at my first game I had a hot dog. Yesterday Franklin ordered fried shrimp and my wife got a lobster roll. Yup. To be fair she also went old school with a lemonade, though while the lid still had the hole for a straw, getting a straw in 2022 is about as likely as Shoeless Joe Jackson getting a lobster roll. The no-straw thing was about my only complaint. Any other problem I had was easily solved using the Ballpark App. Just text your issue and an attendant will come to your seat. Or deliver what you ordered from the souvenir shop.

Just like the old days.

But there was a bit of continuity from my first game to Franklin’s, an amazing coincidence showing the seamless through-the-years transition of our national pastime.

Both games featured my favorite player of all time, Don Mattingly… sitting on the bench.

Yeah, for my first game in 1990 Mattingly was out with a back injury, the famously afflicted back that kept Mattingly from duplicating his ’80s dominance into the era in which I actually went to the games.

But it hasn’t kept him from managing.

And yesterday afternoon, there he was, again on the bench, manager for the Miami Marlins.

Just perfect.

I’m five years behind the times, but I’ve now seen every episode of Nathan for You, the Comedy Central gem from Canadian funnyman Nathan Fielder. Fielder is the star and the brainchild behind this summer’s HBO hit, The Rehearsal, which got me interested in exploring more of his output.

I’m glad I did, and though every episode of Nathan isn’t exactly Citizen Kane, it’s not meant to be. The final episode though? Damn if that isn’t Citizen Kane. Seriously, the series finale of Nathan for You is the most riveting 84 minutes of television I’ve ever seen. Very unlike the 31 that precede it, the 32nd and final episode is no gag reel. It’s drama on like a 19th-century Russian novel scale, punctuated with bits of humor as Fielder would demonstrate five years later on The Rehearsal. One can trace the evolution from one show to the other through the beauty of this quadruple-length episode. There is no cliche or hyperbole too inappropriate to describe its quality.

Why I missed all of this five to eight years ago when the show first aired?

One baby and zero cable subscriptions.

Let’s just say I’m in a better position now.

Today there are a thousand and one obituaries celebrating the life and times of Elizabeth II, the British queen who served longer than any other, and second-longest-tenured monarch in all of recorded human history. Elizabeth died yesterday at the age of 96, having sat on the British throne for more than seven decades.

Rather than dole out the same story offered by mainstream media outlets and those who actually knew her or who study British history, I’ll simply offer the following.

First, my best to Elizabeth’s family, and those thousands or millions of Britons who really did love her and treat her, well, like a queen.

Second, the answer to my cryptic lead. The longest-tenured monarch in all of recorded human history? That would be Louis XIV. He was King of France from 1643 to his death in 1715, a total of 26,407 days. Elizabeth ruled from 1952 until yesterday, her 25,782nd day on the job.

It is on the subject of employment that I offer my final bit of trivia. For 20 years or so I’ve been using this bit, that 1926 must have been some kind of magical year given the number of well-known persons born then who held on to their gigs way longer than anyone thought possible. I’ve written about it here probably half a dozen times, first with “Royal Birthday” from April 2016, when Britain’s then-queen turned 90 years old. I noted that she was the second of four such persons, the first being magazine mogul (among other things), Hugh Hefner. Funny to put those two in the same category. In addition to being born weeks apart, they both held their respective jobs for decades, and lived really well.

Castro was the first on the list to go, passing away at the end of 2016, three months after reaching the big 9-0 and about a thousand years after taking control of Cuba.

Hefner died a year later at age 91, and the queen made 96. (Honorable mentions in this category–Chuck Berry, Jerry Lewis, Don Rickles–all died in 2017 after doing their thing for decades. Sure, there are others–Mel Brooks and David Attenborough are still going–but we’re talking Mount Rushmore here.)

Last man standing?

That would be living legend Tony Bennett. He recently turned 96 and until last year was singing to sellout crowds wherever he went.

Technically Tony retired from performing in 2021, so I guess the last “man” standing honor goes to… Elizabeth II.

Oh, I guess this was a celebratory obituary after all.