My Houston Astros have reached a new low. They started the season off 1-0 (see last Thursday's Sports Genie for a more in-depth discussion of this exciting event) but have since fallen to 1-2, and all leading experts (and by that, I mostly mean myself) in the field of baseball predictions expect the Astros to never again bring their record above .500. To add insult to injury, the Astros cannot even lose properly.
They lost their perfect season to a near-perfect game Tuesday night. Through eight and two-thirds innings, Yu Darvish had pitched fairly decently against the Astros. I did not witness this in person, but I feel I can assume this based on the fact that he sent back to the dugout the first 26 men who entered the batter's box.
He struck out 14 of said batters, an astronomical number, and only allowed two men at all to make solid contact.
But to throw a perfect game, one must retire 27 batters in a row. On Tuesday night, the 27th batter for the Astros was shortstop Marwin Gonzalez. Based on the fact that Mr. Gonzalez is a shortstop who bats in the nine-hole for the very worst team in baseball, my readers can safely assume that he's not a particularly terrifying presence in the batter's box, especially when you have retired the first 26 men you have faced. Especially when, in the two previous times you have faced him in the game, you have induced him to strike out and ground out.
Also, his name is almost Marvin, but not quite, which is kind of weird.
Before Gonzalez came to the plate, Darvish had handled the first two batters of the inning with a grand total of three pitches. It was the fourth pitch of the inning that did him in.
Darvish delivered a fastball, and Gonzalez connected, sending a low liner back to the mound. Darvish sent his glove down in an attempt to stop the ball, but it was going just fast enough and bounced at just the right time to go through his legs and up the middle for a single.
And with that, the Houston Astros ruined what could have been the 25th perfect game in major league history. We seriously cannot do anything right.
On June 13 of last year, the Astros successfully allowed a perfect game to be thrown against them. Matt Cain of the Giants did the honors. Gonzalez's single prevented the Astros from earning the distinction of being on the losing end on two perfect games within 10 months of each other. Which would have been cool or at least a decent conversation starter.
But at least the Astros acted with characteristic grace and class after breaking up the perfect game. Alan Ashby, the radio announcer for the Astros, remarked of Darvish after he gave up the single to Gonzalez, "That'll force a guy to learn some of the language here in America."
I have done some research into the nature of Darvish's English abilities. It turns out that it is not his first language. He knows enough to be fluent in conversation however, but he prefers to do interviews in Japanese with a translator.
I will acknowledge that Ashby probably had not conducted the same research that I had before making his joke. That is fair – very few media outlets hold themselves to the same standards of journalistic rigor that we do here at TheEmory Wheel.
But I still cannot entirely figure out the point that Ashby was trying to make. It seems to me that one can kick trash-cans and throw breakable objects at walls whether or not you know English. Maybe he was implying that Darvish would want to have some good swear words to use in this situation, but my guess is that Japanese has some pretty darn good inappropriate language to use in situations such as these (at the least, stronger words than darn).
In a courageous and gallant gesture, however, Ashby cut off the controversy at the head by apologizing fervently and ardently, renouncing any intent of wrong-doing, and promising to make amends to the Darvish family in any way necessary, up to and including sending their children to college.
His exact words were "I'd like to apologize if my comments last night were misinterpreted or construed as insensitive."
Now that is what I call an apology. Ashby leaves absolutely no room for anyone to possibly think that he actually regrets anything he said.
That is a quality I admire in a man – a willingness to stand by what you have said, no matter how rash and poorly thought out it was.
But Ashby does more than that. He apologized if his comments "were misinterpreted."
Not only is he willing to stand by the things that he said, he is willing to apologize for others who failed to properly interpret his comments. He is apologizing to all of us for having our time wasted by rabble-rousers who cannot take a good joke.
Clearly these guys are the ones who are messing everything up, and they are the ones who should be taking the heat.
But Ashby, with all the grace and nobility of his spirit, has the compassion and empathy to apologize for them!
In addition, of course, to the courage and moral fortitude he possesses which enable him to refuse to apologize for himself.
It is a great time to be an Astro.
– By Bennett Ostdiek
Photo courtesy of Scott Mecum, Flickr
