I’m sitting in the clubhouse with a couple of friends and we are talking baseball this morning.

The first thing we talked about was how wonderful our baseball field is right now. In midsummer, it is at its peak of readiness. It was designed as a self feeder with the berms used for seating and as a catch for rainwater. And of course there are the 60-year-old trees along the top of the berm that act as a windbreak and shade for late afternoons. I also very much their choice of overseeding the grass but not cutting it. It’s actually quite beautiful watching a fielder cut a path through the grain or to have to find a ball that got lost in it.

We were talking about that ball that Lee hit last week. It’s inappropriate to get racist but the story just kills me. So he hit that ball, which was a monster shot that would have been a trot around the bases in any other park anywhere. But our park has that lunatic Left Center Gap, the most impossible place on the field to defend. The horseshoe design was originally intended for European model track and field but this makes for pretty excellent baseball dimensions. It’s the greatest outfield in the history of baseball and Lee went to the absolute limit of its boundaries.

Normally, the ball would have been Randolph’s but he was playing in and on the line thinking Lee would pull the ball. It was a good plan but it left that gap wide open and Lee has legs.

I can still see him in my mind. From the crack of the bat, Willy turns and his speed is inhuman. It isn’t just that he made the catch but what it looked like as he turned and ran for a ball that arguably, no other human being could have possibly gotten to.

I said that to Willie and he told me that records were made to be broken. And whatever he did that people liked and thought that was special, it’s okay to let that be a standard and a foundation for others to follow.

And then there were the relief pitchers. The field has several possible places where relief pictures can warm up and there has been several arguments for putting up a permanent fence and allowing the relief pictures a private place. The decision though was that everyone is in the game. The rules say that if you hit a foul ball and anyone in the stands catches it, it’s an out. The rules say that if there is a close play on the field, if we have 10,000 eyes on it, let’s get a good vote there. The rules say that the pitcher picks up a bat and does the best he can against the other picture to at least remind them of the humbleness of the other side. This is democratic baseball. Our brand differs from the fascist model substantially.

So in this moment, it was obligatory for the relief pitchers to get in front of the player heading for the wall to prevent them from hurting themselves. And these were Builder relievers so you know two things for true. Firstly, these are big boys and secondly, they have no interest whatsoever in Willie getting hurt. Ask any catcher what his first job is and he’ll tell you it’s to protect his pitcher. Ask any manager what their first job is and they will tell you it is to protect their players. Ask any leader worth a shit and they will tell you that their first job is to protect their people.

I just happened to be in the bullpen talking pitching with my friends, Jordan, Jhoan and this big white boy named Ben. All three of them can break glass. I know, I know, I’m corrupt and I have a taste for the best. I guess y’all just have to live with me.

So, here comes Willy hustling into the corner like a freight train and every last one of us jumped up to make sure that man landed in good hands. I saw that ball coming out of the sky and I got down in a crouch and waited and the moment Willy got his left hand on that ball, me and the boys grabbed the hold of him. He said thanks and fired the ball back to the infield to keep Felix in check.

As he started trotting back out to Center, he turned and looked over his right shoulder smiled and winked at us. That means “good job” in baseball.

So here’s the story. We got to talking about this in the clubhouse after the game. We were telling him that it was a home run in any other park. But Lee is pretty funny. He is Jewish as hell but he just never wants to admit it. To each his own but when we told him how awesome that ball was that he hit, all he could say was that he should have gotten the hit. It could have been better. And that’s Lee.