Baseball moments create lasting memories
- Brett Hiner: A Work in Progress
- March 28, 2025
- 487
If memory serves, Dr. Seuss once said, “You never know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory.” I have no idea if the good doctor was a baseball fan, but on the cusp of the 2025 Major League Baseball season, I am convinced he said this after watching a baseball game.
Maybe more than any other sport, and the films that have been made addressing the subject, baseball really is a series of moments. Much of that has to do with the pace of the game because, if we are being honest, there are a lot of moments throughout a three-hour game that are not worth remembering. So when a moment does come, it feels all the more significant to the game’s eventual outcome.
In July 1987 my dad took a friend and me to Cleveland Municipal Stadium to catch an Indians versus Royals ballgame. My youthful allegiance to the Kansas City Royals, the team for which I played T-ball 10 years earlier, was beginning to wane, but not my admiration for my boyhood hero, George Brett.
I have no memory of who won the game or whether it even mattered just past the midway point of the season, but two memories — two moments — remain.
—One: a fight breaking out between the Royals pitcher and Indians center fielder Brett Butler. It might have been my first live exposure to a real baseball brawl.
—Two: before the game, sneaking down to the left of the Indians dugout, where George was in a conversation with Indians manager Pat Corrales, who was a week away from losing his job. As the chat was ending, I politely called “Mr. Brett’s” name, and he came over and signed a Topps 1987 baseball card for me. It was the sports moment of my teenage years. By today’s standards, the card has absolutely no value, but 38 years later, it remains one of my most prized possessions.
Last week Turner Classic Movies, which I would guess was prepping its viewing audience for the baseball season, was showing 24 hours of some seminal baseball films. While I could not devote the time many of these movies deserve, I did wait for my favorite moments to occur or to flip back to them later in the day.
There is Tom Hanks’ famous “there’s no crying in baseball” speech from “A League of Their Own” (although I think my favorite moment was Hanks’ Jimmy Dugan hitting Stillwell in the face with a ball glove as they prepared to play in the championship game).
There is Walter Matthau’s Buttermaker soaking the elbow of his star pitcher Tatum O’Neals’ Amanda Whurlitzer in a bucket filled with Budweiser in “The Bad News Bears.”
There is Kevin Costner’s Ray Kinsella playing catch with his deceased father in the finale of “Field of Dreams.”
And there is Bob Uecker, playing the lovable Harry Doyle in “Major League,” doing that aggressive arm pump after the Indians clinch the league title against the Yankees. For fans of Northeast Ohio, whether planned or not, watch the scene again and you can just barely make out the laugh from the Big Chuck and Little John Show as Uecker hugs his play-by-play analyst.
While these movies, as a whole, are great — like the sport they brilliantly symbolize — it is the moments that get talked about long after we have left the theater or these days pushed “off” on the clicker.
And these moments then get connected to the real-life ones that become part of our cyclical lives, from child to parent.
The game itself was a bit of a snoozefest. Heading into the ninth inning, the ballgame was tied 3-3, but the Guardians amassed a whopping two hits up to that point, one run coming off a bases-loaded walk and the other two on a throwing error by Carlos Correa.
Now do not get me wrong. What baseball fan would not take pleasure in the opposing team imploding and gifting the beloved Guardians a few runs along the way? But three hours of two-hit baseball can make for a long afternoon, even for the most ardent fans. But then came the moment …
Bottom of the ninth, two outs, a runner on second and a 3-2 count. I have no memory of the pitcher, but I can still picture the elevated fastball he threw that Guardians second basemen Andrés Giménez did not miss as it sailed perfectly, mimicking the St. Louis Arch, into the Guardians bullpen in right-center, caught by relief pitcher Enyel De Los Santos. The crowd, which likely did not hit 10,000 that day, filled the stadium with a cheer worthy of the moment; one of those fans was my son.
In my right ear, all I could hear was his 14-year-old fandom on full display. In my head-phoned left ear, all I heard was the always great Tom Hamilton making his call. In my heart there was 14-year-old me again: almost 25 years to the day when George Brett signed that 1987 Topps baseball card.
Since his birth I have been to many ballgames with my son, and since asked, he would tell you this game, from June 30, 2022, is the best one. Not because it was a memorable game, per se, but because it had the best moment. Baseball walk-offs continue to be a seminal moment in all of sports, making an otherwise ho-hum game feel that much more meaningful.
And so for those who call themselves fans of the Guardians, whether casual or the most devoted among us, I hope this season is filled with the moments that make lifelong memories with your friends and family. The likelihood of the season ending up as it always does is pretty high, so my advice? Just rewatch the ending of “Major League” … that is a pretty great moment and memory too.
Brett Hiner is in his 28th year teaching English/language arts at Wooster High School, where he also serves as yearbook adviser and Drama Club adviser/director. When writing, he enjoys connecting cultural experiences, pop and otherwise to everyday life. He can be emailed at workinprogressWWN@gmail.com.