It’s Labor Day Weekend, which means we are in the last month of the baseball season. Our Cleveland Guardians were left for dead in June, rose to life like Lazarus in July, only to be killed off again, like a bad sequel villain, in August. Sure, other teams will continue on, but who cares about the Milwaukee Brewers and the Houston Astros?
Baseball is a great but grinding game. There are 162 games in a season, and thirty teams with rosters of 25 players travel all over the country. It was a game without clocks until we needed them so games could be finished in about two hours instead of four.
If you like numbers, baseball provides compelling stats, and if you look a little further, you can find hidden stories in those stats. Being a fan of the team from Cleveland allows for the heartbreak story of disappointment to continue, and that consistency is comfort in a world of bedlam.
The first week of September in 1995, I was finishing up my first week of college, the beginning of a time when I would become wildly popular. As I planted the seeds of unhealthy self-esteem, my Cleveland Indians (known at the time) had returned to the field after a players' strike had prematurely canceled the season before, and the potential to end my childhood on a high note with a World Series win.
The 1995 season was only 144 games long and featured two fewer teams. Milwaukee played in the American League, and Houston played in the National League, places they would flip a few years later.
But the real story of the 1995 season was one of consistency, endurance, and dependability. What began on June 5, 1982, and ended on September 20, 1998, had a major milestone in that final month of the season.
Baltimore Orioles shortstop Cal Ripken Jr. broke Lou Gehrig’s iron man streak of consecutive games on September 6, 1995. It would be Ripken’s 2,131st game – a streak that ended up being 2,632 games, 502 more than Gehrig’s.
I can’t imagine the routines and rituals involved in keeping yourself healthy and productive in a sport with no time limit, injuries common and expected, and travel from one end of the country to the other to play games during the day and evening—sometimes, you play two in one day.
Cal was consistent, durable, and reliable. I would argue he is the greatest athlete in that regard. His streak lasted from when I was in the first grade, well past my last year of college. He played in every game from the time I was six to twenty-two. Every awkward moment of growing up, Cal took his shift on the baseball field. Iron Man indeed.
Okay, let's highlight what else happened this week. As a reminder, these events celebrate their anniversary, ending in 5 or 0. Here's what I got:
1. The wreck of the Titanic was found on September 1, 1985. The British oceanliner sank in April 1912 after it hit an iceberg off the coast of Newfoundland, a Canadian province and the ancestral home of your Labrador dog. After a failed first expedition to travel thousands of miles deep into the Atlantic Ocean in 1977, it was tried again with the advancement of technology. They discovered a ship split in two, but the rooms were incredibly well-preserved. I recently learned of a historical fiction novel based on the sinking of the Titanic, in which the premise is a woman who escapes an abusive relationship by jumping on a rescue boat and ending up in New York City. I thought that was the premise of the 1997 movie, but I guess I was wrong.
2. Internet e-commerce site, eBay was founded on September 3, 1995. Pierre Omidyar was born in Paris to Iranian immigrants. At the age of 28, he wrote computer code for a direct business-to-consumer commerce platform and the first item he sold was a broken laser pointer. Apparently there is a huge market for garbage and eBay took off. Omidyar is a billionaire and goodness, gracious, what a world.
3. William Requinst died on September 3, 2005. The 16th Chief Justice of the United States began his service as an Associate Justice in 1972, when President Nixon nominated him. In 1986, President Reagan elevated him to the top position of the Supreme Court. He gave the presidency to George W. Bush in 2000 and spent most of his life trying to legislate the bedroom. What a guy. He was replaced by John Roberts, who gift-wrapped the court to Donald Trump, of all people. We should have sold garbage in college.
That 1995 season saw my Cleveland team reach the World Series for the first time in my life. It was the perfect setup for a joyful ending. We won 100 games, didn’t have to play the No-Good, Cheating New York Yankees, and finished with an astounding 100-44 win/loss record.
We still lost the World Series to the Terrible Atlanta Braves. The heartbreak story began and hasn’t stopped.
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I hope everyone has a great Labor Day. It’s also a reminder that only a movement based in liberation faith and labor politics will get us out of this mess. If anyone tries to tell you to celebrate the military, remember that’s not what today is about.
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Okay, have a great week – appreciate you!
Okay,
Chris
