Reggie Jackson

At 6 foot 2, Babe Ruth's 250 pound "official" final weight made him the original Big Sluggi (in contrast, David Ortiz is listed at 6 foot 4 and 230 - an estimate that seems rather kind - all things considered). When "The Sultan of Swat" launched his final 3 home runs, he was too sluggish to chug around the bases, but he still gave the crowd 3 more moonshots to remember him by. They weren't his most famous home runs - the one that he called (or didn't, depending on who is asked, and history supposedly vindicates) stands as that, and while I tend to side with a pitcher who was willing to admit to having a hankering for drilling any player who would do such a thing (Charlie Root), baseball legend is gold - just ask Abner Doubleday.
And Yankee lore is all about famous home runs. Reggie Jackson swung at 3 pitches on the night of October 18, 1977 when he made Burt Hooton, Elias Sosa, and Charlie Hough wish that they never dared to come to the Bronx. Three at bats. Three swings. Three long fly balls into the stands. Gotham was in pandemonium and all was celebration. The straw that stirred the drink had done it and proved to the world that it was he and not Thurmon Munson, then Yankee Captain, who was running the show with a little help from all of the clout that a 5 year $3 million contract (when that meant something - not this inflated era of just above league minimum pay).
But Jackson was what it meant to be in New York, leaving Oakland to come to the Bronx, he made his name over a half of a decade before moving on to California and back to Oakland to finish up his show with 563 jacks and 2597 strikeouts (in this, I'm sure he's hoping that Jim Thome gets 2 more full seasons). That said, strikeouts must be OK in the Big Apple. After all, Alex Rodriguez quietly has 1836 at age 34.
But all things considered, there is only one home run that has ever been hit in the house that Ruth Built (by a Yankee) that really moves me (the Pine Tar incident not withstanding):
Chris Chambliss - The Game 5 1976 walk off home run that ends with Yankee Stadium emptying onto the field so that Chambliss has to shove the fans out of his way.
Granted, I'm a Yankee hater, and I was a Brett fan. Had it not been for that home run, the Royals would have taken the game to extra innings on the strength of Brett's homer. However, the Yankees went to the World Series for the first time since the Maris era, and Steinbrenner had arrived as the owner he was to become.
In this, part of the game is loving the game and seeing its finest moments. Since this happened when I was 5, it wasn't like watching Aaron Boone. Hell, I feel nothing with Bucky Dent - I was 7 at the time and didn't follow baseball, but to lose the game now - to Jeter, A-Rod, or Cano... I'd feel that blast.
Chambliss was a thing of beauty - a more riotous version of Hank Aaron's finest blast without the feeling of "get the hell away from me you sons of bitches."

Aaron Boone

You think we'd learn. You think Aaron Boone would have taught us all what it means to get into a pick up basketball game and get injured and lose his contract because he was playing for the Yankees and he wasn't making much, and frankly, with that, he was quite expendable. And let's not even think about the idea of doing something so wreckless and stupid that it just jeopardizes EVERYTHING that he and the team could be without an instant of showing that he had ACTUALLY THOUGHT ABOUT WHAT HE WAS DOING. I'm sure just reminiscing about the incident would make Derek Jeter and guys like him who waited their whole life to wear pinstripes and go to the playoffs cringe in horror. Fortunately,
But alas...
You think we'd learn. You think Ben Roethlisberger would have taught us that we can't ride our motorcycles helmetless if our team is counting on us, but alas, he never learned either.
And so it shouldn't be a shock that the Great White Nope of Milwaukee (registered trademark, but because we just don't believe) has gone and shot himself and an entire state full of Cheeseheaded beer drinkers who still remember the good ol' days of Harvey's Wallbangers and Laverne and Shirley in the foot or should I say feet because he's making $13.5million per season for the next 2 seasons and his success will keep Prince Fielder in town (hopefully) or the lack thereof will drive him to Anaheim or some other city in need of a big bopping designated hitter or first basemen (at Prince's weight, he'll be a DH like his daddy before too long).
But with a broken rib from his dalliance at trying to be like Lebron James, he'll be on the DH at the start of the season. Will he come back healthy and ready? Will his social anxiety disorder and depression be affected?
Let's just say that if I was Mark Attanasio today and I was thinking about how much money and faith and hope I just installed into my ace and how he paid me back, I'd be thinking of getting 70cents on the dollar and shipping him to some other team in the hope that I could build up for the future because even if I had to keep him, I surely wouldn't keep him around to extend the contract ad infinitum.
And the injuries and the hopes and dreams keep right on rolling in the land of cactuses and the world of grapefruits as we get closer and closer to day 1.

Derek Jeter

See the thing about being a Red Sox fan is that there are constants in life. You always hate the Yankees and you always expect the worst from your team at the end of the year (even after 2004 and 2007) and expect the Yankees to win it all. You hate A-Rod to the point of complete loathing and then when he can come to your team for Manny Ramirez and a potential trade of Nomar Garciaparra, you want it to be done, just so it's done, and then it doesn't happen and he goes to the Yankees and you hate him some more. Then, you love Jason Varitek for cold-cocking A-Rod and how it brings the team together. And even when your team goes down 3-0 to the Yankees and is trailing against Mariano Rivera, you think to yourself, there is still hope BECAUSE YOU HAVE TO BELIEVE even if you expect the worst because you remember Aaron Boone from the year before. And then Dave Roberts swipes second and there's Bill Muellar's hit and Ortiz's shot, and life is good and you're on the way to the first good feeling in New England since 1918.
But even after that, there was still a hatred for New York until the midges swarmed to Joba. Sure, 2007 felt good, but the fact that the curse was truly reversed showed up in Cleveland loud and clear and killed the future of New York.
Now, there's no need to wear the Yankee hater shirts like we used to. There is venom, but it's not the same. Hell, even the good folks at Urban Dictionary aren't getting attempts to coin attacks on Derek Jeter since 2006. It's like the world has gone upside down since he went into the stands to rob Boston of an out.
It's plays like that, which make baseball fans feel good about the game - even if he's robbing your team of an at bat.
And now, I own a Jeter card - the one with Bush and Mickey Mantle in the card as well. It's a classic card and it took the good folks at Topps to come up with it.
If you gave me his rookie card or a SAM bobblehead with his likeness on, I wouldn't spit on it.
A-Rod, yes, but not Jeter. And it's not because I think Cameron Diaz is hot. Maybe in There's Something About Mary, but any woman who touches Justin Timberlake is just... I don't know. We'll stop there because I'm feeling nice today.
But when Derek Jeter doesn't suck, the world is truly upside down.
And perhaps many things are happening in the universe to make things upside down. Maybe it's the fact that Colonel Gadhafi and the myriad of ways to spell his name is now looked at in some circles as being worth protecting as his people riot and take over Libyan cities and military bases. Yes, the world is truly upside down. That said, it's not long for Gadhafi. We expect that he'll be with his son very soon.
But really... Derek Jeter doesn't suck - even after an off season.
Really.
Time to go kill myself or at least wash my mouth out with soap for even muttering such a thing.

Addie Joss

The first time I saw Almost Famous, I was with my ex-girlfriend what feels like a million years and a million lifetimes ago. I don't remember thinking much of it at the time, but I came to love it shortly after she left. It wasn't pining over her. I can really only think of 2 incidents of pining over her in the time that she left - the first time was the first time that she was gone and it was just myself and her cat Tornado. She left us both. She had to have him, and she seemed happy to tag along into my life, but then when she got there, we realized that we were from different worlds. At that minute, it was just myself and the cat and it felt bizarre and depressing to be in that spot. Eventually, I had her take the cat, which she begrudgingly did.
The second time, I was in the midst of the depressed summer of 2002 after we broke up in April and I had too much time with my loneliness, and I went to drop off mail that had arrived for her at the apartment that we shared, but that was now only mine. In all the things the things that she did and didn't do in that time, it took me to change her addresses for her by returning stuff to the sender and posting the right address to forward things to. That time, I suggested we get together to talk, but we never did, which was a good thing. She got her mail, just like she got a box of stuff that was once hers. I always thought that she would come back for her Christmas stuff, but that was just wishful thinking. Our only Christmas together was miserable. In the end, I gave it to the woman who oversaw the apartments for her kid and threw away what she would never want. It seemed so wasteful at the time, but alas, sometimes, it's for the best.
In the movie Almost Famous, Elton John sings "Tiny Dancer," which is one of the greatest songs ever. At the time in March of 2001, I can remember listening to it and liking it, but I didn't really claim it as one of my own until it played at the right moment of my life - hiking back from Delicate Arch in Utah. It was in the same fateful walk that Elf Power's "When the Red King Comes" played. They were both mine. I never think of the ex girlfriend or things belonging to her other than Dave Matthews and The Barenaked Ladies, which I can differentiate from her in that other than when I consciously force myself to, I never think of her. There's no reason to. We never had anything much in common and our greatest moments were things that I've pretty much done with other people or that weren't that memorable to begin with - at least in the way that almost 9 years makes a person forget what happened.
However, I do think back to Almost Famous because I love the quote that is at the end where William Miller, the Cameron Crowe character asks Russell Hammond what he likes about rock music. The answer is "to begin with everything."
I think that I could answer the same thing about baseball. Everything. The game never disappoints me. If Aaron Boone hits a home run over the Green Monster in extra innings and I'm up until the wee hours hoping that the Red Sox make it to the World Series in 2003, then it's just a moment in communal misery that still says, "we'll get them next year."
If I choose to go to bed after the Arizona Diamondbacks can't score in the 8th inning of Game 7 of the 2001 World Series and it looks like the Yankees will 4-peat, then I can wake up happy when I see ESPN's headline that a bloop single wins and it's instant jubilation and the need to make Yankees fans suffer.
For me, baseball is everything... the trajectory of a long fly ball to deep center field in the St. Louis night. August 30, 1998, marks a change in everything that I am and that I will be. It signals that I have come to the promised land, and I have seen my burning bush. My heart is not hardened, but it is actually made light because I have been shown direction in life by the plague of locusts (well, Mormon crickets) that have descended on the desert north of Fallon, Nevada. From North Nutgrass, Stillwater Reservoir, Foxtail Lake and all of the other water that lies east of Route 95 heading south into Nevada's heartland, they swarm and die against my windshield and the hood of my Ford Escort. Uncle Tupelo's music plays after I refuel my car with gasoline and my body with Coke and iced animal cookies. Good stuff. I am to teach. I am to go about my journey and become something more.
For 12 plus years, I have prepared and done just that. Every time that I think it's time to get out, something rescues me and keeps me moving forward. Every time that I think it's not going to work out, something keeps me moving forward. Like much of my life, I have proceeded forward in spite of my mistakes and the turmoil of life, but I have kept going.
In reading about my baseball heroes, I see tales of lives that were destroyed and ended before they could fully realize what they might have been. I have seen great careers cut short of being the greatest. Bob Feller and Ted Williams gave the early parts of their career to military service for their country. Christy Mathewson did as well, but his was to an earlier war, but all the same, he trained and swallowed mustard gas. He was never the same. Roberto Clemente hit his 3,000th hit and died in a fiery airplane crash trying to get relief supplies to Nicaragua. Jackie Robinson gave his life to the stress and turmoil of integrating the Major Leagues with the players of the Negro Leagues so no more African Americans would have to lose out to what might have been. And Addie Joss died of spinal meningitis not 3 years after pitching a perfect game and a no-hitter. He was 31. He could have been great.
So many people could have.
And yes, they are immortalized in hallowed grounds on Lake Oswego. I can see them there. I can remember their lives and what could have been.
I sit here now and think of what could have been in my life. Where once I taught high school kids, I moved on to college students and adult education. I said that I would never go back, but here I am now, ready to go back and be great again, to feel the things that I once loved about this all over again. To feel the mix of history, literature, and writing all come together into something special for me and to make them something special in students as I once did. To feel comfortable in my skin and my classroom. To exorcise the demons of failure once and for all.
It's time to think that my life is ready to be.
If I have baseball to thank for that, then all the better for the ghosts of the past are still powerful and still have much to teach us.