Posted by crazystengel on 8/7/2019 11:50:00 AM (view original):
It's true what they say about great works of literature: you reread them at different stages of your life, and you're bound to find deeper meaning in them. I was still in short pants when I first encountered this GOW, lo so many years ago. In my immaturity I enjoyed it on a superficial level, as a ripping yarn, if you will. Back then I identified with the characters on the winning side, especially Pete Alexander, who induced that game-ending double-play grounder with such panache. Now I'm older: graduated college, entered the workforce, got married, had kids, buried my parents, retired, bounced a gaggle of grandchildren upon my arthritic knees. I still love Pete Alexander -- who wouldn't love that drunken scamp? But it's the Dave Anderson character who pierces my heart: his Sisyphean anguish, displayed on SLB's front page day after day, year after year, forever failing to push that tying run across the plate, despite entering the game as the ballyhooed golden boy, the "pinch-hitter extraordinaire," to quote the narrator. Through it all he's never complained, not once. Dave Anderson bears his arduous fate silently and with dignity, like Saint Sebastian taking no heed of the arrows. You want to avert your eyes, for his sake, but you can't. The tragic spectacle plays out every day, beckoning us to look.