The Art of the Broken Team

Without baseball, I would not exist.

About eighty years ago, my grandfather was playing in a club baseball game in Fairmount. At some point he began backing towards the bleachers to catch a foul ball. He missed. It hit Florence Niemeyer of the Red Top Brewing Company, sitting along the basepath with friends. Later he made his way over to apologize. Thus, I exist, along with my mother, three uncles, and six cousins.

And so bad baseball created a good family. I have been thinking on this all season, watching balls sail over bullpen pitchers’ heads and baserunners patiently awaiting the RBI that never comes. It is, the front office tacitly admitted as it dealt Johnny Cueto and Mike Leake, a…