From Mitch Albom’s column about Ernie Harwell in the 20 September issue of the Detroit Free-Press:

Now Ernie makes the best of it, with grace, warmth and faith. Above all, faith.

“A church wants you to do the Sunday sermon,” his friend and attorney Gary Spicer said, sitting with stacks of mail and requests. I mentioned that would be a sure way to increase church attendance.

“Oh, I dunno,” Ernie answered, laughing, “They might throw tomatoes.”

It came out “tamay-tahs,” the soft Georgia coda to his words, easy on the ears, like cool tea to the lips. Ernie’s voice has always been soothing — he sounds like baseball would sound if the game could talk — but we forget it’s soothing mostly because Ernie himself is soothing. He is as gentle, open, kind and decent as anyone I have ever met. He was planning for a farewell speech at Comerica Park. Spicer told him there would be a long video and a salute, and then he’d be given the microphone… .

But be careful not to eulogize Ernie, because he’s not only still with us, he is entering a phase where he may be more precious than ever. “Maybe I can help somebody else,” he said, after we’d finished the ice cream.

Harwell has been an example of grace over every game he’s called, genteel, respectful, never in the way, accepting that he is there to paint the picture, but he doesn’t own the brush. He has that same approach to life and now to death. He says he has long believed that his life is in G-d’s hands, and he’s lived it that way.

And he will continue to do so. To the end. I have written a new book about faith, part of which chronicles a broken down church in Detroit led by a poor pastor who fights to keep it going. Ernie read an advanced copy of book a few weeks ago. He told me he liked it.

That was special enough. But do you know that on his way down to his big night at Comerica Park, Ernie first drove by that crumbling church, unannounced, in a rundown section of Detroit, and when he saw the pastor, he rolled down his window and said “Hi, I’m Ernie Harwell, I just wanted to meet you.”

Nobody looking. Nobody taking notes. Just something he wanted to do.

Aaron and I are fans of the Red Wings and Tigers, so imagine our vexation last Saturday. Both teams were playing on television at the same time. My father is with us. He’s not into hockey. He wanted us to stick with the baseball game in Camden Yards. Aaron and I preferred the first game of the Stanley Cup Finals from Joe Louis Arena. We figured that behind their ace Justin Verlander, the Tigers would end the O’s five-game win streak. They did, 6 – 3.

I enjoy the story my father tells of the time a Latino player stepped into the batter’s box and crossed himself, as ball players are wont to do, and the Yankees’ catcher Yogi Berra tapped the guy’s knee with his mitt and said to him, “Whaddya say we just let God watch this game!”

That story has to do with why I don’t want my children to have values. That and some notes written by a soldier in a foxhole. Let me explain.

During World War I, a young Austrian soldier — an aristocratic Jew who was said to have fought with “reckless bravery” — used his time in a foxhole and in prison to jot down his thoughts on logic and ethics. After the defeat of Germany and Austria, these thoughts were published as Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, an almost impenetrably complex landmark work on the relationship between language and thought. The soldier’s name was Ludwig Wittgenstein. He published only this single book in his lifetime.

He was an intellectual high-watt bulb, Wittgenstein, especially on the subject of “language games.” We play games, he observed. So do languages. When we reach for words, especially technical words, to apprehend and articulate reality, we do well to note what language game they belong to.

The language of values, like the language of ‘fastballs’ ‘bunts’ and ‘sacrifice flies’, belongs to a game with its own grammar or rules. Whereas values assume a closed system — more about which in a moment — baseball assumes an open one. Baseball’s played in a paradise whose only canopy is the heavens. This is the world a baseball player inhabits and late-night talk show hosts do not. The baseball player thanks God, or the Big Guy Upstairs, for his success. The late show hosts, Leno O’Brien or Letterman, make him the butt of jokes for it. As if God cares, they say. As if God has any interest in a game.

Athletes make easy targets. They want to believe — they believe inveterately — that God cares about what they’re doing and wishes them well, a notion quaint these days. Such a thought is incongruous in a world where our lives entire, not merely our sporting lives, are no longer seriously imagined as beheld by divinity. The reason we doubt God watches baseball is not that we think sport trivial but that we think God is. We lack the moral imagination the ancients had, or John Donne or Jane Austen. Most of us who have fiber-optic TV and 457 channels no longer imagine God watches anything. We are Nietzsche’s “last man.”

It was Nietzsche who made this values language up. He argued that whatever the rules of the game concerning our behavior shall be, they can only be rules we make up or choose for ourselves. A nihilist, he defined reality in terms of negation, negating that particular and strange history of the Jews. No more “I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt” and the Ten Commandments and so on. The ancient Hebrew and Christian notion that the grammar of our lives is in league with a particular history involving Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Hannah, and David; the claim that our story is somehow part of the story of Israel and her children; the hope that we inhabit that story and are headed somewhere, all this belonged to another day. That day, Nietzsche said, and his values language assumes, is gone.

This is the language game of values, a language that presupposes God is not watching us any longer because there is no God to do the watching.

If values are what people are supposed to have instead of God — and I’ve just made the case that they are — why would I want my kids to have them? I’d rather they have virtues, especially those with narrative entailments. I’d rather they have the ancient sense that their lives are beheld by divinity, watched and worried after by the God of the Exodus and Mt. Sinai, the Lord who hung the stars in the heavens and raised Jesus from the dead. I want my children to live in a universe that is more like Camden Yards or Comerica Park than Mellon Arena or the venerable Joe. And I want the Wings to win the Cup.

The summer of 1974 I was fifteen. My family was living in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. I worked that summer for Frank Koller at the Koller Cranberry Marsh in Manitowish Waters, Wisconsin. I did that with Clifford Cook from Merriweather, Michigan, my father’s hometown. Cliff was old. He was seventeen.

The work? Do whatever Mr. Koller told us to do. We mowed grass. We cleaned heavy trucks and machinery. But mostly we worked in water chest deep. A cranberry bog is twice the size of a football field. It is surrounded by irrigation channels. They have to be kept clear so the water can flow. Four days out of five, Cliff and I waded those channels—each of us taking a bog—pitchforking clogs up onto the perimeter. It was hard work for good money. It was the muscular work I wanted.

At the end of the day, we’d drive Mr. Koller’s truck to the trailer we lived in, shower, heat a supper of canned stew or hot dogs, then hop into Cliff’s Mercury Cougar, white with red trim, and drive up Highway 51 to an arcade a few miles away. Songs like “Sweet Caroline” and “Cracklin’ Rosie” were on the jukebox. We’d play foosball and pool for a couple hours against all challengers. I learned what it meant to put a quarter on the table.

On Fridays we’d shower and leave directly for Merriweather, 45 miles northeast. My grandparents and my uncle Rod and his family lived there.

I have such fond memories of my grandfather. With my dad and Rod and his son Chubby — and with Jim, Rod’s brilliant workhorse — I lumberjacked popple in the woods with him. Grampa was the sexton of the Bergland cemetary in his retirement, and Chub and I dug graves for him. These are memories I share with others. But thirty-five years ago this summer, on the weekends, I lived with my grandparents. What memories I have of my grandfather that are all my own were made then. And learning this morning of the death of Mark Fidrych, I remember the first time the name Fidrych fell upon my ear.

Grandpa is sitting in his chair in the living room there in Merriweather, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. He’s chewing his customary Copenhagen. On the straw-colored linoleum floor, there is an empty coffee can he uses as a spittoon. It’s just the two of us. He is reading the Detroit Free-Press. I am sitting at the piano. Grampa leans over, spits some juice in the can, lowers the newspaper, peers over his bifocals, and with his characteristic squint says, “Here’s a name for you. Mark Fidrych. Righthander in the minors. He’s gonna be a good one. Don’t say I never told you nothin’.” He spits in the can. The Tigers had selected Fidrych in the 10th round of the June, 1974 amateur draft. The 10th round. This was an unlikely prognostication.

Fidrych came up as a rookie to the Big Leagues in 1976. His boyish enthusiasm and idiosyncratic manner made him the darling of Major League Baseball and the biggest story in professional sports. He would talk to himself on the mound—it looked like he was talking to the ball, telling it where to go—jump over the white lines on his way to the mound, shake hands with infielders after good plays, and insist that balls that had “hits in them” be taken out of the game. He would get on his hands and knees and smooth cleat marks on the mound. None of it was affect. All of it was pure. Everybody could see that. He was 21. He led the league that year with a 2.34 ERA, winning 19 games despite spending the first month of the season in the minors. Twenty-four complete games he pitched that year. Johan Santana, the Mets ace, has thrown nine complete games in his career.

Fidrych came out of nowhere, but Grampa saw him coming. Because he did, so did I. What he saw coming was a good pitcher, and Fidrych was more than that. He was a phenomenon. One of the pleasures of baseball is learning about a player and rooting for him while he’s still obscure. Grandpa and I knew Mark before he became Mark “the Bird” Fidrych.

On Ebay several years ago, I bid unsuccessfully on an autographed Fidrych baseball. I wanted to have it to remember Fidrych and to remember my grandfather telling me about him before anyone else did. I intend still to get one, so that I can look at that ball on a table in my living room, or in an empty coffee can beside it, and remember the smell of spit chewing tobacco, the smell of that piano, the smell of my grandparents’ house razed long ago, and my Grandpa Jack.

On July 3, 1976, a Saturday, my grandfather died. That same day at Tiger Stadium, Mark Fidrych shut out Mike Cueller and the Orioles 4-0 for his eighth straight victory. I cried like a baby.

I was in Candlestick Park that night with my father and my cousin Chubby. Chub’s been skinny as a rail since he could walk, but he was chubby when he got the nickname and everyone calls him Chubby to this day. But this isn’t a story about him. I won’t tell you here why he was with us that summer in New Mexico where we lived; why he was with Dad and me in Candlestick Park on August 9, 1968. This is a story about epistemology, baseball, and why I do not disbelieve my father when he tells me something.

People remember 1968 for lots of reasons, but historians of baseball remember it as The Year of the Pitcher. The Tigers’ Denny McClain won 31 games that summer, still the modern-era record for most wins in a season, and had an ERA of 1.96. The Cards’ overpowering Bob Gibson had an ERA of 1.12. The Giants’ ace, Juan Marichal, led the National League in wins with 26.

Bob Stevens, the sportswriter for the San Francisco Chronicle who covered the Giants from ‘58 to ‘78, wrote, “If you placed all the pitchers in the history of the game behind a curtain, where only a silhouette was visible, Juan’s motion would be the easiest to identify. He brought to the mound beauty, individuality and class.” Marichal is warming up on the mound when Dad says, “The Mets are gonna win this game.”

The Mets are big-time underdogs. This is my Dad. He roots for underdogs. New York has two good young pitchers in Nolan Ryan and Tom Seaver, and they have Jerry Koosman, but none of them are pitching tonight. Dick Selma is. Selma’s not bad, but the Mets hit like nuns; they don’t hit at all or, if they do, they don’t hit hard. New York’s best slugger is Cleon Jones from Plateau, Alabama. The Giants boast Willie McCovey, Willie Mays, Bobby Bonds, and Jesus Alou. Marichal, the Dominican Dandy, is 20 and 4 coming into this game.

Here’s the play-by-play:

Top 1st: Marichal pitches a 1-2-3 inning. Tommie Agee flies out to center; Larry Stahl strikes out; Cleon Jones strikes out looking. I raise my eyebrows at my father. He says, “The Mets are going to win this game.”

Bottom 1st: Bobby Bonds strikes out looking; Jim Davenport flies out to center; Willie Mays strikes out swinging.

Top 2nd: Ed Kranepool—who was 17 when he broke into the Big Leagues—leads off with a single; Ed Charles singles to left, advancing Kranepool to 2B; JC Martin singles to right; Kranepool to 3B, but Charles is thrown out at 2B trying to stretch his hit to a double; Phil Linz hits a sacrifice fly to left field. Martin on 2B; Kranepool scores. Buddy Harrelson is given an intentional walk; Dick Selma grounds out to end the inning. Mets 1, Giants 0. Dad smiles.

Bottom 2nd: Willie McCovey grounds out to 1B; Dick Dietz walks; Jesus Alou hits a ground ball double play.

Top 3rd: Tommie Agee singles to CF; on a wild throw pickoff attempt by Marichal, Agee takes 2B and 3B; Stahl grounds out; Cleon Jones grounds out, scoring Agee; Kranepool singles to center; Charles grounds out. Mets 2, Giants 0.

Bottom 3rd: Bob Schroder fouls out; Hal Lanier grounds out; Marichal strikes out. Mets 2, Giants 0.

Top 4th: Martin flies out to the shortstop; Linz grounds out to SS; Harrelson is hit by a pitch; Selma grounds out.

Bottom 4th: Bobby Bonds leads off with a home run; Davenport singles to LF; Mays grounds into a double play; McCovey strikes out. Mets 2, Giants 1.

Top 5th: Agee is hit by a pitch; Agee steals second; Stahl flies out to LF; Jones flies out to CF; Kranepool flies out to CF, stranding Agee. Mets 2, Giants 1.

Bottom 5th: Dietz walks; wild pitch, Dietz to 2B; Alou grounds out to 1B, Dietz to 3B; Schroder hits a sacrifice fly to LF, Dietz scores; Lanier grounds out to 1B. Mets 2, Giants 2.

Top 6th: Charles grounds out; Martin grounds out; Linz strikes out looking.

Bottom 6th: Marichal is hit by a pitch; Bonds singles, Marichal to 2B; Marichal is picked off 2B by Selma; Davenport walks, Bond to 2B; Mays flies out to RF; McCovey doubles to CF, Bonds scores, Davenport scores, McCovey to 3B/advancing on throw to home; Dietz walks; Alou strikes out looking. Mets 2, Giants 4. “The Mets are going to win this game,” Dad says.

Top 7th: Harrelson grounds out; Al Weis grounds out; Agee flies out to CF.

Bottom 7th: Cal Koonce pitching in relief of Selma; Schroder grounds out; Lanier grounds out; Marichal doubles to LF; Bonds strikes out.

Top 8th: Stahl grounds out; Jones single; Kranepool flies out to 3B; Charles single to CF, Jones to 3B; Martin strikes out looking.

Bottom 8th: Davenport grounds out; Mays flies out to C; McCovey walks; Barton walks, McCovey to 2B; Alou grounds out. Mets 2, Giants 4.

Top 9th: Ron Swoboda, pinch hitting for Cal Koonce, singles to CF; Harrelson singles to CF, Swoboda to 2B; Art Shamsky, pinch hitting for Weis, strikes out; Agee singles to CF, Harrelson to 2B, Swoboda scores; Stahl hits a grounder forcing Agee out at 2B, Harrelson to 3B.

There are two outs. Cleon Jones hits a towering pop up to third base. “I told you, Dad! The Giants win!” Harrelson, on third, running on contact with two outs, crosses home plate. A formality. It won’t count. Stahl, running from first, rounds second.

“The Mets are gonna win this game!” Dad insists. This is the willing suspension of disbelief. This is Coleridge at Candlestick Park. My father has accepted as true the premises of his work of fiction that the Mets will win this game, all in exchange for the promise of entertainment. “It’s not over,” he says.

Cleon thinks it’s over. His bat thrown to the ground, he’s walking to first base. Because he’s trained to do so, Stahl runs to third and passes in front of Jim “Peanut” Davenport. The Giants’ third baseman peers into the dark above a city named for Saint Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of my church. He’s looking up into the sky as Francis did when he was nine (i.e., in 1190), the age I am in this story. The boy bought some birds from the market and let them go. They flew low over his head like parakeets, as if to thank him.

Davenport is waiting for the sky to tilt or something, and return what the kid from Plateau put up there. It does. The ball descends on Peanut and glances off his glove before falling, finally, to the ground. E-5. Harrelson scores/unER; Stahl scores/unER. Cleon Jones to 1B. Jones is caught stealing. Mets 5, Giants 4. It’s unbelievable, if not to my father.

Bottom 9th: Ron Taylor, pitching in relief of Koonce, gets Schroder to groundout; Ty Cline flies out to center; and Jim Ray Hart fouls out to 1B. Mets 5, Giants 4.

“I told you the Mets would win this game,” Dad says, gloating. The Mets won the game. I have it on good authority, mystified. And that is where it began, in San Francisco, on August 9th, 1968, my inability to disbelieve my Dad.

Coleridge was on opium when he wrote, “If a man could pass through Paradise in a dream, and have a flower presented to him as a pledge that his soul had really been there, and if he found that flower in his hand when he awake—Aye, what then?” As I live and am a man, this is an unexaggerated tale. I remember it the way I remember a dream. But in my hand I hold a flower. The box score.

Postscript: My father and I are faithful Detroit Tigers fans, and ‘68 was a vintage season. The Tigers faced the mighty St. Louis Cardinals in the World Series. Bob Gibson struck out 17 Tigers in the opener, setting a World Series record that still stands. The Cards took three of the first four games, but the Tigers battled back to win the next two. In the decisive seventh game of the series, Detroit’s Mickey Lolich out pitched Gibson, and the Tigers triumphed by a 4 – 1 score. It was Lolich’s third victory of the series. But that’s another story.

LAKELAND, Fla. — Carlos Ruiz is the starting catcher for the defending world champion Philadelphia Phillies. He has caught and faced pitchers of the best caliber at the highest levels of competition. On Wednesday, Ruiz saw Rick Porcello pitch for the first time. ”He has a good arm and a strong fastball, and his sinker is unbelievable,” Ruiz said. “From what I saw today, if he stays healthy, he will be in the big leagues for a long time.”

Porcello, in his first big-league start of any kind, faced Ruiz’s Panama team, which is headed to this weekend’s first round of the World Baseball Classic. Panama won, 9-3, but Porcello did his part. In his two-inning stint, Porcello faced each hitter in the lineup once. Ruiz pulled a grounder to third on a sinker. No one else hit the ball out of the infield against Porcello, either. ”He’s not afraid to pitch inside,” Ruiz said. “That’s something that is key.”

Porcello allowed one hit (an infield single) and no runs. He walked two and struck out three, all with someone on base. The first strikeout came with runners on second and third and one out in the first. He threw one of those unbelievable sinkers, and Panama’s cleanup hitter swung and missed. Porcello is making what manager Jim Leyland calls a longshot bid to win the vacancy in the Tigers’ rotation. Porcello is a longshot not because of his stuff, but because he’s 20 with just one year in pro ball.

today’s Freep