Baseball's Afterlife

n 1997 the expansion Florida Marlins (established 1993) beat the Cleveland Indians (established 1901) to claim their first World Series title. Baseball purists scoffed at their victory. They hadn't paid their dues. They hadn't been around long enough. Wah wah wah.

The Marlins then disbanded the team and lost 108 games in 1998, the worst finish by a defending World Series champ ever. Since 1999 (including their 2003 World Series title year; average attendance 16,089), they have never finished better than 15th in attendance (2000), only better than 26th that one year.  Hoo-rah.

In baseball more than perhaps any other sport, this is justice. No one should play 162 games a year and win it all by mistake goes the thinking. Stretch this thinking out and no one should have one great year and make the Hall of Famer. No one should do one great thing and be awarded keys to the Pearly Gates. The highest honors - immortality, never to be forgotten, remembered for eternity - come with time. That's tradition. Tradition is built over time.

A number of religions offer versions of the afterlife and baseball is no different. Baseball, the religion of Bull Durham's Annie Savoy, offers its players, executives and broadcasters a whole slew of options: Cooperstown; retired numbers; days at the stadium in one's honor; fans booing new players who try to wear your old number; and for those lucky enough to play for the Yankees, Old-Timers' Day.

With the days of gold watches upon retirement and pensions going the way of the Expos, the tradition of Old-Timers' Day becomes a bit more precious. While I find it hard to believe the Yankees are the only team that has retired players that their fans are willing to come out and see again, I have no idea why only one out of Major League Baseball's 30 teams celebrates their retired players every year. But as they say, the less of something there is the more precious it is.

The same can be said for induction into the Hall of Fame or having one's number retired; the odds of such achievements make Mario Mendoza look like a Sunday beer league batting champ. Assumption into baseball's afterlife depends on performance (either wonderful or wacky) over a long period of time.  That's tradition.

At the end of the day, whether you're let in by St Peter or the Baseball Writers Association of America, you gain immortality. In other words, you are not forgotten. You are remembered for eternity.

What is unique about what the Yankees have done by making Old-Timers' Day an annual event is that they have made heaven a living tradition; whether you were an all-star or not. You wore the pinstripes, you did us proud. Put the uniform back on. Play in the sun. Tip your cap when the crowd cheers your name. Thank you.

As the '97 Marlins learned, it's possible to be great and to be forgotten by one's fans. Had the long-suffering Indians won the '97 Series members of that team would be heroes in Cleveland forever because the Indians have tradition. The team has existed longer than most of their fans. In other words, by existing longer than the lives of their fans there is a foreverness about them. The Marlins, with the newfound celebrity of a lotto winner, could not claim that.

To write about an expansion team in The Boston Squeeze is to write about those on the short end of immortality; those who lay the foundations of the tradition, a foundation that can eventually support immortality, a foundation similar to the ones we build with our lives, our families, our communities and so forth.