harold baines and the walk off homerun

a christmas or new years get together
has a higher potential for a good time
with a little drinking or a lot and letting it all loose.

a get together also has a high risk of a nervous breakdown
or whatever you want to call it.
yeh, people freak out in crowded rooms.
these parties require a certain degree of calm or social skill
or whatever you want to call it.

it's a lot different than sitting around an apartment
in your underwear watching a regular season baseball game
on an old vhs recording from 2005,
especially when it's september 9, 2005 a friday night
and roger clemens lasts only 3 innings
and gives up 5 earned runs to the brewers
including jj hardy's 1st inning blast.
that kicks the crap out of  feeling lonely at a party among lots of people
because with baseball you're never really alone even if you are physically alone.
shit, this is getting existential.

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i don't know when the debate over "clutch" was born
and don't really care.
the argument goes something like...
give any major league player enough at bats in tight situations
and he will perform as he does under normal conditions.
a murphy's law sort of logic
not dale murphy, but some old science principle murphy.

i like jim thome because he looks like an efficient plumber
rather than some chiseled atlas who sniffs energy drinks.
last june, thome hit the 13th walk off homerun of his career
and that put him all alone as the all time leader in game ending blasts.

the list is a fairly normal one.
jim thome-13
jimmy foxx-12
mickey mantle-11
and then a bunch of people with 10
-stan musial, frank robinson, babe ruth, tony perez, dick allen,
harold baines, reggie jackson, mike schmidt, sammy sosa, barry bonds.

i'm partial to harold baines because he is my all time favorite player
and because i remember one of those walk offs.
it was in the 25th inning of the longest mlb game in history
at old comiskey park in 1984.
he hit it off of the brewer's chuck porter.

there's something about that list that is more than random
and more than murphy's law.
i'm not gonna call it clutch,
but you bet your sober statistical brain,
that the chances of these guys losing their cool
at a holiday party are next to none.