El Profe: Best Moment in 2017? Crying in Baseball

“Are you crying? There’s no crying in baseball.”

The lines were made famous by Tom Hanks in the film A League of Their Own. He was portraying Jimmy Dugan, a gruff former major leaguer turned manager of the Rockford Peaches, a team in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. In the scene, Dugan is vehemently imploring one of his players to play smarter. She couldn’t hide her emotions. The tears flowed and there was crying.

In contrast to what Dugan said, my favorite baseball moments of 2017 prove that there is crying in baseball, and that’s more than okay.

A game that connects

A magical quality distinguishes béisbol from other sports. The game can take us back in time and place and thereby connect us to history, both baseball’s and our own.

Sure, this belief might lead some to call me an apologist, but the sport does connect us with family and history in a way that other sports do not.

I have often tested this belief with undergraduate students in my Sport & Society class at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. I ask them: Do you remember where you were when linebacker Brian Urlacher — one of the Chicago Bears’ all-time greats — made his 500th career tackle or his 1,000th tackle? Crickets.

Then I ask them: Do you remember where you were when Jim Thome hit his 500th home run with the Chicago White Sox?

The answers start flowing.

“I was there,” responded one student the last time I taught the class.

“Sitting on the family couch watching the game with my mom and dad,” said another.

That special connection between baseball, family, and history is what I witnessed this July in Cooperstown as Iván “Pudge” Rodríguez delivered his Induction speech.

Baseball’s mecca

Cooperstown is baseball’s mecca. At some point, every baseball fan should make the pilgrimage to the picturesque village in upstate New York and visit the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. Getting there can feel like traveling through time. This hits you as you exit Interstate 87 and commence driving through rural roads past beautiful farmlands, complete with red barns and grazing cows, until you get to Otsego Lake, one of many bodies of water dotting the region.

Once you hit Main Street in the village of Cooperstown, you find yourself surrounded by baseball. It’s all around. Memorabilia shops. Baseball card stores. Doubleday Café. And the Hall of Fame itself.

Cooperstown comes alive during Induction weekend. Fans pour in from across the country to see their baseball heroes. Baseball fans are everywhere, a mass of people all with the same purpose, walking about the village — moving from autograph signings to an official Hall function, or just eating at one of the local restaurants with family and friends. Whatever and wherever, baseball reigns.

Letting his game do the talking

As a ballplayer, Pudge did most of his talking with his game. Behind the plate, he made baserunners leery. He never slacked. Was ever vigilant. And ready.

It wasn’t just those who dared try swiping a base on the Puerto Rican catcher, who led the league in throwing out baserunners nine times. No. Any opponent who reached base had to stay alert. If you strayed a step too far, WHOOSH. That was the sound of Pudge’s powerful cannon of an arm throwing the ball to the bag and picking you off.

Pudge would show his emotions after such plays, as well as after driving in teammates with a big hit.

But with the press, he tended to stay a bit reserved.

I first met Pudge in 1995 at Yankee Stadium. We were youngsters then, but he was already a four-time All-Star at age 23, while I was a doctoral student a couple of years his senior.

 The interview was actually a twofer, as fellow Puerto Rican and All-Star outfielder Juan “Igor” González joined us. Igor did most of the talking: about growing up in Vega Baja, about life as a Latino in the minor leagues and majors. Pudge did a lot of listening then, sprinkling a few comments here and there.

That interaction shaped my perception of Pudge as quiet and reserved yet attentive, stepping in only when he felt he had something to add. I didn’t quite know what to expect from his Hall of Fame Induction speech.

Pudge steals the show

Fans came from far and wide to Cooperstown in August. There were Houston Astros fans to see Jeff Bagwell; a few Expos jerseys in support of Tim Raines. But what drew my eye were the Puerto Rican flags, Team Puerto Rico caps, and lots of Iván Rodríguez jerseys from the various teams on which he played.

This was not the first Induction weekend I had attended. But it was the first time I was able to witness a Puerto Rican get inducted.

I got goosebumps when the crowd roared, and Puerto Rican flags fluttered the moment Pudge was called up to receive his plaque and deliver his speech.

Then Pudge began to talk, like I had never heard him talk before. When the subject turned to family, his parents, sibling, wife and children, that’s when he got us. The moment got him, too.

“To my father José, my first baseball teacher, my best friend, you taught me to respect the game,” Pudge said in Spanish. “You taught me about the value of hard work and sacrifice. You were the one who suggested that I switch from pitching to catching. I owe you everything, Dad. I’m here looking at you in your eyes as a Hall of Famer, but you are the Hall of Famer, not me.”

And then he called his mother a “Hall of Famer two times over.”

“You taught me about life,” Pudge said in Spanish. “You taught me that school was as important or even more important than baseball. Mom, mission accomplished. You have a 45-year-old son in Cooperstown.”

And then, the tears. Crying at remembering the sacrifice, the pain and joy of growing up, of struggling together and of being loved and supported.

I met two families during Induction Weekend that had traveled to see Pudge: three generations of Calderons from Puerto Rico and Texas by way of migration, and three generations of the Valles family, who had driven all the way from Odessa, Texas.

When I talked with them following Pudge’s speech, the emotion was still there, and it was raw. Pudge had touched something within us. He had not only taken us along in his journey through baseball, but reminded us all of our own journeys, as Latinos and as baseball fans.

And there was crying in baseball once more.

Featured Image: Mike Stobe / Getty Images Sport

Inset Images: Clemson Smith Muñiz / La Vida Baseball