“Destiny is something not be to desired and not to be avoided. a mystery not contrary to reason, for it implies that the world, and the course of human history, have meaning.” ~ Dag Hammarskjöld
Ryan Lavarnway didn’t think he would be behind the plate when the Red Sox season came to an end. In fact, Lavarnway didn’t figure to get much playing time at all this season, let alone in the most important game of the year. But when Jarrod Saltalamacchia took a foul ball to the chest, Boston had little choice but to start the slugging rookie at catcher for the first time. A philosopher might call this destiny.
Lavarnway surely has opinions on the matter of destiny. The rare athlete who majored in philosophy, he was drafted by Boston in the sixth round of the 2008 draft. Attending Yale as an undergraduate, he set the record for batting average, home runs, hits, doubles, RBI’s, and total bases. He’s ascended the minor league ladder rather quickly, reaching Pawtucket in his fourth year with the club. Lavarnway has always been an offensive force, never finishing with a batting average below .292 the past three years. After jacking 22 homers in 2010, his power blossomed even more this season, as he launched 32 long balls. He has shown an impressive penchant for taking walks as well, although this did not show during his time in the majors.
So with this extensive and impressive offensive resume, what has kept Lavarnway in the minors for all this time? Well, before this season he was blocked by Victor Martinez, whose offensive resume isn’t too shabby either. This year, the Sox were committed to giving Saltalamacchia a chance, even after his horrendous April. The third factor was Lavarnway’s defensive skills, which are sub par at best. Originally a right fielder, he was transitioned to catcher before his freshman year. With such shoddy skills behind the plate, many see Lavarnway more as a DH than a catcher. It just so happens that Boston may be in the market for both of those in the offseason, boding well for the young theologian.
“The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point, however, is to change it.” ~Karl Marx
Lavarnway certainly changed the course of this season. Whether this change was for the better or the worse is still up for debate. On Tuesday night, the eve before the season came to a close for the Sox, Lavarnway hit two home runs, drove in four runs, and played some excellent defense. This saved the season, at least for one night. In what turned out to be Terry Francona’s last major decision during his eight year run as Boston’s manager, he penciled Lavarnway’s name fifth in the order for the most important game of the year. In a matter of hours, Lavarnway had gone from sitting on a bench to suddenly protecting Adrian Gonzalez. He went 0-5, left nine men on base, and watched as Gonzalez was intentionally walked three times to get to his spot in the order. If he had driven in even one of those nine men…well, you know what I’m suggesting. You can’t help but wonder how the game would have gone had Francona not played Lavarnway based on a sample size of four at bats from the night before.
“Philosophy: A route of many roads leading from nowhere to nothing.” ~Ambrose Bierce
Of course, there’s a lot of things you can’t help but wonder about this season. What if they hadn’t started 2-10? What if they hadn’t lost four straight to the Padres and Pirates? What if they had chased Cliff Lee instead of Carl Crawford? The tired cliché is that baseball is a game of inches. It’s really a game of millimeters. A game of split seconds, of almosts, of losses in May that don’t seem important until you miss October by just that much, of two strike counts that have you standing on the couch pleading for just one more. Sometimes the third one comes, more often than not it doesn’t. Ryan Lavarnway crouched behind the plate on Wednesday night waiting for that third strike. He set the sign and waited for Jonathan Papelbon to hurl the white orb into his mitt. Of all the things there are to wonder about this season, perhaps the most tragic is how the ball must have looked to Lavarnway as it traveled so quickly towards his glove only to rocket away, slowly arcing towards the millimeters of grass that separated Crawford’s glove from the final out of the game. The out that never came.
“I love baseball. You know it doesn’t have to mean anything, it’s just beautiful to watch.” ~Woody Allen
It’s strange that there aren’t more philosophy majors in the game of baseball; the two go together so well. We’re so eager to find meaning in this game, just as we are to find it in our own lives. As Billy Beane says in Moneyball, “It’s so easy to romanticize baseball.” And it is. But does it mean anything? Rooting for men to hit balls over fences and circle the bases in triumph? The real answer is that like life, we’ll never know. And that is the real romance of it. Is it worth being part of the worst collapse in the history of the game? Of course it is. The winter will be long, and the summer will be short, as it always is. The tragedy of a beginning is that there must come an ending. But with every ending, no matter how tragic, no matter how heart breaking, a new beginning will come. In the end, perhaps the greatest baseball philosophy can be boiled down to one sentence….
“April, come she will.” ~Simon & Garfunkel