Dramatic dingers tell us something about baseball. The pitchers reveal something about frustration, pain and apathy.
It’s possible to track a year through home runs—through baseball’s most explicit displays of strength and glory. But it’s more illuminating to track a year through the pitcher reactions to those home runs. How does the experience of giving up a moonblast translate physically? What can we see in the eyes of a man who just watched his night unravel? Where does frustration become pain? When does pain cross over into apathy? To wit: If the most dramatic home run of the year tells us something about baseball, well, the pitcher’s reaction to giving up that home run tells us something about the human condition.