Emotional Equivalency V.2: Exhilaration
It doesn't get any better than this.
Baseball can inspire all sorts of emotions and sensations. A few weeks ago, in the first of this series, I wrote about love. Of course, that one was always a bit of a stretch. Love undoubtedly exists in baseball, but despite my literary efforts to connect them on the page (or screen, as it is), it’s safe to say the love I feel for Bobby Witt Jr. is not the same as what I feel for my wife. This week, however, we’re going to discuss a feeling that is essentially universal, no matter where you encounter it. I’m talking about exhilaration.
Exhilaration is fleeting by its very nature. If it were not, it would become commonplace and normal, and then it wouldn’t be exhilarating at all. It’s an adrenaline rush, a momentary exclamation point placed at the peak of so many other emotions, ranging from love to satisfaction and even fear. The feeling requires us to be exposed and vulnerable, to a certain extent, and that is what makes it so powerful.
Obviously, exhilaration can come from many sources. Some of them can seem almost mundane, like driving fast or hearing a song that strikes the right chord in your headspace. A well-told story can accomplish the feat as well as a rollercoaster ride, or maybe you catch a buzz from telling off your jerk boss. Perhaps you finally worked up the nerve to talk to that cute girl you’ve been running into at the store.
The opposite sex* is a pretty common source of exhilaration, as well as a whole host of other emotions. For now, we’re going to focus on exhilaration. Think back to your first kiss and the rush that came with it, and without getting too graphic, what about the first time you got laid? Or the last time? Or every time in between? Sex is pretty hard to screw up, so even though most of us aren’t that good at it to start, it’s still pretty awesome. And when you get a little experience and find someone you click with, well, watch out.
*Or same sex. Whatever gets your motor running. There’s no judgement or discrimination here. As long it’s consensual and doesn’t hurt anyone, do what you like.
Not that exhilaration has to be healthy. As a former addict, I can tell you it’s often the sketchiest forms of exhilaration that are the hardest to kick. The first time I ever popped a Dilaudid was a life-changing experience, and not in a positive way. I’ve never liked when people describe drugs as better than sex. For one, I think it’s a lazy comparison, and it doesn’t tell the full story. But if we’re talking about the first time, at least in my experience, it’s absolutely accurate. That’s the problem, and it gets to the heart of addiction. It’s never as good as the first time, but you’re constantly chasing that first high, hoping that you’ll somehow achieve it again.
Much like love, baseball can’t quite replicate the exhilaration of real-world things like sex and drugs,* but it can get a whole lot closer in this department than a lot of stuff. I don’t mean to suggest it is in anyway routine, however. Elation is as difficult to find in baseball as any other walk of life, and when you find it, it leaves an impression.
*If it could, it would be the most popular game on the planet, no contest.
I can probably count on one hand the number of times I’ve encountered it, give or take an adrenaline rush or two. The first two came as a player in little league. You might scoff at that, but most of us are never going to reach the Show. Little league was as far as I got, and the fact that these moments are still so vibrant in my mind thirty years later speak to how much they mattered to young me.
Number one was the first fly ball I ever caught in center field. I don’t remember the exact year, but we were old enough that it was finally starting to look like real baseball when we played. Except for the fielding. Prior to that season, the coaches generally stuck the worst defenders in the outfield, because the ball rarely made it there. Not in the air, at least. That was changing, but our defensive skills had yet to catch up.
I wasn’t very fast, but I had some skill with the glove, so I was put into centerfield. Despite our progress at the plate, most innings out there were pretty uneventful. That is, until a kid lifted a deep drive to left-center. I sprinted after it, sure that I would never get to it before it landed in the gap. Then, just as I was about to collide with the left fielder, I reached up and squeezed it in my glove while on the run. The crowd erupted, more in surprise than anything else, and I felt like Ken Griffey Jr. At least until the next game, when I probably misplayed one. If that is what happened, however, I don’t remember that part. Only the rush of that catch.
The second moment came during my final year of organized ball, the summer before my freshman year. We didn’t have a baseball program at my high school, so I knew it was my last go-around, and I wanted it to count. The only problem was I had terrible season. I was still solid with the glove, but I seemed to forget everything I knew about swinging a bat.
My whole season was a massive slump filled with strikeouts and weak grounders, until our next to last game. It was a road game and the park we were playing at didn’t have a fence or a wall to mark the end of the outfield. They had a corn field instead.* I came up in the third inning of a tie game with two runners on and two outs. I’m sure each of my teammates expected the inning to end with me, but I got ahold of one and drove it to deep right center. The ball disappeared into the corn on one hop for a ground-rule double.
*It was Kansas, after all. But yeah, very Field of Dreams.
We broke the game open in that inning, and after I came into score, I sat in the dugout and the whole vibe had changed. Everybody was in a better mood, me most of all. That marked the end of my slump, and I hit well for the next game-and-a-half, but none of the at-bats felt as good as that one.
Most of us don’t have the talent to experience those moments firsthand at the highest level, but baseball is an odd thing, in that it allows us to feel a similar sensation vicariously through the players on the field. That’s what being a fan is all about. Hard to explain that to someone who doesn’t actually follow sports, but it’s one of the few things in the world that provides a path to exhilaration without actually having to do anything ourselves.
All you really need is patience and endurance. Because those moments might be few and far between. Those characteristics might not always be required, but they might actually intensify the moment of exhilaration when it comes. Take, for example, my experience as a Royals fan.
My memory of the Royals’ first championship in 1985 is hazy. I was only six years old and still learning the game, having attended my first game early that season. But I definitely remember watching the World Series while lying on the floor of my childhood home, and I was ecstatic when they beat the Cardinals to claim the crown. But that’s not exactly what I’m getting at here.
The joy and excitement that comes with winning a championship is one thing, but it’s not exhilaration. That kind of happiness is more sustainable and easier to hang onto. The intensity of it might diminish over time, but it never really goes away. In a sense, there’s more substance to it. As I stated earlier, exhilaration is fleeting. It can only be experienced in the moment.
I felt it when Daryl Motley homered off of John Tudor in the bottom of the second to give Kansas City a 2-0 lead. That wasn’t the moment they won the World Series. Well, actually it was, considering they won the game 11-0. But I didn’t know that at the time. The game was still in its early stages, and it could have gone in any number of directions, but that moment was special. I felt it in my six-year-old bones, and I went crazy, jumping all over our living room until my parents told me to calm down.
I think I handled those moments with more self-control in later life, but they still felt remarkably similar, and after enduring three decades without anything remotely resembling that high as a Royals fan, I could argue they hit even harder.
The first example I point to is the 2014 AL Wild Card Game against the A’s, the game that sparked the Royals’ improbable run to back-to-back World Series. On one hand, I was just happy to be in the postseason after twenty-nine years, but I really didn’t want it to end after one game. That’s exactly what it looked like was going to happen though, after the A’s jumped out to a 7-3 lead following a five-run sixth inning.
The Royals clawed back into it, however, plating three runs in the bottom of the eighth, and tying the game in the bottom of the ninth. The A’s took a one-run lead in the top of the twelfth, but the Royals fought back again. Improbable hero and utilityman Christian Colon tied the game again, and then stole second, setting the scene for the walkoff. The building excitement crescendoed when Salvador Perez lined a ball past Josh Donaldson down the third base line and Colon crossed home plate. I don’t think I slept for a week after that. At least not until the start of the ALDS a few days later.
That Royals crew specialized in moments like that. The next one came in Game 1 of the 2015 World Series. The Mets took a 4-3 lead in the eighth, after Eric Hosmer misplayed a ball he normally would have snagged, and it appeared the Mets were going to steal the opener on the road. Alex Gordon had other ideas. He stepped to the plate in the bottom of the ninth and took Jeurys Familia, New York’s dominant closer, to deep center.
Whether it’s at Kauffman Stadium or the Royals’ next home, Gordon will someday have a statue memorializing his trot around the bases, and he deserves every bit of it. That was possibly the most excited I’ve ever been watching sports as an adult, and though I didn’t jump around the house, it definitely brought me to my feet and there were a lot of fist pumps and shouting going on. It was sports as theater at its best, and while the rush was gone before the Royals finally walked it off in the fourteenth inning, the memory of that thrill persists ten years later.
I don’t have six fingers,* but I want to mention one more moment real quick. Gordon bailed Hosmer in out in Game 1, but Hosmer created his own immortal moment a few games later, in Game 5. Down 2-1 in the ninth, one win away from the franchise’s first title in thirty years, he charged home on a routine grounder, after baiting Mets’ third baseman David Wright to throw to first. First baseman Lucas Duda’s throw home was off target, and Hosmer slid into home, tying the game. Thanks to Hosmer’s mad dash, the Royals won the game and the series in the twelfth inning.
*Remember when I said that thing about being able to count my exhilarating baseball moments on one hand?
I might be able to come up with more examples, but not many. I wish I had more, but then I start to think about it, and maybe I’m glad I don’t. If they came more often, maybe those moments and the rush that came with them wouldn’t be as special. The last thing I want is to become an addict, dulled to the sensation and desperately seeking to recreate the magic of that first hit. If I have to wait another thirty years to feel that exhilaration again, then hopefully that will only make it that much more intense.
I doubt it will come to that. Like I said, it doesn’t have to come from championships. Sure, those heightened stakes certainly produce a more conducive setting for those moments to happen, but they aren’t a necessity. They can come in June, or with a bad team, at home or at the ballpark. The beauty of exhilaration is that it can strike anywhere, so long as you’re open to it.
And it’s the best feeling in the world.
Thanks for reading Powder Blue Nostalgia. I’d love to hear about your most exhilarating baseball moments, either on the field, in the stands, or watching from your couch at home. All you gotta do is hit the comment button.
Exhilaration in sports is unmatched. But, like a drug, it’s rough trying to recapture it. I was at the Penn State-Ohio State football game in 2016. I’ve been to several games since. But idk if anything will ever replace the pure exhilaration me and 110k other people had when that field goal attempt was blocked. For me, it was the return that was the best part. And the moment Grant Haley crossed the goal line, the place exploded. I was lucky to experience it, even if it means I’ll never quite have that feeling again.
The A's should have won that game but our closer was a mutt. The catcher was trash too with his noodle arm. I don't think either were in the squad the next year.