Passing

I was still a month shy of six when I watched Al Downing serve up the 715th round-tripper of Hank Aaron's career, but I remember it vividly. I remember Nixon's resignation later that year as well, but with less clarity. The sight of Bill Buckner climbing the left-field fence as the ball came down behind it is as burned into my brain as the sight of the swing itself, which baseball fans have seen in highlights again and again. Today, I opened up ESPN's Gamecast of the Giants game, as I have been doing for the past two weeks, and monitored the game while working so that I could turn on the television if Barry was coming up. Luckily, I was paying close enough attention to be standing in front of the set before Byung-Hyun Kim's first pitch to him in the fourth inning. I had a feeling it was going to happen, not least because Kim always seems to be serving up important homers. After the second ball I turned the volume up. Bean was sitting at the table finishing her lunch. The second he made contact on the historic blast I shouted, "Look, Skylar!" She got to watch the ball go over the fence as it happened. That made me happy. Later, when she was getting ready to visit her grandparents, she turned to me and said, "I can understand why he gets grumpy. I wouldn't want to be watched all the time like that either."