Manager's Journal: April 11, 2009

A home run! Carlos Lee—steady, reliable Carlos—was the one who spotted it. He already had two singles on the day, and Reyes told me later that Carlos had stopped nearly in mid-stride, retrieved a pair of field binoculars, and raised them to his eyes. Reyes asked him what he was looking at. Carlos lowered the binoculars again, gritted his teeth, and muttered what Reyes said sounded like "Fastball!" Then he took off, barreling across the sun-blasted plains, gripping his bat in both hands. Reyes ran after him. He told me that it took Carlos a little while to get up to full speed, but then not even Reyes could have caught him, such was his determination.

By now the rest of us had taken notice. No one seemed to know what was happening; we all thought Carlos had finally broken, that we might have to chase him down, tie him to a board, and drag his raving bulk behind us the rest of the season. But then Jason Bay shouted, "Home run! Home run! Home run!" and he took off as well. The pitchers huddled together, confused and frightened—they thought Varitek had reappeared, that he was coming for them the way he had already come for Shields and Percival. But the hitters lost no time in following Bay's lead.

Carlos stood on top of a rising dune, bat in hand, silhouetted against the fading sun like a rotund Greek god. The home run was truly a colossal, majestic thing, and when they reached it the hitters all stood in awe before its power, marveling that such a thing really existed, that a ball could be hit so far as to actually clear the outfield wall, and find itself in whatever mythical lands of gold and garlic fries lay beyond.

That night we celebrated, dancing and feasting and toasting mighty Carlos long into the night. Aaron Harang played his lute, with Jay Bruce accompanying him on wood block and triangle. The men had been so overwhelmed with joy that they seemed to forget that they might hit too—Carlos's home run was, in fact, also the only run and RBI anyone managed to find that day, and he provided three of our five total hits. I did not mention that we were still down 7-3, with little hope holding on to even that much through Sunday night, not against the seemingly endless gauntlet of two-start pitchers still to come from our opponent. It mattered little. Today the home run was enough.