The Phillies had not been mentioned in the Cliff Lee Sweepstakes, so when I saw the 6-word text: “Cliff Lee going back to Phillies” I did what I always do. I “Snopesed it” (i.e. checked my Twitter feed). I made some audible grunt of disbelief (during a record session, with an open mike), and looking up aghast, I saw the board operator staring at his phone, his face ashen. “Oh” he said, out loud, in a tell-tale Texan drawl, to no one in particular.
Baseball fans are accustomed to losing favorite players (Matt Stairs) in ruthless trades. For young fans, it is a baseball right of passage. For me, it was a hot-dogging, wrist snapping, bat flipping, sweet-swinging lefthander named Willie Montanez. I distributed a petition aimed at preventing the Phillies from trading him. It was a pretty big deal in the 2nd grade. Cliff Lee had only been with the team for a season, yet his brief sojourn in candy canes incited the kind of mindless adulation among Philadelphians usually reserved for overrated snack cakes and overrated 24 hour convenience stores. His departure – Cost: one best pitcher in baseball – sent the city into literal conniptions. My mom was apoplectic: “after all he did for them?!” Buck up, soldier, this is sports, there is no room for sentimentalism! But inside I felt a void. And I didn’t know why.
What is it about the easy-throwing southpaw that made him 2010’s toast of the baseball world, suddenly perched atop the pitching pantheon? He’s not a physical specimen, has an athlete’s bad taste in sport shirts and sunglasses, can get shellacked, so…what? As baseball players go, Cliff Lee is idiosyncratic, owns a certain Je ne sais quoi. He’s not willfully wacky, like Mark Fidrych or that black beard idiot in SF. He isn’t hair-proud like Tim Lincecum or ass-proud like A-Rod. He has a semi-ironic nonchalance that’s in part sincere Arkansas rusticism and in part knowing, boyish affectation (you know, what hipsters strive for).
There’s the fact that Lee was drafted twice out of High School – in 1997 and again in 1998 – but both times opted for college, that he quietly takes subways to games, that he has a wicked sense of humor, and that he’s best friends with CC Sabathia. Lee “doesn’t get nervous” (i.e. he’s “cool”). He is cool – cocky without hubris, puckish yet demure, his face both raffish and innocent. He is sanguine.
And, famously, Cliff Lee left $35 million filthy Yankee dollars on the table to re-sign with the Phils, saying, simply, idiosyncratically: “It’s plenty of money. When you hit a certain point, enough’s enough.”
But to get to the heart of the reason why Cliff Lee resonates so loudly in the collective skulls of Phillies fans, you’ll have to harken back to October of 2009.
I’m not sure if I am the only lunatic who keeps Game One of the 2009 World Series on Tivo, to watch from time to time. That the Phillies lost the series to the Yankees is besides the point. The game is a two and a half hour encapsulation of what baseball is best at: drumming up the cornball nostalgia and the high drama that gives life to the illusion – that for a brief moment in time, we forget that nothing lasts.
Lee took the 4 train alone to 161st street to throw his first ever World Series Game at Yankee Stadium. The Yankees were heavily favored not just to win the series, but to destroy the Phillies, a sweep. But, there was nothing about Cliff Lee to indicate he knew anything about that. In short sleeves and working a wad of gum, Lee treated the mighty Yankee sluggers like a cat swatting around a wounded bird, with near perfect command of 5 different, laser-located pitches and swaggering defensive plays, unflappable in the face of the most prolific scoring lineup in baseball.
Lee set the rhythm, and the Yankees succumbed to his metronome. Unaffectedly superstitious, Lee rakes the dirt with his cleat, psychotically windmills both arms three times, turns to face second base, and fires a phantom pitch. Whenever a fatass Yankee batter tried to throw him off his rhythm by farting around in the batter’s box with dusty eyes or batting glove issues, Lee would hop off the mound and repeat the motion, before bamboozling them with a spiked curveball, deceptive change-up or two-seam fastball.
Cliff Lee’s fourth inning might have been the best inning a pitcher has had against the Yankees. He struck out the side: He got Teixeira with an 97-mile-an-hour fastball, A-Rod with a 86 m.p.h. change-up, and Posada with a 77 m.p.h. curveball. Then Lee sprinted off the mound. Going into the bottom of an inning, Lee would bound out of the dugout and race back to the mound as if he couldn’t wait to get back on the mound.
When Johnny Damon sent a meager bloop back to the mound, Lee stood – completely still except for his jaw – and made an over-archingly ho-hum basket catch, allowing the pop-up to drop into his glove without so much as lifting it above his chest or stepping off the mound. Then – as Damon trotted by with a death stare – the ball dropped into the pocket of his glove as he turned his head to return his stare:
The first “what the fuck you lookin at?” putout ever recorded in World Series history had the infielders cackling and Tim McCarver in the booth, customarily non compos mentis.
Lee knifed through the billion dollar lineup effortlessly, K’ing A-Rod thrice, and tagging out an enraged Posada by patting him on the ass with his glove. In his fielding Grand Pas d’action, Lee snagged a hard Robinson Cano one-hopper back up the middle. Behind his back. After throwing Cano out at first, the infield went into laugh track mode again, to which Lee nonchalantly shrugged as if to say “NBD”, then burst into chuckles. Jimmy Rollins later said:
“When he made that one, I gave him a little fish eye, and he gave me a little fish eye right back. Then he shrugged, like, ‘I don’t know.’ And I looked at him and said, ‘Yeah. Exactly.'”
Cliff Lee tossed an effortless, six-hitter that night, striking out 10, walking none, with a broad grin, a little hot doggery, and an almost spooky calm. It was like he was watching the game in slow motion, with time to savor moments and add flourish. He pitched like he had already seen the game and knew how it turned out. He pitched like he was on Tivo.
With the 6 – 0 win, Lee was the first lefty starter to beat the Yankees in The Bronx to open a World Series since Sandy Koufax in 1963, the first pitcher to strike out at least ten, walk none, and give up no earned runs in a World Series start and the first pitcher ever to laugh his way through a World Series game.
Returning Cliff Lee to the Birthplace of our Nation and tacking on another 30+ year old ace to an existing embarrassment of pitching riches, transcends any lack of baseball sense it may represent. Because it isn’t about that. It’s about Game One of the 2009 World Series. It’s about the spirit of baseball (less Moneyball, more Roger Kahn), and making reparations to a city who lost their world title to the Yankees 5 games after the aforementioned game one (Lee was also the winning pitcher for game 5). Because it’s just spectator sports and doesn’t always have to be about prudence. Just ask Cliff Lee who – had he signed with the Yankees – could have had $165 million, lived on Park Avenue, with a spot on the biggest stage in baseball playing for the most successful franchise in baseball. But, the Anointed One chose raising his kids with those accents, in the fattest city in America, where major attractions are appearances by Countess Luann at Jewelbilee at The Plymouth Meeting Mall. That, sports fans, is what makes him better than you.