Into The Park

Checking out a baseball computer game feels like slipping into the warm embrace of utopia, but as some play to remember and some play to forget, what happens if it turns out you can never leave?

By Roger Cormier

I've been checked out of reality for about a month now. There's a game called Out of the Park Baseball where you can do a lot of baseball things. One of those is playing general manager of a MLB team at any time in history. I suspect talking about my adventures is a lot like talking about a fantasy sports team, or a dream you had, in that nobody but you gives a damn. I will tell you it has caused more heartbreak than anything. While I was able to win the World Series as the Seattle Mariners in the fourth year of existence, the memories of losing eight NLCS in a row as the Houston Astros and failing to win a title as the Mets after 1997 despite plenty of postseason appearances are far sharper. The saying that it hurts more to lose than it feels good to win comes to mind. I hate that saying. 

So what's the appeal? The game is free of real tragedy. Roberto Clemente, Thurman Munson, and José Fernández don't die prematurely. 9/11 never happened. There are no minor leagues during the 2020 season, but 162 games are played in the bigs. There's a wonderful smug satisfaction in giving a franchise that in real life only has one or two titles, or none at all, multiple championships. I like seeing the word LEGENDARY in capital letters next to my name in the team personnel section. I lived George Costanza's fantasy and had Bonds and Griffey in the same outfield (and yet never won a title with those two, interestingly enough)! Though I suspect the main appeal is that, at least with my shitty laptop, the game requires my entire screen, shielding me from Tweetdeck and, for hours at a time in between checking my phone, from the news.

In theory, this is healthy. In practice, I also pretty much stopped exercising, reading books, and writing. I was subsumed with the game. I wanted to live in it. I still kind of do, even though my frustration with each passing playoff loss grows. 

This obsession came at an odd time. I had been resorting to only livetweeting Mets games from my phone, only for emergencies — Buck Showalter reacting to a Met getting hit by a pitch — stopping the game, logging off, and screenshotting something. Last week, Edwin Díaz wore a Mark Canha Summer shirt. Francisco Lindor wore a tank top with the same expression Wednesday night. “Mark Canha Summer” was something I came up with. It's totally bizarre to see something I wrote once in June become popular. Social media is responsible for all of it and I haven't given it its proper due by being on it 24/7. That's how I feel and I know it's messed up, to say the least.

I've written this blog in the past tense, not out of accuracy, but out of hope that I will eventually get tired of it. There have been enough moments of déjà vu traveling through time repeatedly where I can see boredom becoming a reality. Lou Whitaker always plays effectively until he's 50. With all due respect to Lou: Why? But so does Sandy Koufax, which is absolutely right. The Left Arm of God is timeless. In a just world, that is.