Free Triumph and Tragedy in Mudville by Stephen Jay Gould Page A

Grounds (for both the Yanks and Giants then played in the same park). Yankee Stadium opened in time for the 1923 three-peat of Yanks vs. Giants (and the first Yankee victory), but a short walk across the Harlem River sufficed, as the two ballparks stood in literal shouting distance, one from the other. Yankee victories over the Giants in 1936 and 1937 also required no more than a stroll. The first true subway series occurred a month after my birth in 1941, as distant Brooklyn finally prevailed. Six more subway contests between the Yanks and Dodgers followed (’47, ’49, ’52, ’53, ’55, and ’56), all won by Yanks, with a tragic exception in 1955. One strolling series between the Yanks and Giants intervened in 1951, as I struggled to restore my Yankee loyalty after rooting so hard for the Giants against the hated Dodgers—and being so gloriously rewarded by Bobby Thomson’s immortal homer in the last inning of the last playoff game.
     

    Home-plate umpire Charlie Reliford separates Yankees pitcher Roger Clemens from Mike Piazza in the second game of the 2000 subway series. Clemens had fielded a fragment of Piazza’s bat and thrown it in the Mets catcher’s direction as Piazza ran to first base on a foul ball. Credit: AP/Wide World Photos
     
    Geography then expanded even more dramatically from immobility in 1921, to a short stroll in 1923, to a subway ride in 1941, to a transcontinental flight, as several subsequent series pitted the Yanks against the transplanted Dodgers and Giants of California. But, to any real New Yorker, these contests simply don’t count. They left in 1958, broke our hearts, and then ceased to exist in that wondrous domain of Freudian superposition. The Mets, to me, are still an expansion team, but who’s complaining after a forty-four year drought, as subway series number fourteen initiates the new millennium?
    What can I say? The subway series of my youth shaped my life and my dreams, and established the milestones of timing and memory for all later accomplishments. In the peace of midlife, just a few years shy of those senior discounts, I can even place the Freudian calm of experience upon the passions of unforgiving boyhood—and finally come to terms with the Dodgers’ victory, and the spoilage of Yankee perfection, in 1955. I met Roy Campanella at a university cocktail party several years ago. Incredibly, for this wonderful man exceeded all others present by an order of magnitude in interest and achievement, he sat alone, talking with no one. So I walked over, still in the awe of remembered youth, and knelt by his wheelchair for the most memorable half hour of conversation in all my life. He wore a World Series ring on each finger of his left hand, but one exceeded all the others in size and brilliance. So I said to him: “I know the year of that biggest ring. That must be for 1955, when you finally beat us.” And this great man simply replied with such heartfelt candor and pleasure: “Yes, I am so proud.” And, at that moment, and forever, a little, but persistent, wound of my youth healed, and all shone bright and good.

A Time to Laugh
    O n October 6, 2001, for the first time in nearly a month of tragedy, the New York Post ran a headline on a different and happy subject. This screamer, despite its telegraphic mode and our preoccupation with other matters, conveyed a clear message in its numerical minimalism (to honor maximal achievement). The headline simply stated: “72.” Barry Bonds had fractured Mark McGwire’s “unbeatable” record for home runs in a single season, set at 70 just three years ago. (Two games later, he added another and finished the season with 73.) We are not callous. The thousands dead on September 11 shall remain in our lacerated hearts so long as we live. We now honor them by moving on in full memory, for “there is,” the Preacher tells us (Ecclesiastes 3:4), “a time to weep, and a time to laugh.”
     
    First published as “A Happy Mystery