Humble Pie

Tiger Stadium. As I write this, Tiger Stadium is slowly evaporating.

I remember sitting in the right-field bleacher seats with my grandfather and twin brother when I was twelve or so. The Yankees were in town to play the beloved home team, the Tigers. Throughout the course of the game, my brother and I derided the Yankee right-fielder wearing the number twenty-one which had been stitched into the back of his jersey.

“You’re not good enough to have your name on the back of your jersey,” we repeated over and over again. Passionate we were, knowledgeable we were not. It would be at least three more years before I learned of the Yankees tradition to omit last names on the back of jerseys as a nod to the significance of the name of the front of the jersey over and above the name of the back of the jersey. This is a lesson almost completely missing from the modern professional landscape in which baseball players have their names on their jerseys, gloves, and even (depending upon your status) engraved into the wristbands resting on one’s forearms.

On the way home, my grandfather delivered some important news. “Boys, do you know who plays right field for the Yankees?”

“No. All we know is that he does not have his name on his jersey so he must not be that good.”

“His name is Paul O’Neil. He’s one of the best hitters in the game today.” A silence fell over the car. A silence not too different from the silence of a principal entering a classroom in which the substitute teacher has had it, relinquishing all authority to The Principal.

“Oh,” was all I remember offering in response to my grandfather. I made a mental note to myself that I would, at least when it came to sports, do my homework before I would make grandiose claims. By the way, I recently went back and looked up O’Neil’s stats from this year—he won the A.L. batting title.

Humble pie. A big ol’ slice of it.