Poscast with my baseball hero
Joe Posnanski
MONDAY, APRIL 18, 2011
（這篇是SI專欄作家 Joe Posnanski 所寫的文章，關於他的英雄，球員時代的 Duane
Kuiper。Joe Posnanski 是個非常棒的運動作家，而 Kuiper，也許是如今棒球世界最好
的播報員。）
There's a baseball bat in my office that I sometimes pick up when stuck
between paragraphs. I don't swing the bat, at least not at full speed. No, I
put it up against my shoulder and walk around with it for a little while. I
let it quiver behind my head as I imagine standing in against fastballs.
After a while, I put the bat down and return to my writing. I could say that
the bat helps me think, a wooden muse, but that's not exactly right. I could
say the bat clarifies things in my head, sharpens them, and that's true ...
but no that's not quite right either. The bat reminds me exactly why I do
this ... and maybe why someone keeps paying me to do it ... and maybe why I
got so lucky.
每當文思阻扼，我常會拾起辦公室角落的球棒。我並不揮棒，至少不是全力揮擊。不。我
將棒子斜靠肩上，走個幾步。有時讓它在腦後輕輕搖晃，想像自己面對一記耀眼的快速球
。良久，再放下棒子，回去寫作。或者我可以聲稱球棒幫助了我的思緒，如木製的繆思，
但並非如此；或者說它猛烈擊中了我某些想法，其實也不盡然……。好像都不大對。它提
醒了我為何從事這項工作……也許解釋了為何有人仍願支付薪資讓我從事這項工作………
也許它說明了我有多幸運。
* * *
One of the wonder of our games. I think, is that they are exactly as
important or unimportant as you make them. A pitcher could throw a perfect
game in the seventh game of the World Series, and it wouldn't mean much of
anything to my mother, for instance.* On the other hand, an intentional walk
to Yuni Betancourt in a June Brewers-Marlins game might set me off on a
5,000-word post. It is not just perspective, it is commitment. It is all
about how deeply you want to enter the world.
一項我們的賽場上的神奇魔咒。球員們可以如你所想要的那般重要（或不重要）。比方說
，一名投手在世界大賽第七戰投出完全比賽，對我媽而言可能並不代表什麼。然而，如果
六月中的釀酒人與馬林魚之戰，有人敬遠 Yuni Betancourt，也許我會怒寫五千字分析文
章，憤擊鍵盤如飛（譯按：六月，戰況尚未吃緊。Yuni Betancourt，絕非釀酒人打線最
危險的前五名打者）。凡此種種，非關視角，這是獻身與承諾。這一切取決於你願意多深
入這個世界。
*Then again: what happens on Dancing With The Stars and American Idol means
quite a lot to her, and absolutely nothing to me. All depends on your world.
*同樣的，《與明星共舞》(Dancing With The Stars) 及《美國偶像》(American Idol)
發生的那些大小事對我媽都有深刻意義，卻與我絕緣。端看你處於哪個世界。
When I was 10, I wrapped myself in the world of the 1977 Cleveland Indians. I
don't recall this being much of a choice, but looking back on it I guess it
was a choice. Nobody I knew cared as much. Even though we were all 10 in
school, there was a cynical strain running through the other kids in my
class, and they mostly made the entirely sensible and terribly unromantic
decision that the Indians were not worthy of their best hopes. Even by then,
more than 30 years ago, the Indians had not been to the World Series in
almost 25 years