#42

So, it was Jackie Robinson day. 

Everybody was wearing #42 jerseys.

Seeing #42 gives me a little sentimental chill when I see it in play, plainly displayed on a baseball uniform. 

Like a game-long moment of silence making it’s presence felt through the noise of the crowd, the calls,  and competitive chatter of the in-game familiarities. 

Jackie Robinson is here. Sitting on the bench. Manicuring his bat and taking notes on the match ups. Who’s on the mound? 

OBP, OPS, ERA, K’s, E’s, SLG, HR’s, CG’s, and my favorite, HBP’s.

Lots of numbers involved with those letters– Historical and contemporary facts and figures. Legendary accolades and quiet obscurity. Magnitudes of victorious grandeur and tearful disappointment.  

Hot shot Wallstreet pit traders with their yelling and numbers and hand signaling at each other– don’t have anything on the baseball score and record keeper. 

I’m actually surprised Wall Streeters haven’t figured out complex financial schemes to capitalize on ERA’s and AVG’s derivatives. 

Sidebar: We use hand signals, too!  Study them and mimic like monkeys. As… a way of catching the suicide squeeze bunt sign coming from the third base coach, hit and run, or the straight steal from vets like Dusty Baker, or Mike Scioscia,  just to maybe, possibly, although highly unlikely and naive maybe– in the slimmest of chances– in a game of inches and human error, that “those bums over there are tipping their hands!” —  just to gain any advantage, imaginary or otherwise, over our bitterest rivals and inter-league strangers. 

Baseball encourages you to be mindful of the numbers and visibly woven patterns of geometrical relativity, recollecting the precise statistic to be referenced like a social security number.

Lifetimes measured in averages standing up to their historical value in echoes of layered spit-ball context. 

When I see the #42 on the field, it’s naturally, instinctively, to a baseball fan, a different kind of day, for me at least. 

Numerically, statistically, and emotionally.

That’s part of the reason why it seems like a different day, a little out of sorts, when 42 is introduced and applied to the mathematical tapestry of say, a day game at Wrigley.

I wonder if it has an effect on players.

Like,  do lots of players put it on trying, with determined tongue-wagging-concentration-faces,  to live up to the legend…? 

Do players who carry typical superstitions, or JOBU freak outs– have a rough day if they’re not wearing their own number?

Or more to wonder, if there are racist players in the league, or even racist fans, do they feel reluctant and weird, or resentful and hostile–  seeing and wearing Jackie Robinson’s #42?

The numbers don’t always speak for themselves, and the number isn’t just a number, and so it seems with the number forty-two.