Pitching a fit over the First Pitch

I realize the “issue” of Cincinnati Mayor Mark Mallory’s errant Opening Day first pitch is trivial beyond belief. I understand that people see he’s being a good sport about the ribbing he’s received. I know there’s no such thing as bad publicity here, and the national attention he's nurturing on this will be a plus for Cincinnati. Hey, maybe he shanked it on purpose ...

Still, I’m a little miffed at Hizzoner, and I’ll bet I’m far from alone. For many of us growing up in the 1950s and ’60s, and maybe beyond, baseball was still king. If you were a kid, that’s what you’d do all summer, any chance you had. We all had our dreams, however far-fetched, of major league glory. I wanted to be shortstop for the Pirates. God knows they needed one. Then we blinked and were past the age when big-leaguers have retired. But oh, the dreams of stroking a clean liner to left-center, of short-hopping a ball and flipping it to second in one motion, of making a pitch sizzlepop into the catcher’s mitt – the dreams remain.

At the very least, we’d give away our 1959 Mickey Mantle cards for the chance to throw out the first pitch at a major league game – that is, if our mothers hadn’t thrown those cards away long ago. In other words, we’d take it seriously.

So maybe what Mallory needed was a Derek Jeter to set him straight. Before throwing out the first pitch at the third game of the 2001 World Series, just weeks after 9/11, President Bush went to the hitting cage underneath Yankee Stadium to warm up. Jeter, the Yankees’ star shortstop, told Bush to pitch from the pitcher’s mound, not in front of it, and added this: “Don’t bounce it. They’ll boo you.”

Bush recalled later, “I wanted to make sure that if was going to throw out the ball I was able to do so with a little zip.” He did it with decent form, delivering a curve ball a bit high but over the plate – even while wearing a bulletproof jacket under his FDNY windbreaker.

Contrast that with Mallory’s pathetic flail – he practiced that? – that pushed the ball (far left, it must be noted) into the on-deck circle. I’d be tempted to use that old, sexist taunt that he threw it like a girl, but that would be an insult – to girls. His dog-ate-my-homework dismissal of his wounded duckball, complete with a Lettermanic Top 10 list of excuses, doesn't strike my fancy either.

Yeah, I know it’s all a hoot, but I also know this: If something’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right. Ask Derek Jeter.