Wainwright Gets No. 199
EN ROUTE TO SANTA ROSA, CALIF. — Apologies up front … this crazy book tour has finally caught up with me. We had a great event last night at the Ebell of Los Angeles. I mean, how could it help but be a great event with Molly Knight, Mike Schur and Nick Offerman? Then afterward, I had a meal with the wonderful Alexis Gay. It was terrific.
It was also a bit much for these old bones … it turned out to be a rough night. I won’t go into details, but think about what sleep deprivation, time changes, up-and-down adrenaline rushes and trying to be ON every waking moment can do to a person. It was that kind of rough night.
I’m feeling just a bit better this morning — not great by any means, but better — and I need to feel better because I’m going to be at the Santa Rosa Copperfield’s tonight. If you happen to live anywhere near Santa Rosa, it would be great to see you. I could use the support. I’ve written many times about how being around people would resuscitate Buck O’Neil whenever his energy level lagged. I know a bit more lately about how he felt.
Because I really need to rest, I’m going to cut today’s newsletter short. But I will share a WHY WE LOVE BASEBALL moment from last night: Adam Wainwright won his 199th career game. We all love Adam Wainwright, of course, because of the way he has carried himself, because he’s fun to be around, because he’s come back again and again from the brink, etc.
It has been a disastrous season for Wainwright — he has a 7.95 ERA, and the whole league is hitting .354/.409/.593 against him. Basically every single player in baseball turns into Ronald Acuña Jr. when facing Wainwright. And … it has felt so wrong.
Entering this year, Wainwright was coming off a couple of pretty effective seasons (heck, he got Cy Young votes in 2021), and he needed just five wins to reach 200 victories. And while that isn’t quite a Hall of Fame accomplishment, it is the mark of a substantial career — hell, Koufax didn’t win 200.
It wasn’t supposed to be a big deal. Even if Wainwright fell off — he turned 42 last month — he would certainly win five games, and it would be a sweet moment for a good guy.
Instead, watching Wainwright try to outsmart hitters with an 87-mph sinking fastball and a once-elite curveball that now just kind of sits there has been hard. Seeing a good and great player struggle at the end is not exactly a reason Why We Love Baseball … but it also is, I think, because every time out sparks a hundred memories, and every now and again they find a little of their youth.
Wainwright wasn’t GREAT on Tuesday night — five innings, seven hits, three walks — but he didn’t allow a homer, and he held a terrific Baltimore team to two runs and he got win No. 199. He has three starts to get to 200, and I really want it for him. I know there isn’t any important difference between 199 and 200 wins, but nobody can deny that 200 sounds better. Adam deserves better.
He’s one of those players who is a great “What if …” when it comes to injuries. He missed practically all of 2015 and 2018 with injuries (68 innings combined from his age 33 and 36 seasons) and all of 2011 (age 29 season) due to injury. Then you have COVID year of 2020 when he went 5-3 with a 3.15 ERA. Give him 13 wins a year each season (which could be conservative) then he’s approaching 240-250 wins and his Hall of Fame case is stronger, but still likely comes up short. Still, no player has represented his organization better than Wainwright has St. Louis and he’ll be beloved in STL for decades to come. Thanks for referencing this as there has been little to celebrate in the Lou this year.
“Seeing a good and great player struggle at the end is not exactly a reason Why We Love Baseball … but it also is, I think, because every time out sparks a hundred memories, and every now and again they find a little of their youth.”
This - but not quite this, because (for me, anyway) part of the love of baseball is the way it marks the passage of time. It is the game famously without a clock, and yet that is an illusion, a trick we allow it to play on us. “If we could just not make the last out, we could play forever ...” - but the last out always comes, we go back to school, to work, the season ends, the seasons roll on. It is the game without a clock, and yet what we use to mark the passage of time.
As Giamatti said, better than I could of course, “It breaks my heart because it was meant to, because it was meant to foster in me again the illusion that there was something abiding ... and because, after it had fostered again that most hungered-for illusion, the game was meant to stop, and betray precisely what it promised.” And, yes, we love it for that.
(More somber than Joe, the eternal optimist, usually gets in these pages, I suppose.)