Mike, Derek and the stories of baseball

In case you missed the feel-good baseball story of the young season, recently New York Yankee Aaron Judge hit a home run into the second deck at the Rogers Centre in Toronto in a game against the Blue Jays. The prize ball was captured by Blue Jays fan Mike Lanzillotta. He promptly turned around and handed it 9-year-old Yankee fan Derek Rodriguez, an Aaron Judge admirer of epic proportions, who was even wearing his Judge jersey.

In an “I’m not crying, you’re crying” scene that has now been replayed millions of times on the internet, the young fan broke into tears and hugged Lanzillotta. The story epitomized what we love about baseball and life — the innocent and limitless joy of a child, the kindness of strangers, and baseball bringing people together. My Twitter cup overflowed with retweets of joy.

And you know what nobody talked about? The launch angle of Judge’s home run. Or the exit velocity of the hit. “I wiped away a tear talking about the spin rate on that pitch,” said absolutely no one.

There’s a saying in sales: “Facts tell, but stories sell.” Right now, Major League Baseball is having a hard time selling baseball. It is bleeding fans. The litany of complaints is myriad: the games are too long, the pace is too slow, and one I have been championing as a voice for the non-fantasy baseball fan — analytics are ruining the game. Baseball’s emphasis on analytics has led to an onslaught of statistics that rain down on each broadcast. These are the “facts.” But they only tell. They don’t sell. What happened in the second deck of the Rogers Centre was a story. And boy did it sell.

There’s a feeling right now that baseball is being surpassed as America’s pastime. I don’t buy it, or maybe I just don’t want to. Baseball is inextricably linked with our history in a way no other sport is. For a substantial part of our past, baseball has entertained us, comforted us, and even broken our hearts. We marveled at Babe Ruth, felt betrayed by the Black Sox, wept with Gehrig, hailed Jackie Robinson, cried when the Dodgers and Giants moved west, feared Bob Gibson, rooted for Aaron, and cheered and then jeered Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire and later Barry Bonds. The legends of baseball have sustained us for over a hundred years. MLB needs to give us more of the moments that make baseball great. If baseball will keep telling us stories, like Mike and Derek’s, fans and history will reward it richly with its coveted spot at the pinnacle of American sports.

Kelley Franco Throop is a practicing attorney in New Canaan and a former guest lecturer at the National Baseball Hall of Fame. She tweets about baseball under the handle @threeinning fan. She will lecture at the Lapham Senior Center in New Canaan on June 13.