The Big Field

Baseball symbolizes life because both produce countless possibilities. In Shel Silverstein’s poem, “Listen to Mustn’ts” (1993), the speaker tells the young reader, “Anything can happen, child, Anything can be” (Line 4). Mike Lupica’s presentation of baseball supports the claim of the famous children’s author. After Hutch commits the game-one error, Cody says, “What do you always tell me when I ask you why some game ended in some weird way?” Hutch answers, “I tell you that it’s baseball.” Cody concludes, “Baseball happened tonight” (183). In baseball, as in life, the unexpected occurs. Hutch can’t let his surprise error faze him, and people can’t let mistakes and unpredictable events stop them. Since “[a]nything can happen,” something amazing can follow something adverse. In game two, Hutch makes a Jeter-esque “flip” play. In baseball and life, the good and bad mix together; people can neither let the negative bring them down, nor let the positive inflate them. Thus, Hutch doesn’t heed the media attention about the error or the “flip” play: He stays level.

Hutch makes the symbolism explicit when he says, “In a lot of ways, it was like baseball, if you really thought about it.