Hey Lloyd
On June 2, 2014, the Seattle Mariners defeated the New York Yankees, 10-2, nudging their season record above .500 at 29-28. Félix Hernández threw seven solid innings at Yankee Stadium–his two earned runs coming on an Ichiro infield hit. Kyle Seager had a four-hit night and 12 total bases. More importantly, though, it was also the Hey Lloyd game.
The circumstances were insignificant, let’s be clear. The game was well in hand. Earlier in the ninth, Michael Saunders hit a solo home run, giving the Mariners a 6-2 lead and a 99% win expectancy according to Baseball Reference. Seager’s at-bat isn’t dramatic. There’s no late-season tension–it’s early June. And Seager unloads, hitting a gorgeous second-deck shot to right, deserving of an emphatic call from any broadcast team. But what transpires as soon as Seager’s bat makes contact is so much more than an emphatic call.
Mere transcription cannot capture a spark so ephemeral, so enchanted. Though we don’t deserve it, the moment is preserved on video. It’s stunning, but it’s merely video. Nothing could precisely recreate the strange and wonderful electricity generated in that moment, because the moment is gone. And given time’s implacable nature, it will never return. It no longer is. Fixed and final, now and forever, always only to be was.
Dave Sims enjoys himself on air, but he still mostly maintains the formality we’ve come to expect when we watch sports. He’s jovial, even enthusiastic, but he relies on the comfort of time-tested jargon and banter that in silent agreement, we’ve identified as sounding like baseball.
But the opacity of that formality fails. For a few seconds it feels like the electric fences shut down at Jurassic Park and even Mike Blowers, the unflappable straight man to the wise-cracking Sims, softly releases a sober “oh boy,” without fear of electrocution. Sims, as though spurred by his partner’s uncharacteristic outburst, unleashes his excitement with abandon, and like Icarus–
No. Wait. Not like Icarus. Icarus believed he could do the impossible, he refused to accept his limitations. Not so with Sims. It would appear that he unsuccessfully reaches for attempts greatness, but he doesn’t fight against it; he surrenders–if only momentarily–entering a kind of broadcaster fugue state in which he is truly free.
With “Hey, Lloyd,” we are airborne. Blowers chuckles knowingly. Someone in the booth claps after “for the truck.” And as with the works of ee cummings or Calvino or Cortézar or Gertrude Stein, we find that meaning comes not from familiar form–that perhaps form is nothing but a restriction and that a rejection of form not only subverts expectations, but has the power to create meaning itself. We are soaring as Sims calls out, “to the airport.” We have reached an apex.
The descending, decelerating melody of “a three-run jack by Seager” guides us back down toward solid ground. But moments before we touch down, as if already nostalgic for the flight, there’s a surge of spirit and Sims, with what sounds like surplus adrenaline, still buzzing from whatever just happened, says, “And this sucker’s blown wide open.” Referring to the game-in-progress as “this sucker” isn’t too odd or disorienting, neither is the way he elongates “wide” with a growl beneath the syllable. Sims seems weary of whiplash, trying to ease us, and likely himself, back to reality. What follows sounds somewhat bewildered, almost sheepish: “and they’re headed for the exit here at the stadium.” Then statistics. Then decorum.
The call is not graceful. It’s not even sensical, although I can see Sims outlining a broad story. The team needs to travel to Atlanta after the game. Seager’s homer seems decisive. Everyone’s done here, so…so…the manager should probably…have food delivered to the airport to…save them time?
Sure. Why not.
Dave Sims isn’t the first person to stumble into speaking before thinking. Even the best of us have found our tongues rocketing ahead of our brains without warning. So when Sims ascends beyond the familiar boundaries, it’s surreal. Hearing this bizarre reaction bloom apparently of its own accord on live television delivered the exact kind of unpredictable joy I’m hoping for from a baseball game–and exactly the kind of weirdness I’ve come to expect from the Seattle Mariners.
