When Grown Men Cry

My default setting is a cynicism so calcified that if you tried to cut it with a diamond-edged saw the saw would stick and you need to send down a pair of giant shears to retrieve it. But I have to say, watching the denouement of the Armando Galarraga/Jim Joyce episode (umpire Joyce’s botched call robbed Galarraga of a perfect game) yesterday, seeing Joyce fail to choke back his tears, thinking about the remarkably classy way the characters in this drama have handled this situation… for a brief second I was able to remember a time when I wasn’t suspicious of everyone and their motives. Thank God Galarraga got a Corvette out of the whole deal; it keeps me from being stuck on sincere. But still, that moment when I felt that swelling in my chest and could honestly believe that people are basically good and want to do the right thing and will own up to their failures and accept and forgive the failures of others when they happen? That was pretty nice too. Sports, man. No wonder it’s the only place in which dudes can express their emotions.