All season long, Luis Araez has been in intense pursuit of baseball’s immortality.
His batting average has hovered around the vaunted .400 mark, a level he hasn’t maintained in a major league season since Ted Williams set it in 1941.
Then, in mid-June, Araez suddenly went no-hitter in three games. 3 games! For him it was the equivalent of a devastating drought. His average dropped to .378.
Araes, 26, reacted with haste. He had 5-for-5 against Washington, and five more times and five more against Toronto. He continued his hit parade in the series against Pittsburgh last weekend.
Araes returned to chasing the .400.
Major League Baseball’s rule changes, aimed at making the game faster and better, dominated the early season narrative. But Araez has emerged as the hero who has begun to mark the season through the ages.
Little is known about him hitting singles and soft drives in Miami’s near-empty stadiums. But if he can maintain a .400-plus batting average after the All-Star break, his status will change. Even in an era that relied on radio broadcasts and slow-running daily newspapers to convey news, the pressure would mount with each at-bat, as it did for Williams.
In today’s world, every swing is digitized and instantly streamed around the world for analysis by commentators and fans. Araes will be known far beyond the realm of baseball enthusiasts.
The 5-foot-10-tall Venezuelan Araez is chasing more than Williams’ game, who ended the 41 season with a .406 average. In 1947, Jackie Robinson broke baseball’s color lines that had existed since the 19th century. No player has finished a season with a batting average of .400 or better since Major League Baseball became an integrated sport.
Chasing records has a fascinating way of captivating and engaging us. I have always been and always will be.
Consider the ancient Greeks. There were no clocks or stopwatches in Athens in the 6th century BC, but the Greeks recorded an unparalleled number of victories achieved by athletes such as Milo of Croton, the six-time Olympic gold-medal wrestler. I was.
And like us today, the ancient Greeks were obsessed with reputation.
“Imagine a world without Twitter, without newspapers, without ‘sports center’ highlights,” says David Lunt, associate professor of history at Southern Utah University. “You just have a reputation and a story that people tell about you. ‘Oh my God, you won’t believe what this great athlete has done.’ I figured out how. “
Poems were written, songs were ordered, statues were erected. Everyone knew that in this way the athlete set the limits of performance.
Some things change over time, some things don’t. Today, record-breakers have multi-billion dollar careers, hundreds of millions of social media followers and, for the lucky few like Willie Mays and Wayne Gretzky, statues erected in front of stadiums. blessed.
In February, LeBron James’ jump shot smashed one of basketball’s biggest and most talked-about milestones. The NBA career scoring record of 38,387 points has been held by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar since 1985 and was long thought to be unbreakable.
Honoring Abdul-Jabbar reminds us of other sports masters and the records they hold.
Wilt Chamberlain leads NBA in 100-point game
Bill Russell has won 11 NBA titles, the most by any player in the league.
Milestones have a certain magic. They exist on a continuum, chasing future generations while celebrating unparalleled excellence.
In other words, Margaret Court’s record 24 Grand Slam singles titles sparked a stirring chase from Serena Williams, who stalled at 23, to win her 23rd major title at this month’s French Open. Indeed, it reminds me of Novak Djokovic, who could match the court at Wimbledon.
Some records seem unbeatable, but can only be beaten by one moving and surprising performance wrecking ball. At the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, Bob Beamon beat the previous world record by nearly two feet in the long jump.
Then in 1991, Mike Powell came along and took the mark by jumping 29 feet 4 1/2 inches, two inches over Beamon.
Thirty-two years later, Mr. Powell’s performance is still par. At this point.
Then there are the milestones that look like records, even though they aren’t perfect records.
When it becomes an elusive topic, .When the 400 mark comes up, it’s easy to assume that Williams was not only the last to hit that average, but the first. But you are wrong. Dozens of major league players, including Ty Cobb, reached that standard before Williams.
But Williams and Cobb’s major league careers, and their records, will forever be tainted by the scourge of racism. 400-plus during the season, he should be hailed as the first major leaguer to truly reach that mark—baseball’s immortal figure. is.
Remember Milo of Croton? He is said to have gone to war wearing the olive crown he won with his Olympic record, wearing a lion’s skin and a club that looked like Hercules.
Philosophy professor Heather Reed, who has studied the ancient Greeks and their relationship to sport, said a key detail in the story was probably its metaphorical content. Wrestling champions are unlikely to have worn Olympic crowns, but in ancient times they were made from olive branches for a reason. It’s a tribute to the ephemeral nature of life, because it’s broken.
And it shows that there is a fundamental connection between ancient and modern sports. As Reed suggested, the record was and still represents “the study of the limits of human excellence.”
Mortals push boundaries and temporarily look like gods. Until someone knocks them off their pedestals. That’s why we’re watching.
In the series against Pittsburgh last weekend, Araez’s batting average climbed to .401 as he hit one flick after another in singles and hit his third home run of the season. 399 batting average with 1-for-4 on Sunday.
400 batting average, it will be time for a statue to be erected in front of a stadium in Miami. Plus poems, songs, and maybe a crown of olives.
