Barry Zito: Poster Boy for Troubled Times

Pitcher’s high-profile train wreck a microcosm of bigger (and badder) things
By Joe Eskenazi
A few years back on a crisp and cold winter’s day, former Major League journeyman “Subway” Sam Nahem told me a story. After a particularly odious outing in 1940, the young Brooklyn Dodgers pitcher was queried by a New York Daily News reporter just what good, exactly, he was doing the team.
Nahem’s response was instantaneous: “I am now in the egregiously anonymous position of pitching batting practice to the batting practice pitchers.”
These days, many a Bay Area reporter (and fan) has to be wondering the same thing about the San Francisco Giants lefty who can do no right, Barry Zito. After yesterday’s latest fiasco – Nine outs recorded, eight runs allowed – his record fell to 0-6 with a historically awful 7.53 Earned-Run Average. And yet Nahem-style repartee won’t inspire too many chuckles. Subway Sam was earning $150 a week (and damn happy to be doing so) and had a law degree in his back pocket in case this whole baseball thing didn’t work out. Zito, meanwhile, is in year two of a seven-year, $126 million contract.
Once one of baseball’s most dominant starters, Zito has transformed into the Old Faithful of awfulness. His consistency is almost admirable; the chances of him getting shellacked are virtually as high as spotting a lower back tattoo in a porno movie.
Your humble narrator was in the upper deck yesterday on an otherworldly beautiful Sunday, watching Zito absorb his ritual beating. It was bat day for kids under age 14, and by the time the sixth Cincinnati Red crossed the plate with only one gone in the first inning, I began to fear that a shower of Louisville Sluggers would come cascading out of the stands. Thankfully, this did not come to pass (but two more Reds runs did).
As a longtime baseball fan, I can tell you that not many ballpark experiences are more frustrating than being caught in the same section as the two twerps who won’t stop talking business (a development made infinitely worse by the ubiquity of cell phones). I’m not the sort of person who believes in baseball as some sort of mystical fantasy land; I was more than a bit suspicious when players began hulking up and enjoying career renaissances in their 40s. But the ballpark is a refuge from everyday life. I don’t want to think about the pressures of my job and I certainly don’t want to think about yours.
But Zito’s epic failures conjure up more than angst about deadlines, office politics and HR losing your W-2 forms (yes, again). Watching a handsome, wealthy and powerful young man of once-unlimited promise fail on an inexplicably grand scale reminds me just a bit too much of the sorry state of the nation. And dwelling upon that can certainly suck the good times out of an afternoon spent -- to paraphrase the words of The Daily Show’s John Hodgman -- watching a man hit a ball over a fence with a stick.

















