What Is an Altar?

The Ballad of Will Smith

Jun 07, 2025

It explodes upon impact.

There’s a loud crack of the bat. A comebacker line drive hit screamingly fast. Pitcher reflexively tries to cover his head but the ball’s already there. His left hand, his pitching hand, shields him but just slightly. The ball collides with his left hand.

It explodes upon impact.

Properly deflected, the ball pops harmlessly into the air. Shortstop Darwin Perez makes a routine catch to record the final out. His teammates pour out of the dugout. Ball caps are tossed in the air. Guys jump around making the sort of exuberantly weird midair half-hugs that only professional athletes seem to be capable of making. There are expletives. There are fireworks. Normal celebratory behavior.

Sprinting toward the celebration on the infield, an 18-year-old center fielder called Mike Trout notices his hand, the exploded one, I mean, and vomits profusely into his glove. Fans in the stands, 5,700 (give or take those who just wanted to beat the traffic), notice the hand. These fans instinctively cover their children’s eyes and avert their own. There are an awful lot of conflicting feelings.

It is 2010 and the Class-A Rancho Cucamonga Quakes have just recorded the final out and thus clinched the California League Championship. It’s an exciting moment for a couple reasons. One, the Quakes have not won a championship in 16 years. Bad luck maybe. And, well, Class-A baseball isn’t exactly the most competitive professional sport in California. Still, it’s cool to bring a title home to the good folks in Rancho Cucamonga. Two, a newcomer pitcher called Will Smith just got his hand exploded. There is jubilation and giddiness, terror and dread.

Some time later, Will awakens in excruciating pain. Will is disoriented. His vision is blurry from the excess sleep in his eyes. Instinctively, he tries to wipe it away but his left hand is pretty much totally exploded. Not that he can tell. His entire left side is cocooned in a patchwork of protective gauzes and bindings and plaster casting. Black mesh slings and taut silver spun support cables keep his left side fixed, absolutely, in place. He’s in pain, sure, but he can’t help but feel that the whole setup looks, well, a little cheap. The black mesh slings resemble the purely ornamental seatbelts on commercial airliners and the support cables appear to have been locally sourced from a nearby marine-consignment store.

“Will, you’ve been in an accident.”

Will, jolted by the sudden voice from the stillness, turns to his right. This really hurts. A typical, white-coated doctor stands next to his hospital bed. Will blinks a couple of times.

“You took a line drive to your left hand, Will. “Totally exploded” it. There really isn’t a medical term for what happened. Basically: ball —> hand —> something resembling a hand but not quite. Frankly, Will, it was pretty gross.”

Will’s brow is furrowed.

“Look, I’ll spare you the details. They’re pretty grisly. But look, Will, you got hit and one thing led to another. Of course your adrenaline spiked, there was immediate cardiac overstimulation, things started to cascade. Cardiac arrest. Will, you died. Well, you died but we managed to resuscitate you. All in all, you’re a very lucky man. In fact, your Quakes pulled it off.”

Will tries to speak but his mouth is impossibly dry. Instead, he lets out a single groan.

“Y’all won the league title, Will. You got the save. But, you know, you were technically dead for about 15 minutes there. Terrible scene. Broadcast crew abruptly cut to the Rancho Cucamonga nightly news. The weatherman, Ken Clark, he was offscreen but the boom mics picked up the sound of him breathing loudly into a brown paper bag. Real weird thing to hear offscreen. We couldn’t see it but somehow that made it even easier to imagine. Everyone felt pretty conflicted about the matter. There the Quakes are, having just won the title. People are stoked but, there’s Will Smith lying dead on the mound. D-E-A-D. Dead. Hell of a sacrifice you made.”

Will turns back to his left. The doctor clearly seems more interested in the Quakes’ big win than Will’s exploded hand.

“If it makes you feel any better, the dude absolutely scalded it. I mean absolutely barreled it. 109 MPH off the bat. Sheesh, man. What an ending.”

Anyway, Will Smith managed to un-explode his left hand. “Rehab” was the word he used. Regardless, Will worked his way back into professional baseball. Will is a lefty and, statistically-speaking, there are far fewer lefties than righties. Ask around, people will tell you this has pretty much always been true. By nature of scarcity, lefty pitchers are highly sought-after. Lefties like Will release their pitches from an unfamiliar angle. This angle is called “left,” the opposite of “right.” Let’s stay didactic for just a moment longer. The foundational advantage lefty pitchers possess is that their unique delivery creates a sort of natural deception. Batters are generally accustomed to pitches released from the right. Again, this is just a statistics thing. If you play baseball long enough to go pro, you’ll have seen hundreds of pitches and, statistically, the majority of these pitches will fly at you from the right.

In pro ball, the majority of these pitches will not just fly at you from the right, they’ll fly at you from the right at 100+ MPH. Batters have between 125 to 225 milliseconds to decide whether or not they’ll swing at a pitch. For reference, a single blink of an eye takes between 300 to 400 milliseconds. And this doesn’t even take into account different pitch types or, for that matter, if said pitch will even be “in the zone.” Take, for example, the invisiball [sic], a fastball that, when thrown high enough above the zone, appears to exist in two places simultaneously. So there you are, standing in the batter’s box having waited patiently for 125 milliseconds and here’s the pitch, finally. Only, just before the pitch arrives, it begins demonstrating qualities of quantum superposition, a pitch from the 4th dimension. All that and this guy Will Smith throws it from the left instead of the right?? It is, as they say, total bullshit. They do not pay you enough for this.

As can be reasonably-intuited, Will Smith, with his now-unexploded left hand and ability to throw a pitch from another dimension, was coveted by a number of major league clubs. Lefties will always be in demand. That’s just statistics. But lefties with stuff (in Will’s case, a single pitch that can rend the fabric of space and time) will always be coveted. Will spends the next 10 years of his career as a journeyman. He plays for a handful of different clubs before signing a 3-year pact for $39 million with the Atlanta Braves. The year is 2020 and things begin to get weird.

As it so happens, there are a couple of Will Smiths in Major League Baseball. As it so happens, every World Series champion team since 2020 has rostered at least one Will Smith. Five consecutive World Series rings awarded to Will Smith. That is to say, five consecutive World Series rings awarded to a Will Smith.

2020

It is March 11, 2020 and the Los Angeles Dodgers have not won a World Series in 32 years. In February, the Dodgers had pulled off a famously lopsided trade with the Boston Red Sox wherein the Dodgers received a generational talent-type player called Mookie Betts in exchange for, like, a handful of magic beans. The rich got richer. But this doesn’t really matter because, on March 11th, the World Health Organization announced that we had a plague on, in case you hadn’t already heard. This really freaked people out. Everybody lived indoors for a few months and learned how to knit or play Animal Crossing or binge drink. There were other fads but those were the big three.

Like most fads, this got old pretty quick. Like most plagues, we’re still trying to assess what damage was done. Among the damage, the MLB punted Opening Day from April to July, banned fans from stadiums, and stuck approximately 850,000 4-inch nasopharyngeal swabs into players’ nasal cavities. No one, not even the freaks, enjoyed this at all. The National Basketball Association managed to make their “Bubble” concept work, sort of. Basically, the NBA & ESPN prototyped their vision for a dystopian basketball tournament held inside the “Bubble.” The “Bubble” was, of course, a series of hermetically sealed, “bio-secure” basketball courts located conveniently inside Disney World, a theme park / municipality owned and operated by the proud owners of ESPN, the Walt Disney Company. Needless to say, total fan attendance was abysmal. Lower than ever, in fact. A grand total of zero. TV ratings, on the other hand, have never been higher.

The Los Angeles Lakers snagged a championship title with a cool little asterisk affixed. There was something about the “Bubble,” something uncanny. The empty arenas certainly didn’t help. “Bubble” games had a certain public-access television vibe that proved difficult to shake. The way a championship game sans fans sounded like watching a dress-rehearsal for the actual game. It’s all squeaking shoes and grunting and a whistle every once in a while as Mike Breen and Jeff Van Gundy speak cryptically about how sports have the unique power to “bring us all together.” But I digress.

It is now late October and the Los Angeles Dodgers are playing game 7 of a best-of-seven NLCS series against the Atlanta Braves. The series is tied at 3-3. The winner here will proceed to the World Series. The Braves have scored the go-ahead run in the top of the 9th and now lead the Dodgers 3-2. The Braves need only secure just three more outs to win. Obviously, they turn to their $39 million man. The man with the quantum fastball. This is an easy decision. Will Smith walks to the mound at Globe Life Field and toes the rubber. Corey Seager goes down on strikes, shaking his head in disbelief. He later swears he saw a single invisiball [sic] in 4 different spots simultaneously. Justin Turner rolls over a pitch inducing a soft ground ball easily fielded. The Dodgers are down to a single out.

Up to the plate steps Mookie Betts. Will fires an invisiball [sic] that not only finds the zone but, inexplicably, exists exclusively in one spot. Betts barrels it to the right field corner for a stand-up double. Will’s brow is furrowed. So the Dodgers, like the Braves, also have a player called Will Smith. This version of Will is a righty and he’s a catcher, not a pitcher. This version of Will Smith also played for the Class-A Rancho Cucamonga Quakes and, himself, experienced a devastating hand-explosion injury when hit by a pitch in 2017. This version of Will Smith now steps up to the plate to face Will Smith. Particle physicists have postulated that the proximity of catcher-Will to pitcher-Will from the on-deck circle may have neutralized the invisiball [sic]. Something about observing both Will’s simultaneously. Something about quantum entanglement. I don’t know. This stuff is well above my pay grade. What I do know is that pitcher-Will throws an absolute meatball over the center of the plate and catcher-Will hits it 465 ft to dead center for a walk-off home run. The Dodgers proceed to the World Series.

The Dodgers go on to play the Tampa Bay Rays. It is October 27th. It is game 6 of the World Series. The Dodgers are one out away from winning it all. Randy Arozarena, of the Rays, stands in the batter’s box. He’s been an absolute terror throughout the postseason. The MLB postseason is always weird. Some guys inexplicably dial in, figure it out, whatever you want to call it. So Julio Urías throws a cutter that breaks toward the center of the plate. Arozarena is ready for it and swings big. Will Smith, catcher, buzzing with adrenaline, mistakenly reaches into the zone to make the catch. There is a horrible, dull thwack as Arozarena’s bat slams into Will’s left hand.

It explodes upon impact.

Fortunately, I guess, Will’s catcher’s mitt obscures the damage. He collapses in pain. Arozarena looks on horrified. This is clearly awful but he was ready for that cutter in the zone. Will is carried off the field by Dodgers medical staff. Arozarena is immediately sent to first base due to catcher interference. Arozarena is not happy, he was hunting that cutter in the zone and was primed to play hero for the Rays. Instead, he takes his base. Standing on first, Arozarena catches a glimpse of Will sitting in the dugout with the medical staff. His face is basically crimson. There are tears, profanities muttered nonsensically, things you’d expect. Using medical shears, the staff removes the catcher’s mitt from Will’s left hand. Arozarena sees Will’s hand and immediately braces himself as he’s overcome with nausea. Having stepped off the first base bag, Urías throws a strike to first baseman Max Muncy who picks off the distracted Arozarena for the final out of the game.

The Dodgers win their first World Series in 32 years. This championship title, like the Lakers’, comes with a cool little asterisk affixed.

It is November 2020. Will Smith, of the Atlanta Braves, gets married at Disney World.

2021

It is 2021 and the Atlanta Braves haven’t won a World Series in 26 years. And, while they know that all glory is fleeting, 26 years is a lot of time to sit and reflect on how much glory has fleeted between then and now. They are eager to win, now.

Recently married, Will Smith has spent the offseason recuperating from his devastating game 7 meltdown. He loves his wife, Taylor. Will enjoys wearing his new wedding ring. The ring isn’t a consolation prize but it secretly serves as one. During meals, he likes to remove the ring from his finger and place it on the table upright. The ring is made of platinum and white gold and has a satisfying heft for a totem so small. Will enjoys flicking the edge of his upright ring just slightly so that it spins around the table like an extremely expensive top. Taylor is charmed by Will’s fascination with the ring but reminds him that the ring is not cheap. She stops short of saying Will is treating the ring as if it were a toy. Instead, she opens her phone and purchases a cheap silicone stand-in ring from Amazon. Taylor implores him to wear this ring instead. Will should only wear the expensive actual ring on special occasions.

The regular season begins and Will continues to justify his $39 million contract. His invisiball [sic] remains practically un-hittable. The Braves Particle Physics Division (BPPD) determines that, as long as pitcher-Will does not have to face catcher-Will, the invisiball [sic] should remain reliably unhittable.

It is October 2021 and the Braves are squaring off against the Dodgers once again in the NLCS. Braves skipper, Brian Snitker, is cautious to avoid putting pitcher-Will on the mound when catcher-Will is even remotely close in the Dodgers’ lineup. This tactic works well. Pitcher-Will and the rest of the 2021 Braves team find themselves in the World Series. They will square off against the now-infamous Houston Astros.

See, there he was, in downtown Houston walking into the Four Seasons. It is late October but there’s a muggy-breeze typical of Houston. Players are exiting the team bus and trying to hurry inside to the cooler air. The Braves social media apparatus is there snapping photos. There are at least 10 photogs, each with their own expensive-looking DSLR camera body. Blinding flashes as xenon gas ionizes and a chorus of ka-chunks as shutter curtains open and close. Will is excited. The whole thing feels like a capital-P Production. The whole thing feels luxe.

He grins sheepishly, trying to avoid looking directly into any one camera’s lens.

ka-chunk

He steps into the hotel’s revolving door.

ka-chunk ka-chunk

Pushing the door, Will finds himself in a liminal space. A space between outdoor and indoor. It is neither and both. The air feels still. For a moment, it is totally silent. Then, the door opens. There is a rush of vacuum-sealed air from the hotel lobby.

ka-chunk ka-chunk ka-chunk

The air is crisp and cool and a welcome change. A handful of lanyard-laden press photogs lurk in the lobby. Will blushes and stares down at the floor. Amidst the commotion, he doesn’t even notice that the body of his Tumi Alpha Bravo Service Crossbody has become snagged on the revolving door. Snagged on the actively closing revolving door. Will panics. His snagged bag begins to pull him back, awkwardly, toward the revolving door. He feels profoundly uncool. Will blushes and reaches for his trapped bag. The revolving door continues to revolve. Will feels frantic. Reaching with his left hand, he tries to jostle his bag free. Will’s wedding ring becomes caught on…

ka-chunk

The revolving door continues to revolve.

There’s a technical term for what happened: ring avulsion. It’s the Jimmy Fallon injury. I think he talked about it on his show. Fallon or Kimmel, one of the Jimmies. I try not to think too hard about it because, well, it could happen to me. Anyway, it was pretty gnarly. A young family of 5 stands in the lobby. They’ve traveled all the way from Vancouver to see the team they love compete for a championship. This is a big deal. Spirits are high despite a marathon day of air-travel. They’re decked out in Braves gear checking into a nice hotel and then, suddenly, there they are, the Braves, parading into the lobby. It’s hard to not feel just a little starstruck. The kids are grinning and, frankly, so is dad. Then ka-chunk. Some dude just gets ring avulsed. Dad tries unsuccessfully to stifle his sudden nausea. Mom wraps her arms around the 3 kids and shields their eyes. Will later confides to his physician that, in all honesty, if given the option, he’d have preferred another hand explosion to ring avulsion.

Needless to say, Will does not pitch in the World Series. Needless to say, the Braves win for the first time in 26 years.

2022

It is 2022 and the Houston Astros haven’t won a non-asterisk-ed World Series in 60 years. That is to say, they have never won a World Series period. This makes their fanbase rather anxious and uneasy. The 2017 squad, the one with the asterisk-ed World Series title, they’re good, like, historically good. But, to get there, Houston had to put up with 5 years of McKinsey & Company-style management consulting. The colloquial term is tanking. Basically, this ex-McKinsey guy, Jeff Luhnow, is hired to remake the entirety of the Astros’ baseball operations. Luhnow is data-driven and margin-obsessed and runs baseball operations in a distinctly-McKinsey fashion. Luhnow understands that a team like the Astros, a small-market team, will never be able to compete with large-market teams like the Dodgers and Yankees. For 25 consecutive seasons, the American League MVP had been George Steinbrenner’s checkbook. Did your team’s most-recent playoff run look a little unconvincing? That’s OK, why not spend $275 million on a guy called Alex Rodriguez? It’s honestly pretty irritating… unless you’re a Yankees fan. So anyway, Luhnow is handed this mangy baseball franchise pockmarked with unwieldy contracts, arcane broadcasting rights deals, and dwindling fan attendance. Luhnow is tasked with getting water out of a stone.

Conventional wisdom tells us this is not where water comes from. But it also is where water comes from, in a sense. So Luhnow makes a deal. This deal will require a sacrifice. This deal will be Faustian, as all deals ultimately are. For 5 years, the Astros will be the worst team in baseball. The Astros will lose constantly and often and look foolish doing so. Then, they will win indefinitely. Basically, whichever team performs the worst in a given season is granted the best pick in the MLB draft. It’s not a perfect system but it’s there to give small-market teams like the Marlins and Astros the impression that it’s always worth competing. Amidst the toil and drudgery of a 100+ loss season, there is actually a silver-lining.

“Hey, bud, I’m sorry you couldn’t afford to pay Alex Rodriguez $275 million. If it makes you feel any better, we’ve got 1,200 18-year-old no-name prospects coming up next year and you get to pick first.”

The problem with this system is that, most of the time, these small-market teams use their unusually high draft capital to select players like Alex Rodriguez. These are generational talent-type players who can alter the course of a franchise overnight. Small-market teams fall helplessly in love with these fabulous young talents. How could they not? These players are fresh-faced and charming and genuinely just excited to be there. Then, invigorated and flush with young blood, these small-market teams start to win. Just a year after a disastrous 100+ loss campaign, they’re suddenly in the running for an elusive Wild Card spot. Fans get excited. Tickets are sold. Maybe, if they get lucky, the team will make the playoffs and ride the euphoric high of their young blood all the way to the World Series. Stranger things have happened. It is genuinely a very good time.

Then, what happens is these players outgrow their small-market franchises. Simply put, these players play so well that they price themselves out of their humble origins. For players, the strategy is simple: play well enough and, eventually, New York or Los Angeles will crack open their checkbook. Then, you’ll stand to make some real money. It is 2011 and, at the end of the day, newly minted Astros chairman Jim Crane simply cannot compete with a Steinbrenner’s checkbook. 13 years later, Alex Bregman will walk in free agency and tens of thousands of worn and cherished, children’s-size Alex Bregman jerseys will suddenly reek of betrayal. Mind you, Bregman is not to blame here. Jeff Luhnow understands this system is rigged and ridiculous and Sisyphean but has a solution. Maybe, if he can roll his boulder to the very top of the hill, he can simply push it slightly further and allow it to careen down the opposite side.

The Astros’ payroll is slashed year by year until the team is practically unrecognizable. The team is, at this point, a loose assemblage of minor league-level talent and has-been journeymen players who, frankly, all look a little tired. There is also a short Venezuelan dude who lied about his height and age in order to secure a $15,000 signing bonus as an undrafted free agent. It is July 2011 and he is installed at second base. He looks completely ridiculous. This makes perfect sense.

There are 162 regular season games each calendar year. Over the next three calendar years, the Astros win a total of 162 regular season games. They lose 324 games. Attending an Astros game during this three-year stretch, fans could expect to have a one in three chance to savor an Astros win. It’s difficult to divide 1 by 3. I mean, you can do it, but the number looks weird. Divide 1 by 3 and you get 0.333. This number has been edited for brevity. See, the 3’s go on ad infinitum. This strange number feels important. So the Astros, they’re losing an obscene amount of games. Fans willing to self-flagellate by attending said games begin wearing brown paper bags over their heads. This continues for 1,095+ days. Yet, every year, there, dwelling in the absolute basement of professional sports, the Astros continue their harvest of draft capital. Spring is coming but Winter is here.

During the course of the Astros’ subterranean rebuild, George Springer, Carlos Correa, Alex Bregman, Kyle Tucker, and others all join the short Venezuelan dude at second base. The Astros continue to lose but insiders begin using words like “long-term upside” and “potential” instead of “cynical quagmire” and “unmitigated disaster.” There is a silver-lining shimmering around the pitch-dark clouds. The team is described as “young,” “dynamic,” and “exciting.” But Jeff Luhnow refuses to let the rest of the world understand why. Luhnow gets just one chance to play his hand. If New York or Los Angeles catches wind of the moss growing on his rolling stone, they’ll want to buy the stone, or at least some of the moss. Luhnow is confident that he has used his draft capital well. It is 2013 and George Springer, MLB draftee, is playing so well for the Astros-affiliated Class-AA Corpus Christi Hooks that rival teams begin accusing Luhnow of artificially suppressing the progression of his team’s young talent. They demand Luhnow promote his young prospects so they can participate at the highest level.

“Jeff, you’ve got at least 4 generational-talent type dudes and they’re just languishing in your farm system. These young men have fought and sweat and bled and toiled to get here. What are you doing??”

But Luhnow knows exactly what he is doing. The moment George Springer debuts at the major league level, a countdown will begin. A timer will tick for six years, the length of rookie-level MLB service contracts. The same is true for all young Astros prospects. Initially, this ticking will sound faint, barely audible. The premise that the ticking would ever stop feels ridiculous. But, through the years, the ticking will grow louder. The ticking will begin to feel ominous. The ticking is an omen. When the ticking stops, said Astros prospect will walk. They will be beckoned East or West and they cannot be compelled to stay. Houston cannot afford players this talented. The short Venezuelan dude remains on contract with the team in perpetuity.

It is 2014 and George Springer debuts. He will walk in 2020, signing in the East for $150 million. It is 2015 and Carlos Correa debuts. He will walk in 2021, signing in the East for $270 million. It is 2016 and Alex Bregman debuts. He will walk in 2024, signing in the East for $120 million. It is 2018 and Kyle Tucker debuts. He is the last of the Luhnow-era draft capital. His six-year service contract will expire later this year. He is expected to command north of $500 million this offseason in exchange for his services. The West beckons. Eventually, these 4 players will be worth a billion dollars. But the year is 2017 and the ticking is not yet audible. The year is 2017 and the Astros have arrived. Per the bargain, the Astros spent 5 years as a historically bad team. Jeff Luhnow has dutifully pushed his boulder up the hill. Now he needs only push it just a little further.

If you are reading this, you know what happens next.

It is January 13th, 2020 and Jim Crane has just fired Jeff Luhnow. Luhnow has overseen an unprecedented transformation. The Astros were very bad and now they are very good. Unfortunately, the Faustian element of Luhnow’s bargain involved necromancy. This shouldn’t be too surprising. Faustian bargains tend to turn out, well, different than the bargainer expects. These bargains tend to induce ironic twists, agonizing reversals of fortune, spectacular collapses, etc.

By the way, let’s have a brief moment of silence for Dr. Faust.

…

Can you imagine making a deal so catastrophically bad that they name an entire genre of mistakes after you? Sheesh. You’re sitting around, fat and wealthy and bored and decide, hey, maybe this isn’t enough. Next thing you know, you’re hitting up Mephistopheles for a firehose of worldly pleasures. It’s obviously a bad look. But what did you think would happen, Doctor Faust??

For years, there were unsubstantiated reports of strange, inaudible whispering / unexplained sounds / hitters inexplicably capable of premonition. The Astros’ stadium, Minute Maid Park, impressed a sort of schizoid paranoia upon opposing teams. Home crowds howl and scream. Invisible cannons clap like thunder the moment an Astros home run ball lands. There is, inexplicably, an enormous steam-engine train above the left field wall. Its coal car is filled with hundreds of luminous oranges. The Astros are, by the way, space themed. The train is an artifact from a wrongheaded effort to rebrand the team as Steampunk in the early aughts. Minute Maid Park used to be called Enron Field after all. This definitely contributes to the schizoid vibe.

So anyway, Luhnow gets canned as the Faustian elements of his bargain become evident. Regardless, he has managed to push his boulder onto the opposite site of the hill. The Astros are immediately ridiculed. They are no longer allowed to draft players. The court of public opinion affixes an asterisk to their 2017 World Series title. Still, they continue to win. It’s honestly pretty irritating… unless you’re an Astros fan.

As was stipulated in the fine print of Luhnow’s diabolical pact, the short Venezuelan dude, the guy at second base who looks ridiculous, he gets to be the face of the franchise. He gets the privilege of batting first in every game. It is 2021 and fans are allowed back into stadiums. The Astros become a sort of traveling circus. A carnival geek show where fans exchange money for the opportunity to get close to enough to scream and sneer at the morally deformed Astros squad. The once-mighty, once-youthful Astros look way older than they actually are. Every night in every non-Houston city on the continent, the Astros perform at a new stadium and grant 30,000 or so fans a chance at epiphany.

“Here, ladies and gentlemen, are a band of feckless cheaters! How will you decide to judge them? Do you have what it takes to scream at the short Venezuelan dude?? What dark parts of yourself lay buried within him???”

Needless to say, the Astros roadshow sells a lot of tickets in 2021. People really get a kick out of screaming at the short Venezuelan dude. Online, the short Venezuelan dude gets compared to Hitler which, most people agree, feels kind of excessive. Still, people get a kick out of making the Astros sing for their meat. The team obliges them night after night. It’s not exactly the most fun season of baseball. Most people don’t enjoy this but the Astros wind up back in the World Series. They square off against their old rivals, the Braves, and their anonymous-sounding, quantum-entangled, ring-avulsed, relief pitcher Will Smith.

As you may recall, Will’s hand gets, um… avulsed before game 1. The Braves are already pretty beat up. Every season is a long season. Professional gamblers, circuit judges in the court of public opinion, weigh in on the matter:

“They’re cooked.”

“That dog won’t hunt.”

“Oh, they’re totally boned.”

Of course, the Braves emphatically thump the Astros. In game 6, pitcher Zack Greinke becomes totally consumed by the premise of Will’s ring avulsion. “It could happen to me,” he thinks, moments before throwing an absolute meatball over the center of the plate. Braves outfielder Jorge Soler turns on the pitch and belts it 446 ft to right-center for a go-ahead home run that ultimately buries the Astros 2021 campaign. Remarkably, this is Soler’s third go-ahead home run of the series. His first came against Astros ace Framber Valdez who, after having been shown a picture of Will’s ring-avulsed hand on Instagram just moments before game 1, becomes visibly shaken. He struggles with command of his pitches and doesn’t even make it through 3 innings. Soler’s second go-ahead home run comes at the expense of Cristian Javier, aka El Reptil. Javier throws an uncanny invisiball [sic] similar to Will’s and is totally spooked by the thought of ring avulsion even though he thinks rings are tacky and weird and would never ever wear one. It’s been another weird season and the Astros seem grateful to have time to lick their wounds and visit with their shrinks over Zoom.

It is August 2022 and the Astros are rolling. The team is flush with pitching and bench depth. This is an enviable position but there is internal concern that the Astros are snakebitten. That is to say, the Astros are deeply concerned that even if they make it to the World Series, who’s to say they won’t just get thumped abruptly yet again? The MLB trade deadline is approaching. Jeff Luhnow’s replacement is called James Click and he is also cunning and data-driven and margin-obsessed. Two years post-firing, Luhnow’s baseball necromancy is equally worshipped and reviled. It is both a cost-effective means to an end for small market teams and an unholy blemish on the Grand Plan for player migration to the East and West. Click is a Luhnow disciple who understands that necromantic baseball requires sacrifice. It is 1:57 AM and James Click has been awake for 47 consecutive hours. He sits alone in his study. Pale blue light from his five monitors bathes the study in an eerie glow. Shadows cast by monitor light tend to look unconvincing. It is August 2nd and the trade deadline is here. Click is bleary-eyed and combing through reams of esoteric stats on potential trade partners. He begins to nod off…

Click’s eyes flutter open. His study is pitch dark. Computer must have gone to sleep. He reaches to stir the computer from its slumber but finds he cannot move his arms. Gravity pins him to his chair. He looks to his left. His digital clock is there. Its deep red digits read 3:33. The room is ice-cold. There is a full sense of dread. Suddenly, a presence. Black eyes glisten menacingly in the dark. Click intuits a word he has never spoken before, “Mephistopheles?”

There is a clap of thunder. There is a flash of bright blue light. His five monitors belch their pale blue photons back onto Click’s study. He trembles in his chair. A single tear falls from his left eye. There, on his centermost monitor, is Will Smith of the Atlanta Braves. His digital clock reads 3:34. Click knows what must be done.

Later that day, James Click trades pitcher Jake Odorizzi to the Braves in exchange for Will Smith. Ostensibly, Click has just added a sought-after lefty to the Astros bullpen. Always a good thing. Will has rehabbed a recently avulsed left hand. Click is trusting his gut here. How this sacrifice will function, he is not sure.

It is October 5th, the regular season finale. The vibes are pretty laid back. The Astros have won 105 games and are resting their star players in preparation for the postseason. They’re playing a Phillies squad doing the same. It’s relatively straightforward. Will is summoned from the bullpen at the top of the 7th inning to square off against, get this, his younger brother, Phil. Will has struggled to regain his pre-avulsion form. He wants, desperately, to contribute. So there they are, Will and Phil Smith, both grinning from the novelty of a low-calorie standoff. Will quickly goes up in the count 0-2. Down to his final strike, Phil hits a cheap, blooping single into left field. Will blushes and looks at the ground. His face is red. He’s frustrated. He’s embarrassed. This shouldn’t be a big deal but Phil is a shit hitter. This shouldn’t bother him as much as it does. But it does. Will is angry. He promptly retires the final three batters with 12 consecutive invisiballs [sic]. Phillies batters report seeing the 12 pitches in at least 33 different locations. The Astros win their 106th game of the season.

The regular season is over. The team feels pretty good about the state of things but Will’s face is crimson. He is swearing nonsensically under his breath. He marches back to the locker room.

“Hey, Will, you ok?”

Will turns and stares menacingly. He does not speak. Will turns back to his locker and ruminates for a moment longer. Phil is a shit hitter. Will rests his forehead on his locker door. The cool brushed metal is soothing. He had Phil right where he wanted him. Phil is a shit hitter. Will draws his left arm back. It’s trembling. There is a clap of thunder. There is a flash of bright blue light. Will punches the brushed metal locker door with his left hand.

It explodes upon impact.

Will’s hand, it looks like a bunch of splinters. It looks like a tree split by a particularly violent lightning strike. Astros closer Ryan Pressly is standing next to his wife and two young children. Pressly struggles to stifle his nausea but shields their eyes. James Click is there. He gets goosebumps.

Needless to say, Will Smith does not pitch in the postseason. Needless to say, the Astros go on to win their first non-asterisked World Series in 60 years.

James Click is fired just days after the World Series win. Will Smith becomes a free agent. He begins yet another rehab. Will is not sure how much longer he can keep doing this job. His wife is concerned. His left hand is beginning to look weird. She swears that, sometimes, out of the corner of her eye, it looks like it’s not even there at all.

2023

It is 2023 and the Texas Rangers haven’t won a World Series in 62 years. The franchise is known for its willingness to spend big on free agents. More specifically, the franchise is known for its willingness to spend big on free agents and lose. In fact, 23 years prior, the Rangers spent $252 million on a guy called Alex Rodriguez. This was, quite famously, a very bad deal. 3 years and a league-leading 270 losses later, the Rangers were desperate to offload his albatross contract. The New York Yankees happily obliged. In 2022, the Rangers paid two guys called Marcus Semien and Corey Seager a total of $500 million. What happened? The Rangers lost 94 games and looked foolish. It is now 2023 and the Rangers have paid a guy called Jacob DeGrom $185 million and hired a new manager called Bruce Bochy.

Bochy knows how to win championships. He’d won 3 World Series with the San Francisco Giants over the past 10 years. The Rangers think that Bochy is the missing piece. The Rangers think that Bochy can whip their billion-dollar island of misfit toys into shape. They feel good about these moves. Bochy is sharp and confident and no-nonsense and commands respect. The players like him.

The Rangers also pounce at the chance to hire recently fired Astros GM James Click. Click joins the Rangers on February 27th as vice president of baseball strategy. Although the Rangers’ top brass has already made all of the flashy free agent acquisitions they’d hoped to make, Click lobbies them to make one more. It is March 4th and the Rangers announce they’ve signed Will Smith to a one year $1.5 million contract. Will had played with Bochy during his journeyman era with the Giants. Bochy likes Will. Will trusts Bochy.

Will’s left hand has been surgically reassembled for a third time. Rumor has it that his hand is absolutely riddled with tiny metal pins. He’s taken to wearing a glove over it. His teammates swear that, when he throws a pitch, his hand makes a sound like an old rusty gate swinging shut. Others disagree, they think his hand sounds like the little glass pea inside spray paint cans, at least as he winds up. Seager claims it sounds like the ice in a cocktail shaker. Bochy tells them all to shut up and focus. Will’s ring finger twitches inexplicably. He consistently sets off metal detectors even after removing all metal items from his person. His clubhouse demeanor is described as “distant.”

Still, Will goes out there and shoves. “Shoves” meaning Will goes out there and pitches improbably hard. For a guy whose hand has been surgically reassembled three times, Will seems quite ready to surgically reassemble it once more. In fact, Will has come to believe that, perhaps, his surgical reassemblies are perversely linked to his team’s success. The same thought occurs to Will’s wife, Taylor. At home in Dallas, she wonders if this revelation is making Will drink more than he used to. Of course, Will is never unkind to her but she notices that he falls asleep in his recliner earlier and earlier in the evening. His left hand, gloved even at home, passively clutches a tumbler of scotch as drool drips from his somnolent lips. As Will snores, Taylor prays little white prayers. It is September now and she is afraid to tell him. It will change things.

It is now late September and the Rangers have officially turned things around. Bochy has righted the ship. The team has secured a Wild Card spot and will compete in the playoffs. They rattle off a 6-game winning streak and look convincing. It is September 25th and Will Smith is summoned from the bullpen to handle the 8th inning against the Los Angeles Angels. Will looks poised and professional. He carves through the first two batters. On the TV broadcast, the camera briefly cuts from Will to Bochy. There, by his side, is James Click. Bochy is dialed-in, glaring at Will. His attention is absolute. Then, Click begins whispering into his ear. Bochy’s left eyebrow raises abruptly and he turns to Click with a look of scorn. Click continues whispering. Bochy’s eyes widen. Will hurls an invisiball [sic] past Gio Urshela for the final out of the 8th. The camera is back on Bochy.

He nods solemnly to Click.

It is October 2nd. The Rangers have caught a redeye flight back to Dallas after an agonizing loss to the Seattle Mariners. Bochy is frustrated. He calls a team meeting in the Rangers’ clubhouse. It is 3:33 AM. Bochy begins lecturing his team. “Focus,” he says. The players look confused. It was a long flight. “What kind of team can win without focus?” The team, exhausted, half-heartedly mumbles, “no kind of team...” “Among you, there is just one man with focus.” Honestly, the team doesn’t care. They’re tired. They have to get up in 3 hours and fly to Tampa to play the Rays for the Wild Card spot. “There is but one man with focus. Will, get up here.” Will, glassy-eyed and ready for bed, marches toward Bochy in the center of the locker room.

“Will, you go out there and put it all on the table every night. Will, you have focus.” Will grins politely. “Will, I want you to have my scorecard. As for the rest of you, let this be a lesson.” Bochy pulls his scorecard from his breast pocket but fumbles it. The scorecard glides harmlessly to the ground. The team lets out a lighthearted laugh. It’s been a long season. Will bends down and reaches for the scorecard with his left hand. From the ground, Will notices Bochy is wearing cleats. “A lesson.”

Will trusts Bochy. Bochy lifts his right leg and stomps. The glove on Will’s left hand is immediately perforated. Rusty screws, little glass peas, and ice chips erupt from the glove’s holes. Outfielder Adolis García vomits profusely into a clubhouse trashcan. Will cries out in pain. “A lesson.”

Needless to say, Will Smith does not pitch in the postseason. Needless to say, the Rangers go on to win their first World Series in 62 years.

Will, having won his third consecutive World Series title, begins to ponder retirement. He returns home to Dallas. His wife, Taylor, waits excitedly. Will, his left hand cocooned in a plaster cast, walks through the door. “Will, I am SO proud of you.” Will grins sheepishly and looks at the floor. “Will, you are strong and you are loyal and you are perseverant.” Will blushes. “Will, you are a good man.” Will looks into Taylor’s eyes. “Will, you’re gonna be a father.”

Will’s eyes widen. He looks stunned. Tears stream down his face. Will and Taylor embrace. “Will?” He looks at Taylor. “You can’t keep doing this.” Will’s brow is furrowed.

2024

It is 2024 and the Dodgers haven’t won a non-asterisked World Series in 36 years. The Dodgers have been hoovering up expensive free agents for a decade and where has it gotten them? 5 100+ win seasons? A World Series loss with an asterisk?? A World Series win with an asterisk??? Obviously, this is a problem.

It happened quietly. The Dodgers went and decided to realign the plate tectonics of professional sports by committing just over a billion dollars to two generational-talent types. Two guys from Japan. Yoshinobu and Shohei. A billion dollars. Billion. These are historic, seismically significant contracts that will forever bend the power balance of Major League Baseball in the directions of New York and Los Angeles. Basement-dwelling small-market teams like the Marlins and Pirates effectively decided to “take the L” for at least the next 11 seasons or so. What can you do?

The Shohei Ohtani sweepstakes had enraptured the sports world for pretty much the entire calendar year. He’s a two-way, freakish, phenom player that industry insiders compare to Babe Ruth (famously a very good baseball player). Full hours of broadcast television on ESPN are devoted to Ohtani’s innate brilliance, his poise, and the financial upside for whichever team is fortunate enough to sign him as a free agent. This is all well and good. Shohei Ohtani is, in fact, a very gifted baseball talent. But his presence is hardly enough to guarantee a World Series-starved team like the Dodgers the payoff they so desperately crave. Among the frenzied hype, another pact is made. The Dodgers sign an anonymous-sounding relief pitcher called Will Smith for just $1 million. Yoshinobu and Shohei are the big-ticket items but Will is the real get. Dodgers GM Andrew Friedman had this to say:

“We got our guy.”

No one is sure who he, specifically, is referring to.

Unsurprisingly, this Dodgers team is very very very good at baseball. Sure, they don’t win 100 games but they look very convincing. Their collection of talent is unparalleled. They are primed to coast into the 2024 postseason.

For the first time, pitcher-Will and catcher-Will exist on the same team. This is uncomfortable. As the Braves Particle Physicists Department had observed, would catcher-Will serving as battery mate for pitcher-Will neutralize pitcher-Will’s invisiball [sic]? As it so happens, it doesn’t matter. Pitcher-Will does not play a single game in the 2024 season. Still, he is granted an ongoing spot on the Dodgers’ 40-man roster. Fans are confused by this. “Why is Will Smith even on the team?” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts tries to downplay these concerns. “Lefties will always be sought after. In fact, lefties like Will Smith will always be coveted.” Fans do not understand what this means.

Will Smith, that is to say, catcher-Will, surges at the plate. He is selected as an All-Star in July 2024. Catcher-Will proceeds to decline in the months following. He looks bad. The Dodgers start to consider fielding other catchers. It is September 11th, 2024 and catcher-Will hits a gargantuan home run off the Chicago Cubs. This is part of a 10-8 routing of the Cubs. The box score may not reflect it but catcher-Will appears to be finding his groove. The Dodgers’ top brass feels confident that catcher-Will is their guy.

It is September 12th and pitcher-Will is, well… injured. The media, fans, and teammates are confused.

The next day, leaked closed-circuit footage from the Dodgers’ clubhouse complicates the official story. Conspiracies swirl. People tweet. Just over a month later, the Dodgers win their first non-asterisked World Series in 36 years.

September 12, 2024

Off-day workouts conclude and players are dismissed.

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts calls pitcher-Will into the locker room for a discussion.