I own a Lew Ford jersey.
I know, I know. I won't even try to defend the awful year he has had, or the awful year he had last year. Wearing the cursed thing in public it felt not like a piece of cloth, but rather a dreadful albatross of shame hung about my neck for the ages to recognize and heap scorn upon my woeful deed. Despite the flattering navy home alternate design, it stinks of the acrid odor of failed dreams and faulty ligaments. That and two and a half summers' worth of spilled beer and pickle relish. Wearing it to games was worse. Lew Ford? Though a favorite to all those fans who think the Wave is the coolest thing about a ballgame and who can easily come up with a creative cheer for anyone whose name rimes with "oooooooooooh", those who followed the game with stats and charts and something about a saber - you may have noticed their inner children hanging around the lost-and-found station outside the gates of the ballpark - saw beyond the goofy smile and the particular brand of hustle that only comes with someone desperately lacking in natural ability or talent. The looked at me the same way as they would at someone with the words MEARES, STAHOVIAK, or RIVAS across their back. Little do they know I was once like them.
To what do I owe this memorabilia of the damned? Way back in 2003, we actually had a pretty decent backup outfielder in No. 20, and in 2004, when Stewart Shannon went down with that pesky plantar fasciitis, he handled the starting left field job for most of the year to the tune of .299/15/72, even garnering two votes for AL MVP (Hartman and Souhan, I'm looking at you) but somehow getting robbed of that award by Vlad Guerrero. Which brings us to 2005. The Soul Patrol remained intact again for a while, limiting Sweet Lew to sporadic DH and outfield duty, where he was still doing a respectable job, until Torii lost a fight with the wall at Fenway and went out for the season with a broken ankle, thrusting our protagonist into the starting center field job. At a weekend game in August against Seattle, I was arguing with a friend of mine about Ford's merits. He had homered in the previous night's game, and I forget exactly how the argument went, but here's how it ended:
"If Lew Ford hits a home run tonight, I'll buy his jersey and wear it to the game tomorrow."
After the Twins gave up six runs in the bottom of the tenth, Lew comes up and puts one in the left field seats before the Mariners closed out the loss. A man of my word, I had to go out and cash the check my big mouth had written. It was not a good sign that it took me trips to three stores before I actually found a Lew Ford jersey, but I was there the next day and he went out and fucking hit another one. That weekend was probably the peak of his career, save for maybe his 2006 walkoff against - naturally - Seattle. Either way, it's been downhill from there, and me and my No. 20 jersey have been there to witness every looking strikeout, basepath rundown, and fly ball route that looks more like evading enemy mortar fire. But still, as the clamors rise daily on blog comments and message boards for Lew's trade, release, or head on a platter, I can't help but hope that he'll stick around. Not just for the sake of my jersey not becoming even more worthless, but I can't help now but think, after all we've been through these last two years, that we share a kind of bond, an alliance against those who think that Terry Ryan will really cobble together some sort of trade that doesn't involve an over-the-hill DH or starting pitcher. Yes, he's not getting any younger nor his numbers any gaudier, but the last couple of weeks seem to have seen our boy put together some impressive clutch hitting, and I can't help but wonder if there can be a resurgence, something to let me wear the blue No. 20 again with pride. Hey, at least he's doing better than Kubel.
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