by One of the classic lines of A League of Their Own was Jimmy Dugan screaming at right fielder Evelyn Gardner, “Are you crying? Are you crying? ARE YOU CRYING? There’s no crying! THERE’S NO CRYING IN BASEBALL!”
It is one of the more oft quoted lines in one of the more underrated baseball movies of our time, but the line couldn’t be more wrong.
Mets fans learned of this on the night Wilmer Flores thought he was traded by the Mets to the Milwaukee Brewers. Flores, who was signed as a 16 year kid out of Venezuela, left his family behind to grow up and become a man in the Mets organization. Suddenly, finding out he was going to be torn away from the one place he knew as his home, emotions overcame him, and he was in tears on the field.
Eventually, those tears led to an epic game winning home run a few nights later on what would become a magical ride to the 2015 National League pennant.
As great and emotional as that might have been for Flores or Mets fans, you’d be hard-pressed to find a more emotional moment than happened in Boston last night.
In a classy move by the St. Louis Cardinals organization, they traded outfielder Stephen Piscotty to the Oakland Athletics to permit him to be closer to his beloved mother who was dying from ALS. The trade allowed Piscotty to be closer to home and to spend more time with his mother before she tragically passed away on May 6th.
Last night, in his first at-bat since returning from the bereavement list, Piscotty would hit an 0-2 pitch into the heavens and over the Green Monster:
As he crossed home plate, he touched his heart and looked up towards his beloved late mother. Seeing this happen and how it all played out, even the most stoic will find themselves a bit misty. How could you not?
In the end, Jimmy Dugan was wrong. There is crying in baseball.
