Baseball Blessings: The Longest Battery
Here, batter. Batter. Batter. That doesn't go well when written.
Just care about your teammates, care about the game, try to be good each day. That's the way I do my part.
The Longest Battery
Let’s talk about the elephant in the room, the Oakland Athletics.
Ha, baseball jokes. They never get old. Like ole Waino, Adam Wainwright. He’s still in the league, still with the cards, still pitching at 41. In verifying his age, I came across his height which I have never been curious about.
This dude is 6’7” according to the Googles. I didn’t know giants lived that long. That goodness he’s a Cardinal.
Brace yourselves for more Pastime Puns, I can do this all day.
But let’s talk about baseball blessings. I feel blessed to still be able to watch Adam pitch in the league. After the 2021 season there was talk of him leaving. I do believe his decision to return was due to his long time catcher Yadier Molina asking him to.
They have the record for most starts of any batter in Major League history. 325 was when they broke the record. I have no idea what it is now. I am not statistician. That’s a lot of games.
I don’t link too much, except things like quotes, but I will here. This is a writeup on MLB.com on their 325th start as a battery, both over 40 at the time. What compels me to link to that article is the (I believe) ad free video at the top of the article. It’s Waino and Yadi warming up. About halfway through they throw the first pitch of the game. The first batter up is Christian Yelich.
Yelich gets into the box and takes his stance, though there is no sign he’s coming up to bat in a major league game. No muscles tensed. He’s not concentrating on Adam and his windup. There was no intent to swing that bat.
Not on something so important.
That’s a baseball blessing. That’s a wonderful part of the sport.
Immediately upon catching the pitch, Yadi rolls the ball to their dugout to keep. The umpire is already digging into his pockets for another ball, knowing this one is important.
Christian could have tried to hit the ball. He could have taken that as a normal at bat, but there’s risk there. He is no slouch with the bat. That ball is in danger.
Baseball has a long season. 162 games, that’s a ton. But it’s a game that’s not played as a season, but within moments.
And he’s a true player of the game, so he knew. And he gets to be part of that historic moment forever, too.
They also currently hold the record for most wins of any battery. That’s at 213 wins and not going to be broken anytime soon. They set it with win 203 May 15th of 2022. They beat the Giants and that’s what they became.
A 15-6 victory, a win amongst many, that became another piece of history they both became immortalized in.
While Yadi’s last season was 2022, Wainwright is still going strong. How strong and how long? That remains to be seen. 41 is advanced for today’s game of baseball. Yadi is a catcher, so there’s more wear on his knees than Adam would feel, but given Adam is a pitcher, he has to worry about the use of his throwing arm going forward.
That they both made it to playing at 40 is stunning and an accomplishment in and of itself.