Sports writers use a lot of hyperbole. It’s kind of the nature of the job. Think about it: let’s say you’re on the hometown baseball beat for a major metropolitan media outlet for two years. That means watching 324 games of baseball (not counting spring training, and potentially the World Baseball Classic and the postseason), many of them completely indistinguishable from the rest; all of which you are expected to summarize in a completely unique way, often times needing to finish immediately after the last pitch is thrown. So yeah, hyperbole kind of wades its way into the prose more than some might prefer.
That said, it’s not surprising that reports filed in the hours after Nationals pitcher-of-the-future Stephen Strasburg’s spring training debut yesterday contained a metric ton of lavish praise. (Yours truly has called Strasburg “the pitcher on whose arm the entire future of the Nationals depends,” so I’m just as guilty as the next guy.) But is the 21-year-old really some kind of superhero? There’s plenty of monumental opening lines to lend credence to the thesis.
Thomas Boswell in the Washington Post reacted to Strasburg’s two scoreless innings in an exhibition game with: “Let’s not kid ourselves: This is the start of a saga.” Dan Steinberg poetically, if ironically, described this Strasburgian Nationals spring training as a “time for ruby optimism on emerald chessboards filled with sapphire kings.” ESPN fantasy baseball analyst Tristan H. Cockcroft says that “Chasing Stephen Strasburg is, in a sense, chasing a dream.” (Cue the epic John Williams score.)
And with reason! Did you know that Strasburg possesses quasi-telepathic powers? That’s the story that Bill Ladson at MLB.com shares:
What impressed [Nationals catcher Wil] Nieves the most was when Strasburg struck out Brent Dluhach looking on an 81-mph curveball to end the second inning. Both Strasburg and Nieves agreed that a breaking ball was in order with the count full. “I called the pitch because I realized he could throw it for a strike,” Nieves said. “But he was on the same page. He was thinking about throwing that curveball, too.”
