4:05 in Yuma
Written by Roberta Umor, Yuma Sun
July 25, 2014: Canton, OH — The stadium is empty. The streets are empty, but the hearts and minds of the fans are filled with hopes and high expectations. Today, Friday the 25th of July, the Yuma Bulldozers could tie their own record by losing 24 games in a row.
“You’d a-thunk it were that World Serious thang, the way folks is all a-studyin’ that there idiot box,” volunteers one local. “Good ‘scuse as any to stay inside, though. Too damnably hot to be out and about.”
Even the Bulldozers front office staff are abandoning their desks and cubbyholes to gather in the pressroom, where several televisions await the first pitch in Canton. “It’s a big deal,” Birk Breathless, assistant to the assistant to the Traveling Secretary, says. “The club can break its own record. I think we have a shot at losing 25 or 26 in a row!”
Asked whether he ever grew frustrated watching his team lose game after game, Breathless replies, “Heck no. I mean, sure, for the first few games, maybe. But once they get rolling… once you, like, feel they’re gonna do it—you know, set a record—then you can’t tear yourself away from the set. You check the box score every morning and you think about it all day, pulling for your team just like they were winning.”
“If you think about it,” office staffer Pollyanna Jones adds, “losing this many games in a row is harder than winning. One lucky hit and—poof—it’s all over.”
“Ya gotta believe,” Breathless pipes up, and a chorus of staffers in front of the TV chime in. “Ya gotta believe! Ya gotta believe!”
While anticipation of the opening pitch grows in the pressroom, further down the corridor in the dark-paneled GM’s office, the focus is neither on Canton nor the Yuma record for consecutive losses. It’s on the tiny Alaska hamlet of Kivalina, site of a major natural disaster less than two years ago that forced the entire village to take up residence inside the Kivalina Bowheads’ stadium, the Sanctuary. The Yuma Bulldozers continue to support most of the residents of Kivalina, and the stadium the franchise owns and maintains across the bay from the former village of Kivalina is still home to ballclub and residents alike.
But the story the GM and his inner circle will be following today—even as the first pitch is tossed out in Canton—is not Kivalina’s eroding coastline or search for a new village site, but the sudden and unexpected success of the Bowheads, who lead their division of the Sand & Surf Amalgamation by an unexpected eight games. The Bowheads, with a record of 27-11, are best in the entire Alaskan League. They lead the league in ERA and fewest runs allowed, while the offense is a credible fifth in runs scored. The team seems destined to make it to the playoffs and no one in Yuma—not the GM, his assistant, the office workers nor local fans—has any idea how to react to that likelihood.
“It’s unprecedented,” says Pam Postema, assistant to the GM. “No team in the entire franchise has ever had much success, certainly not like Kivalina is experiencing now. We have no idea what to do, or think.”
Bulldozer GM Mayberry declines to be interviewed about the first place Bowheads. “I don’t want to jinx them,” he says. But he is more forthcoming on the odds of the Bulldozers breaking their own loss record. “We’ve been here before,” he says.
“Approached our record but then couldn’t lose that magic 25th. Losing is old hat around here. We’re beginning to think about winning.”
When asked if the shift in management’s focus was due in any way to the success of Kivalina, the GM will only say, “I’d rather not say.”
Back on the deserted streets of Yuma, at 4:05 pm, a cry goes up from the bars and TV rooms across the town as the first pitch smacks into a catcher’s glove in Ohio and the game is underway. In spite of the promise of events unfolding in Kivalina, for today, at least, in Yuma, Arizona, losing is still more important than winning.