Hector Rondon's first knees-knocking Major League plate appearance represented all of us
Depending on your Meyers-Briggs personality type, when you fantasize about being plucked from the crowd and asked to step into the batter's box, your fantasies will likely go one of three ways:
-- You immediately pass out from the terror and wake up days later.
-- You gingerly step into the box and when the pitcher goes into his windup, you pass out in terror and wake up days later.
-- You know that scouts missed out on you during your high school career, so this is your big chance. You take a big hack, connect and are on the cover of newspapers nationwide. You pass out from terror at the thought of your new fame and wake up days later.
All of those responses are wrong. Rather, with knees knocking and feet nervously dancing, Hector Rondon's first-ever professional plate appearance against Pittsburgh on Saturday represented every single one of us. His uncertainty on whether to step out of the box when Mark Melancon walked off the rubber is like the first day at a new job when you have no idea where to go or who to talk to.
It was also a representation of all things in the world. Frozen in the batter's box, he was a video game glitching out. Legs shaking, he was the next hot dance craze. Bat held like it would escape his grasp, he was a bear grasping slippery salmon.
While Rondon would strike out after bunting the two-strike pitch foul, he made up for it by with a 1-2-3 ninth to close out the Cubs' 4-3 victory. Which is definitely something that none of us could do.