Yu Who

The inveterate Chris Dunn brought this to my attention.  It was a wonderful thread on Twitter.  A bit of background first, though, which is about baseball, but bear with me because the story really isn’t.  But it helps round-out the tale, getting to know the person involved.

Yu Darvish is a Japanese pitcher who signed with the Texas Rangers in 2012.  He was considered at the time perhaps the best pitcher in Japan and has largely had a very good career since coming to America and playing in the majors here, but not without some bumps along the way.

In his first season with Texas, he finished third in the American League voting for Rookie of the Year.  The following year he lead all of baseball in strikeouts and finished second in American League voting for the Cy Young Award as best pitcher.  He also struck out 500 batters in fewer innings than any starting pitcher in the history of baseball.  So, he's very good.

He moved to the Los Angeles Dodgers, and had a mixed career.  His record was good, though there were some inconsistencies, and he had a famous flameout in the 2017 World Series against the Houston Astros.  It later came out that the Astros cheated by stealing signs between the pitcher and catcher -– whether that impacted Darvish’s collapse in the World Series, it’s hard to say.  But it’s certainly possible.

Anyway, the following year he was signed by the Chicago Cubs.  I was thrilled.

I had a fellow-Cubs fan friend, however, who was very down on Darvish after he got off to a very bad start with Chicago his first year -– not helped by coming off his World Series meltdown, and bolstered by criticism by a Dodgers fan who was friends with my friend.  We'd argue because I'd defend Darvish, despite his problems.  I liked Yu Darvish from the start -- though was certainly bothered when he started poorly. But I sensed it was an anomaly since his career was far better than that. And I didn't hold his Dodger post-season blow-up against him. (Hey, by those standards you should hate a lot of great players who performed badly in the World Series, like Dodger star Clayton Kershaw.)

It turned out that Darvish had been hurt his first year, and even had to stop pitching, eventually missing the last third of that season. Though he did start the season, he wasn't up to speed yet, working himself back in to shape -- and so the debates between my friend and I continued.  Darvish finally got fully recovered by mid-season of his second year, and from that point on he was absolutely tremendous. But because his great "second-half" numbers got lost amid his full-season stats, it took a while for many people to realize that, particularly since his first year had been so problematic.  But as the remainder of the season progressed, my friend was open-minded enough to start giving my debating points some leeway and finally accepted that Darvish had good games in him, though he still needed convincing it wasn't a fluke and would hold through the next year.  By the third year, though, he became convinced and was totally on board.  Darvish had a great season, leading the National League in wins and having the second-best earned run average in the league, a miserly 2.01.  It reached the point that when the Cubs traded him after 2020 to the San Diego Padres, my friend was disappointed.   As was I. 

Which brings us to the tale.  This comes from a series of tweets by Annie Heilbrunn, who is a sportswriter for the San Diego Union-Tribune.  I’ve edited them together here in story form, and tweaked some of the text for normal-writing style.

And here it is --

​Wanted to share a quick story about Yu Darvish. It starts with a boy named Landon, who, for his 10th birthday, was gifted a trip by his grandparents to Truist Park in Atlanta to see the Padres play the Braves. Landon is a Padres fan.

Landon and his dad made the 3.5 hour trip from Tennessee, where he lives.  But the game was postponed due to rain, which would bum any kid out.  However, one player stood outside to sign autographs in the rain: Yu Darvish.  Landon was thrilled when he got a ball signed.

​Landon's mom is not a baseball fan, but she noticed how happy Landon was (despite the rainout) and messaged Darvish on Instagram.  Didn't expect him to write back, but wanted to say thanks for standing in the rain and making her son happy with a signed ball.