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Tim Lincecum didn't let Phillies fans take him off his game in the NLCS opener. (Getty Images) |
PHILADELPHIA – He stood at the plate all slim and slight in his San Francisco Giants uniform, hair flowing from beneath the helmet, and there came the whistles for Tim Lincecum(notes). At first he didn’t realize what they were for, no fans had never done such a thing. But as the shrill noise wafted into the frosty night like so many construction workers saluting a pretty woman. it was impossible to ignore.
And when someone yelled, “Your hair looks like a girl’s!” that’s when Lincecum knew. These Phillies fans were whistling at him.
”I must have a nice butt or something,” he said Saturday night as he sat in the clubhouse after fighting his way through a 4-3 victory over the Philadelphia Phillies in Game 1 of the National League championship series.
He smiled as he shook out his hair that dangled just above his shoulders.
”Those Phillies fans must like something about me,” he added. ”I took it as a joke.”
Then he thought for a moment.
”I’m not sure that’s the reaction they were trying to get,” he said.
It’s easy to forget after the two consecutive Cy Young awards, the brilliant start in the first game of last week’s division series and all the other wonderful things Tim Lincecum has done, that he is just 26 years old, that he is barely more than a kid. And as such, he can find humor in the biggest moments, where his name blared for days on the marquee of this opening game of the LCS – the co-headliner in a pitching matchup with Roy Halladay(notes) that was supposed to be a duel for the ages. And that as a kid, with all of a sellout crowd at Citizens Bank Park mocking his locks, he could be amused by the scorn when many an older player, lacking in his same sense of ease, would be furious.
But this is Lincecum, running his fingers through his hair, chuckling at the thought that the Phillies fans might have found him ”hot” and spotting teammate Aubrey Huff(notes) as he strutted through the clubhouse wearing nothing but a red thong and a cutoff shirt, and blurting ”No, that’s hot.”
On a night when the much anticipated showdown of the National League’s two best pitchers fizzled under its own hype, Lincecum was the one able to fight through his imperfection. Both he and the robotic Halladay struggled. Both grumbled about calls made by home plate umpire Darryl Cousins. And yet where Halladay imploded at his moment of frustration, giving up the two runs that turned out to be the difference between a win and a loss, Lincecum fought harder, getting two strikeouts to work out of a potentially disastrous inning.
He might be more fun to watch this way, when he is not as he was against the Atlanta Braves in the division series, striking out batter after batter, making much bigger, stronger men look foolish at the plate. On Saturday he was the tortured artist, agonized by the blemishes, determined to paint over them until they had been made perfect.
Lincecum’s lips moved as he muttered out loud and to himself during the game. And it was obvious the words were not printable. He did not deny this, chuckling at his own frustrated process of surviving a night when he wasn’t precise.
”There’s no credibility to [the rantings],” he said. They are just idle thoughts shouted into moments of frustration.
He smirked.
”I guess that’s why players put gloves in front of their mouths,” he said.
Then he shrugged. He doesn’t care if television shows him screaming into the night.
Whatever.
Across the clubhouse, Buster Posey(notes), the Giants’ catcher who at 23 really is a kid, marveled at the way Lincecum battled through a game when he couldn’t place his pitches in the right spots, at the right speeds and thus could not dominate as he often does.
”Number one, he’s gifted,” Posey said. ”Then on a night like this is when you put your mental toughness on top of that.”
Posey stopped for a second.
”He is an extremely gifted pitcher,” he continued.
Lincecum is, of course, aware of this fact. He is far too confident not to understand. But there is a lot of his Seattle hometown in him as he squelches any sign of ego and appears more interested in finding the humor in a dilemma than fretting. He raved about outfielder Cody Ross(notes), who hit two home runs, and he kept laughing about the Phillies fans who thought they could break him by whistling at him.
Such things don’t bother a kid. Not one like him.
And so after most of the other Giants had dressed and the clubhouse emptied, he pulled on an unbuttoned short-sleeved plaid shirt over a black t-shirt and placed on top of his head a black fedora. He looked as if he could be going off to DJ a rave or fix a fight.
Or maybe he was just a kid of 26 who can own the world and yet was more than willing to leave his slightly flawed masterpiece behind for everyone else to admire as he, instead, walked off into the night.
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