I Try Not to Fall for the What If Fallacy

by Francis Fernandez

The runner is picked off second – like

last week’s washing left out on the line:

a moment’s hesitation, the shortstop sneaks up

behind him, the pitcher twirls and throws, the tag

is applied. Not even close. Next pitch, the batter

hits a homerun. Then, incredibly, these words

from one of the commentator’s throats: if

the baserunner had been awake, his team would

be up one more run. And I go rrrr because

counterfactual thinking once again rules

the airwaves: forgetting the world would be

a different place – with different colours and

smells, all pungent and aswirl, a whole ‘nother

cosmic space – with the runner still on base:

where the pitcher’s head is weaving from home

to second and back to home: where he blinks

one more time, or one less, neurons firing

like nuclear furnaces, the only way they could,

really, in this one universe. And so the pitch

to the batter is a hair more this way or that,

an iota faster or slower, a fraction truer, filthier,

dodgier – meaning the batter’s swing is not

the same and, no, he does not hit the homerun

but instead grounds into a double-play, or lines

out to center field, or strikes out, or pops out,

or maybe doesn’t swing at all and is hit

by the pitch (which clears the dugouts and leads

to an ugly brawl). Oh my gosh, a hundred different

plots! Contingencies: life bursting at the seams

with them. I ought to know. Yes, me, who’s

been walked out on a hundred different ways

(that’s twice as many as that Paul Simon song).

If only... But I am hopeless, as they say.

Sometimes the umps consult instant replay:

those soulless, bloodless screens, the wires and

chips, the fake intelligence. My conscience,

for its part, misses the sacrifice bunt. Today

they all swing for the fences, wear fancy chains

around their necks, and each team has its own

dance: Look at me standing on second, what

a mensch! But the past is also just another bloody

universe. In the end, it’s the here and now, I tell

myself: to live is simply to watch and love

the minutiae of the game despite the infinite

variables, the other realities, we cannot see.