But those ad-libbed plays are to baseball what a great horn solo is to jazz, bright notes that seem to come from nowhere.
It's the routine plays that cause the trouble, the ones that perhaps could be executed with more "routineness" if the pastime's warriors had not decided close to a generation ago that a timeless ritual known simply as "infield" was one pregame ritual too many. Phantom doubleplay turns and rocket one-hop throws to each base by each outfielder were eventually replaced by film study. There are courses at UCLA's renowned school of film, theater and television that involve less video analysis than today's ballplayers practice before, during and after games.
They like to watch . . .
And precision has suffered.
In the wake of back-to-back doubleplay launches by Utley in Games 1 and 2 that managed to elude Ryan Howard by a total of about 10 yards and a wilder-than-the-weekend-weather toss to nobody in particular that frosted the Angels' goose in the bottom of the 13th in Ice Station Ruth, it was nice to see a return to some fundamental normalcy in The Bank last night.
Not that the wildly careening postseason plots needed much more synopsis than the long-awaited offensive breakout by Charlie Manuel's ticking time bomb of an offense.
But after pounding Joe Torre's puzzling choice of Hiroki Kuroda - fresh from mowing 'em down in an Arizona Fall League rehab - for a first inning four-spot on the way to an embarrassingly easy, 11-0, wipeout of the Dodgers in pivotal Game 3, it was good to see the return of some defensive routine-acity. If that wasn't a word, it is now.
It came from, of all people, Ryan Howard, who was the lungee on Utley's first misfire and a helpless spectator on the Game 2 launch. The Big Piece was so startled he almost forgot to run after a ball that might have rolled downhill to City Hall had a ballpark not been in the way.
