It has by now become a famous quote. It's so well known in fact that Pedro Martinez cited it when he was interviewed following a bench-clearing brawl last year between Boston and Tampa Bay. I hate to be the one to point out that Hollywood doesn't always tell the truth, but pace Tom Hanks' character, I believe that baseball is the only place where crying should be allowed. If a grown man who wears a jockstrap to the office and whose job it is to run around a diamond and touch a five sided white surface embedded in the ground more times than his competitors can't weep, then I'm not sure who can.

There is more passion on a baseball diamond than most people realize. The majority of the time players are required to keep their emotions under control. There are a variety of reasons for this. Players know that their every move is recorded by more cameras than an action sequence in an Arnold Schwarzenegger film. There is also the overwhelming desire of American men to appear masculine and in control at all times. In addition, players must endure the taunts of opposing fans.

Most know that by responding to these jeers, they will only feed the fire. They are mocked for every workplace error they commit. This problem is unique among athletes. Can you imagine what it would be like to be heckled at your job every day? To have someone sitting in your cubicle, with their shirt off, drinking a beer and yelling at you every time you made a mistake?

"You bum, they're paying you $15 an hour and you can't even send a fax."

"This jerk just dialed the wrong extension."

"You suck, you can't collate."

Even baseball's officials demand stoicism. This is a sport where you can get kicked out of a game just for dropping your bat in the wrong way after a called third strike. Imagine a rule like that in hockey. But there are times when those emotions tamped down by pride and discretion rise to the surface. You see it when records are broken.

Barry Bonds, routinely described as standoffish, seemed perilously close to joy this week after hitting his 70th and 71st homeruns. (Of course, he would have preferred a trip to the postseason.) Watch Randy Johnson after he strikes out twenty batters. Picture Rickey Henderson ripping third base out of the earth and holding it aloft like the head of a vanquished enemy after breaking Lou Brock's stolen base record. One gets the feeling that had Rickey stolen home to beat Brock he would have jumped in a '73 Ford pickup with some chains and ripped the dish out of the ground like a gardener removing a tree stump from an old lady's front yard. Rickey gots to be Rickey.

You also see passions running high during the postseason. The emotional build up that comes with a long season yearns for a catharsis. If you don't believe that there is deep feeling and pride on the line, look down the bench after decisive games in the playoffs. The events of September 11 signaled a shift in the tenor of the game - when Seattle clinched their playoff spot shortly after returning to play, the backslapping was replaced by the team silently kneeling around the pitcher's mound in a show of respect for the victims - but if the players give themselves permission to celebrate fully (and I imagine by the middle of October, they might), then what you will see is a bunch of grown men jump around like Little Leaguers. If you feel you need some unadulterated joy in the midst of the recent tragedies, all you have to do is turn on the TV and watch the divisional playoffs.

Once during my teenage years, I rode my bike down the steep incline of a hill and hit a jump. The landing sheared off the forks of my bike and I landed face-first on the pavement. I've also broken various parts of my left foot several times and recently I got hit in the face with a softball (I assure you the "soft" portion of this compound word is a misnomer) so hard that I didn't know what month it was. To my knowledge, no saline fluid left my body during any of these events. I am not given to lachrymal displays over physical trauma. But I turn into a blubbering baby at the mere mention of Jackie Robinson's name. I also find it pretty hard to keep it together when I watch the tape of Pete Rose breaking Ty Cobb's all-time hit record. And Rose isn't the kind of guy who normally instills wistfulness.

In short, baseball destroys me. And I think it affects the players much the same way. In film or theatre, we often see gratuitous emotion - emotion that is not organic to the scene or character. We call this emotion unearned. Baseball earns its emotion with games virtually every day for six months straight - 162 games, twice as many as basketball and ten times as many as football. Some long journeys end like "It's a Wonderful Life" and some end like "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre." Tune in and find out.

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