It Can’ Be Done, but . . . Call It ‘Manifest Destiny’

The time, place and event no longer matter because what Bo Jackson did that day was so astonishing that details only obscure the real significance of the man’s feat.

All you need know here is that Jackson played left field and a fly ball was sent his way, far, far beyond him, the baseball about to bounce off the outfield wall, and not just off the wall but high off the wall, maybe eight, nine feet up.

When here comes Bo.

He’s climbing the wall.

Climbing . . . the . . . wall.

Ordinary major league outfielders may put themselves at risk by running full speed and leaping for such a ball. They crash into the wall and may or may not make the catch. As they lie crumpled on the warning track, we applaud their courage and determination.

But ordinary major league outfielders do not climb walls when, by climbing, it is meant that Bo Jackson, having arrived at full speed, put a foot on the wall in order to place his other foot higher on the wall after which he took one more step into the air and made the catch before returning to earth so lightly you’d think he’d worn a parachute or been sprinkled with pixie dust.

Bo Jackson ran up that wall.

Ran . . . UP . . . that . . . wall.

Movie magic helped Fred Astaire dance on ceilings. This was real-life magic. This was a 225-pound man dancing on an outfield wall. Anyone who saw it done couldn’t have been sure they’d seen it done because it was a thing they’d never imagined could be done.

Yet every day in our games, we see things done that remind us that anything can, in happy fact, be done. “Games are beautiful in their complexity, their rhythm, as well as in the beauty of their players,” the Rev. Timothy S. Healy said while president of Georgetown University. “The ancient Greeks knew that it was a good thing for all of us to watch beauty, above all when that beauty involved movement, suddenness and improvisation. Watching anyone do anything well enlarges the soul.”

Which is why, these days, our eyes are fixed on Tiger Woods. Here’s a man only 24 who wins the U.S. Open golf tournament by a mile on one of the world’s great courses. Even if we know nothing about golf, we know something extraordinary is happening. We must see it with our own eyes to believe it, to make it ours.

Women aren’t supposed to pick up cars off babies. They do it anyway.

Tiger Woods can’t win an Open by 15 shots. He did it.

No wonder we love these kids’ games, for if we pay attention long enough, we’ll see happenings of ineffable beauty. We’ll see Tiger Woods hit a driver off the fairway 260 yards with the idea of rolling the ball up the face of a trap so it will roll back down to a perfect lie. We’ll see shortstop Ozzie Smith go to his left on a Jeff Burroughs ground ball up the middle. “I took four or five steps in that direction,” Smith said. “That tells me I have to dive.” As Smith left his feet, the ball took a bad hop, behind him.

“My glove is gone now,” Smith said, meaning it was useless. He threw his bare hand up and back where the bad-hop grounder was due to bounce over him for a single. “All I can do now is hope the ball sticks in my hand . . . “

Here The Wizard smiled.

” . . . which it did.”

He then bounced up to throw out Burroughs. As to how such a thing could be done, Smith said with a wink, “Manifest destiny.”

His explanation is as good as any, not only for his stuff but for what Robbie Alomar does daily. Around second base, everywhere from his first baseman’s shoelaces to short center field, Alomar can be seen leaping, diving, sliding, throwing from his knees--and none of it can be done.

Reggie Jackson hit three straight home runs in a World Series game, each on the first pitch, the third against a knuckle-ball pitcher he’d never seen before. That can’t be done.

Wilt Chamberlain got 55 rebounds in an NBA game against the Celtics, which means he got those boards on a night when the other team’s center was the greatest rebounder of all time, Bill Russell. No one can do that.

Muhammad Ali, then Cassius Clay, 22, moved so quickly and threw punches so quickly that he baffled the fearsome heavyweight champion Sonny Liston, who answered his frustration by quitting on his stool, refusing to come out for the seventh round. That can’t be done.

Secretariat won America’s most demanding horse race, the Belmont Stakes, by 31 lengths, a distance nearly the length of a football field, and he won in world-record time for 1 1/2 miles, which wasn’t even the best part, for along the way he also set a world record at 1 1/4 miles. That can be done, provided a horse has wings.

Michael Jordan, on a fast break with the ball, rose into the air toward a defender a step past the free-throw line, turned his back to the man and, floating toward the basket, held the ball away from his body in his right hand and with his left slapped his right wrist to pop the ball into the air. It fell through the hoop. THAT CANNOT BE DONE!

But there it is, all of it done. Unimagined until done. And, my, my, what we’d give to see it all done again.