糙米蟲與世界的狂想曲

As Chipper Jones enjoys his retirement tour,
one former feared slugger is ending his career much quieter.
在Chipper Jones享受著他的退休儀式的同時，一位曾經讓人敬畏的強打卻慢慢消逝。

原翻譯者：ted10 （經原譯者本人同意，授權轉錄）
原Po文處：PTT MLB板

原文網址：http://tinyurl.com/8h45h2g
From SI by Chris Ballard



There are now less than six weeks remaining in the baseball season and -- in all likelihood -- in the careers of two of the best hitters of the last couple decades. 
One of them, Chipper Jones, has spent this season enjoying one long retirement party, receiving standing ovations, making an emotional All-Star appearance and writing a column for the back page of Sports Illustrated.

如今距離球季結束大約剩下六週的時間。而在今年結束後，有兩名同屬近代的頂尖打者將要高掛球鞋。
其中一位是Chipper Jones，在這個球季，他享受了一個美好的退休派對，其中包含了觀眾們的起立歡呼、出席了明星賽，並在其中留下了感性的時刻，以及在運動畫刊的封底有著一個屬於自己的專欄。

The other has played out the year with no such fanfare. His career statistics aren't that far off Jones' -- 1,405 RBIs to Chipper's 1,621, a career OBP of .403 to Jones' .401, but the similarities end there.
The 40-year-old Jones is a beloved figure. At 41, Jason Giambi is a survivor.

而另一位則沒有享受到如此的待遇。但他生涯數據與Jones的可說是相差無幾。
1,405分打點對上Jones的1.621分打點；.406的生涯上壘率對上Jones的.401。
但他跟Jones的相似之處僅到此為止。今年40歲的Jones是受到眾人愛戴的表率，但41歲的Jason Giambi卻只是一個倖存者。

On Tuesday, just after 4 p.m., Giambi walked into the visitor's clubhouse at AT&T Park in San Francisco wearing faded jeans and a zip-up hoodie. His hair, once scraggly and dark, is now cropped short, the gray rapidly encroaching on the brown.
His ruddy face is covered with a motley silver beard.
His body, once so top-heavy that he resembled a New Yorker cartoon come to life, the caricature of an overstuffed slugger, has returned to its natural proportions.
Seated at his locker, cheeks red from the sun, he looked less like a superhero athlete and more like the last guy at the bar in Santa Monica at 1 a.m. on a Thursday night.

在週二約於下午四點時，Giambi走進了位於舊金山的AT&T球場的客隊休息室，他穿著已經褪色的牛仔褲以及一件連帽外套。他當初那頭散亂且深黑的頭髮已不復見，現在長度變短，而髮色也已由棕轉灰。他的臉上冒滿了銀灰色的鬍子。
當初他那如同卡通人物般誇張的健壯上半身，如今也恢復正常比例。
他坐在自己的置物櫃前，雙頰因太陽照射而變得通紅。此時的他一點也不像個超級英雄，反而像是個在週四凌晨1點時仍然流連於Santa Monica酒吧裡的人。

 

It has been a long, quiet season for Giambi. Now strictly a pinch-hitter, he plays for a woeful Rockies team that is 30 games below .500 and, as a result, has embraced a youth movement in the season's waning months.
Entering Friday, it had been 19 days since Giambi's last hit. The man with 429 career home runs hadn't gone deep in more than four months.

這個球季對Giambi來說是個漫長且寂靜的一季。他現在唯一的工作就是上場代打，他如今效力於戰績慘澹的洛磯隊，但Giambi距離他上一次上場已經整整19天了。
這位生涯擊出429支全壘打的強打者已經超過四個月沒有打出任何一支全壘打。

This is not how anyone expected him to go out. Giambi won the AL MVP in 2000, led the league in OBP three times and OPS twice. Larger-than-life, he was the leader of the frat house A's, the running mate of Mark McGwire, a teammate of Jeter and A-Rod, and good friends with Michael Jordan (the two played against each other in the Double A Southern League).
He also was, and remains, an enduring icon of the steroid age, one of the last home run kings of his era still playing. Most of the other anti-heroes have either retired or slunk away: Bonds and Sosa, Palmeiro and McGwire, Clemens and Juan Gonzalez These days, he lives for small moments: a late-inning RBI opportunity, one at-bat in a homestand.

沒有人會預料到Giambi會以這種方式離開球場。在2000年時，Giambi贏得美聯MVP，他三度在上壘率這個項目領先全聯盟，兩次在長打率排行榜上獨占鰲頭。
他曾經是運動家隊的領袖、Mark McGwire的夥伴、Jeter及A-Rod的隊友，甚至是Michael Jordan的好友。(他們兩人在2A時，同樣在Southern League出賽。)
他也是類固醇時代的代表人物之一，與他同期的全壘打高手們如今皆已離開球場。
與他同樣受到相同指控的球員們，如Bonds, Sosa, Palmeiro, McGwire, Clemens以及Juan Gonzalez，現在不是已經退休就是逃離球場。但他仍繼續待在場上，不放過任何一次微小的機會，只為了能夠在有打點機會時上場代打。

 

Most games, he watches the action in the dugout or clubhouse until the fifth inning. Sometimes young players like Dexter Fowler and Jordan Pacheco come to him between innings to discuss their at-bats.
He'll talk to them about reading pitchers -- see how he threw you a slider on a 1-0 count last time, then went fastball this time? Other times they come to talk about life. As Giambi says, "Sometimes in this game you don't need a coach, you need a psychologist."

在大多數比賽的前五局裡，他都是待在休息區或休息室裡面觀看著比賽。
隊上一些年輕球員，如Dexter Fowler及Jordan Pacheco會在每局之間的空檔去跟他討論打擊。他會指導這些年輕小夥子如何去觀察投手：有注意到他上次在1壞球沒有好球的時候對你投了顆滑球，但這次卻是投速球嗎？而其他時候則是會跟Giambi討論人生問題。如同Giambi說的：有時候在這個比賽裡，你需要的不是教練，而是心理學家。

Around the sixth inning, he starts preparing in earnest, hitting off a tee and taking soft toss. By the eighth, he'll recruit a strength coach to throw him some BP in the cage. And then, feeling mentally and physically ready, he waits and hopes.
On Monday night, Rockies manager Jim Tracy called on Giambi with two outs in the ninth and Colorado trailing 2-1. San Francisco's lights-out righty, Sergio Romo, came in and unleashed four sinkers and a
change-up.
Giambi struck out swinging to end the game. "It's a tough job,"
Giambi says. "When you're successful you ride the high for a bit. If you don't get it done then you have to think about tomorrow."

等到第六局左右，他會開始熱身，做一些打擊練習。
而比賽進行到第八局時，他會請教練對他投幾個球來練打。
等到他覺得身心都準備好時，他便開始等候並祈禱著。
在禮拜一晚上，洛磯隊總教練Jim Tracy在九局上半兩出局，洛磯隊2比1落後的情況下換上了Giambi。巨人隊的右投手Sergio Romo在這個打席總共投了4個sinker還有1個change-up。Giambi遭到三振出局，比賽結束。
Giambi說道：「當你成功時，一切看來輕而易舉；但你失敗時，你就該放眼明天。」

 

Ideally, Giambi says he would like to play next season, but he understands that might be unlikely.
"Can I still get a job?," he said.
"I don't know." The Rockies have approached him about becoming a hitting coach, he says, and maybe one day managing, but he's not ready to consider that yet.
For now, he continues to play because he still loves the game, and because he feels his one great skill --power -- remains.
And indeed, when I asked Romo about pitching against Giambi, the pitcher nodded in deference.
"That's an MVP right there and you can't forget that," Romo said.
"Much respect." Respect. That's also part of why Giambi still plays.
In 2007, he told USA Today, "I was wrong for doing that stuff. What we should have done a long time ago was stand up -- players, ownership, everybody -- and said, 'We made a mistake.'" In the years that followed, it would have been easy for Giambi to fade away under the scrutiny, or when his performance slipped and he hit .193 with Oakland in 2009. He had made plenty of money, had nothing left to play for.

在理想狀況下，Giambi說他希望再戰一季，但他也知道這可能性已經不高了。
他說：「我還有可能得到一個機會嗎？我不知道。」
洛磯隊有向他詢問過轉任打擊教練的意願，他認為他有一天可能轉任教練，但不是現在。
他現在只想繼續在球場上征戰，因為他對這個運動仍有著滿滿的愛，而且他覺得他最大的優勢："長打"，依然健在。在賽後我問了Romo關於面對Giambi的感覺，他回答道：「不能忘記此時站在我面前的打者是位MVP。我對他仍然十分敬重。」
而則也是Giambi決定繼續奮戰的原因之一。在2007年時，他向USA Today表示：「他對於用藥這件事感到抱歉，他認為球員們、老闆們以及所有人早該勇於向大眾承認錯誤並表達自己的歉意。」
這些年以來，對Giambi來說，淡出球壇對他來說或許才是個輕鬆的決定，而且他的成績已大不如前。2009年時，他在運動家隊只繳出了.193的打擊率。
他已經荷包滿滿了，球場上似乎已經沒有什麼理由值得他繼續奮戰下去。

And yet here he is. Now, at 41, Giambi has an 11-month-old daughter named London Shay.
When I asked what he'd like people to say about her father when she's 10 years old, he stopped for a moment. "Wow ... I would love for them to say, 'One time in his career, he made a mistake but he worked really hard and got his honor back and he was honest,'" Giambi said. "I think that's the most important [thing]. I've been on top of the world in this game, I've won the most valuable player, and I've been in the gutter in this game. But I'm still here."

然而他依舊佇立於此。如今他已經41歲，並有著一個11月大的女兒，名字是London Shay。
當Giambi被問到他希望當他女兒10歲時，她會從人們口中聽到哪些關於她父親的事蹟，他暫停了一會兒後說：「哇…我會希望人們說：他(Giambi)在他的球員生涯中曾經犯錯，他很努力贏回屬於自己的榮耀，而且他是個誠實的人。我想這件事對我來說是最重要的。在我球員生涯裡，我曾經居於頂峰，贏得MVP；但也有著低潮。不過我仍舊在這裡。」

 

As he spoke, four nearby Rockies teammates played a game of hearts, while others watched NFL highlights. Troy Tulowitzki, out most of the season with a groin injury, sat glumly in his chair, staring off into the distance. Down the hallway, moments later, Colorado hitters took cuts in the indoor batting cage while pregame rituals played out on the field.
Giants players cycled through bunting practice, the smell of roasting hot dogs wafted through the grandstands and, behind home plate, a stooped usher used a spray bottle and a rag to wash down the seats in the first row.

在他說著這些的同時，四名洛磯球員在旁邊玩著傷心小棧，其餘的人在看NFL賽事精華。
而幾乎整季飽受傷痛所苦的Troy Tulowitzki坐在椅子上看著遠方。過不久後，洛磯球員開始賽前的室內打擊練習，而同時巨人隊的球員輪流在場上進行短打練習。
烤熱狗的香味緩緩飄散至看台，而在第一排座位可以看到一名駝著背的引座員正打掃著。

The late afternoon sun illuminated the leftfield bleachers.
It was a great night to be at the ballpark.
Five hours later, in the seventh inning, with tens of thousands of fans on hand, a 41-year-old man would be called to pinch hit with the bases loaded.
The PA would announce his name and Giambi would step in. Realistically, the chances of him turning on a pitch from the lefthanded Jeremy Affeldt and launching it into McCovey Cove would be slim, and indeed he would end up hitting into a double play. But in that moment, under the lights, standing at the plate, waiting for the pitch, all that would matter was that he was still there, still feared. Still part of the game.

此時左外野看台正閃耀著午後的陽光，這是個美好的夜晚。
五小時後，在第七局，背負著萬千球迷期待的Giambi上場了，他所面對的是一個滿壘情況。老實說，他想要從左投手Jeremy Affeldt的手中打出一發直接飛進McCovey Cove的全壘打的機會微乎其微。
而果不其然，他最後擊出了一支雙殺打。
但在這一刻，結果如何對他來說已經不重要了，重要的是，他站在打擊區內，感受著燈光的照射，等待著投手將球投出。這一切都是他依舊在球場上，仍然屬於這球賽一部份的證明。

=============

原譯者 ted10 的話：

會看到這篇文章是從SI的twitter看到的，他下的標是：

As Chipper Jones enjoys his retirement tour, 
one former feared slugger is ending his career much quieter 

在Chipper Jones享受著他的退休儀式的同時，一位曾經讓人敬畏的強打卻慢慢消逝。
點進去看完後，真的頓時有不少感觸，所以就決定翻譯出來跟大家分享。
希望大家能享受這篇文章，有些翻譯上的問題也不吝指教。

2012/09/23 重新把文章編輯過，
將一些文義不太通順的句子修改過， 並且在原文部分加上色碼以幫助閱讀。
老實說，這篇文章得到這麼多迴響是我所料未及的。
看到一些板友願意給我的翻譯肯定，我真的很開心。
以後如果還有看到喜歡的文章會再繼續做翻譯的，謝謝。

  
Jason Giambi 今年5/2擊出再見全壘打的精彩影片

泰瑞克斯小感想：

翻譯外電是吃力不討好的事情，特別是整篇文章。

有些朋友可能會覺得譯文不過就是把語言照樣翻譯成中文即可，但對於運動專題的文章來說，好的譯電不只能完整呈現全文，還要能兼顧自己語言的特性以及專業術語，必須具備優秀的文筆和對這個領域的熟悉，才能完成一篇很棒的譯文。

我覺得 ted10 大大這篇文章就是非常好的一篇文章，也相當的感人，因此徵詢他本人後將這篇好文轉錄予大家分享。

Jason Giambi ，這位除了 Chipper Jones 以外，大家也不該遺忘的一位，上一世代的強打者！ 

文：ted10（經原譯者本人同意，授權轉錄至痞客邦 運動邦）
圖片來源：AP Images、痞客邦 運動邦
影片來源：MLB.com
原文來源：SI.com
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