What Is the Meaning of the 1978 Atlanta Braves? (card 24 of 25)
(continued from Rob Belloir)
Most of life is made up of forgettable moments. Clarence Gaston, better known by his childhood nickname Cito, which he earned by bearing a resemblance to a Mexican wrestler with that name, had some moments in his life that towered above the usual range of human moments and even surpassed the reach of most major leaguers. He had some success as a player—for many years, before the arrival of Tony Gwynn, Gaston’s .318 mark in 1970 stood as the San Diego Padres’ team record for batting average—but reached the pinnacle of the sport as a manager, leading the Toronto Blue Jays to back-to-back World Series wins in 1992 and 1993. Only eight managers have ever won more World Series titles than Cito Gaston, who even ranks above his 1978 manager, future Hall of Famer Bobby Cox, in that category.
So it’s hard to imagine that Cito Gaston would remember the moment captured on this 1978 card. It was one of many days in a decade as a player in the big leagues, Gaston complying with the request of a photographer to get in his batting stance but not caring enough about trying to simulate actual game action to so much as shed his warmup jacket. The presence of the jacket, along with Gaston’s bored expression, suggests that Gaston let go of the moment forever the second he sauntered away from the harried photographer’s murmur of thanks, or even that Gaston was never really in the moment at all but was thinking ahead or back to something else, some other hypothetical moment that did not and would never exist in the way he was imagining it.
The past is gone and the future isn’t here, and the present is something we often barely show up for. While traveling from forgettable moment to forgettable moment, we have an air of distraction, like many of the players on the 1978 set of Atlanta Braves cards. Most of these cards are like the one for Clarence Gaston, a desultory quality bordering on some kind of forfeit emanating from the cardboard like a scent of stale gum. Still, maybe there’s a trace of each of us everywhere, a kind of perfection left behind as we stumble forward, losing. I’d like to think this trace can be seen here, stretching out on the grass in dark relief beyond Clarence Gaston. A pure form, waiting.
Cardboard Gods 
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