The
funny thing is, I see baseball in much the same way. Baseball isn’t merely a
game. It’s a metaphor for the ups and downs of life and ultimately for the
miracle that is God and what took place on Easter. No matter how bleak and
dismal things may appear, when I see that cut diamond and the fielders take
their positions, when I watch the pitcher wind up and deliver that very first
pitch, I know there is a reason to hope.
Baseball.
I have an aunt who turns sixty-nine this year; she’s eleven years younger than
my dad. They are different as can be. Yet, there my dad and I were in 1968,
around my ninth birthday, sitting in Shea Stadium with my aunt watching a young
New York Mets pitcher named Tom Seaver face Willie Mays and the San Francisco
Giants. Forty-four years later and I can still smell the grass; I can still see
Seaver’s wind up. That night, I became a Mets fan. Not a season has gone by
that I haven’t believed on opening day that my Mets would win the World Series.
It
was easy back then. A season later, 1969, the Mets shocked the sports world by
winning the World Series over the vaunted Baltimore Orioles. Earlier that
season, a famous Chicago politician scoffed at the Mets chances of even
catching his beloved Cubs. “A man will walk on the moon before the Mets ever
win a pennant.” July, 1969, I sat transfixed in my living room as astronaut
Neil Armstrong uttered the immortal words, “That’s one small step for man, one
giant leap for mankind,” as he stepped onto the lunar surface. The mayor of
Chicago was never better at predicting the future.
The
Mets won and a ten year old boy had his faith rewarded. There was no heartache,
no lost season. There was only joy. I decided then and there that God was a
Mets fan.
Opening
days came and went after the miracle of 1969. And there were more lost seasons,
more disappointments, than successes. The Mets only made it to the post-season
one more time until I was a married man a few years removed from law school.
For most of those years – 1970 until the early 1980s, baseball was
disappointment and heartache. Great players arrived too late in their careers
to lead the Mets to victory, young players didn’t meet expectations; and I saw
– as my heroes like Tom Seaver were traded – that baseball was a business, not
a passion. Yet every opening day I believed this was the year.
I
vowed when we had children that they too would love baseball. Sure enough,
shortly after our older son was born I came home with a Mets sleeper. A dozen
pictures were taken of our little man in that orange and blue striped outfit
with “Mr. Met” prominently displayed. Nine years later that “onside” was pulled
out of a zip-lock bag and put on our second son.
Dinners
were filled with talk of baseball. It was the Mets, always the Mets, in our
house. When our younger son was just over three he sat patiently on the couch
as I watched the 2000 Mets get first one, then two, and finally three ninth
inning outs to beat the Giants and advance in the playoffs. I lofted my young
son over my shoulders and ran through the living room yelling “Mets win! Mets
win!” His shrieking shouts of glee, “Daddy’s crazy,” rang through the house.
Baseball
mattered in our house. It was a bond between my sons and me. And, it helped
define the seasons of our family. Every spring, every opening day, was met with
anticipation and hope. Spring turned to summer and trips to games which had
been scheduled back in the heady days of spring when we all believed this was
“the year” were upon us. Those road trips: to DC or Baltimore, Atlanta or
Philadelphia and yes even New York, became part of the family atlas.
Summer
trips to Seattle included a Mariners game. A business trip to Indianapolis
included a triple A game. We’d head into Richmond – or Lynchburg – for minor
league action. Visits to my folks in Raleigh would mean a Durham Bulls or
Zebulon Mud Cats game. Baseball and summer were woven into our family’s DNA.
Opening
day. I began a family tradition with our first son. He was eight and in third
grade. I sent a note into his teacher. “I will pick him up at noon;” simple,
declarative words. But, it was opening day. We would get hot dogs, popcorn and
chips, and set up stadium chairs in the den. We’d rise for the National anthem,
baseball hats over our hearts, then watch the first pitch. It would begin, a
new season, as we – just father and son – would watch game after game on
opening day. Before dark, we’d have a catch.
Every
year, every opening day, ten years through our older son’s teens and then our
younger son’s elementary and middle school days, there we were. Opening day was
spring. Opening day was family. But opening day couldn’t survive an arrest. I
was wrong. I realized, when I told my son baseball mirrors life. Nothing in
baseball compares to divorce or imprisonment. Baseball isn’t life. Life is
harsh, and unforgiving, and tear filled. Baseball is always about next spring,
next opening day.
Maybe
that’s what draws me back each year. Just before Christmas, the reports start
filtering in from the mid-winter baseball owners meeting. It’s hot stove league
time and trades, contract extensions, and manager hirings run across ESPN’s
sports ticker. It’s cold and drizzling outside, the days dreary and gray. But,
the sports network breaks into its broadcast with news from Peter Gammons or
Buster Olney on a huge signing. The report always begins with “All-star
pitcher,” or “MVP runner up …” and I hold my breath and wait, hoping its news
on my Mets.
Even
when it’s not (after all, the Mets owner, Fred Wilpon, with millions owed to
the Bernie Madoff trustee, has begun the process of cutting salary and rebuilding
the franchise with young ball players), I still listen intently calculating the
relative merits of the move. I look at my calendar and smile. I know there are
only sixty-one days until pitchers and catchers report, only sixty-one days
until the Grapefruit and Cactus leagues rebud into existence.
Five
World Series have come and gone since my life unalterably changed that hot
August day in 2008. Five opening days followed each winter. And each time, as
each opening day approached, I began to feel more hopeful. That’s opening day,
that’s the first pitch; I knew it: hope.
I
used to tell my sons baseball was a metaphor for life. I forgot so much of my
rationale for that philosophy as I struggled with the heartbreak of separation
and divorce, and the daily battles inside prison as I tried to negotiate my way
around violence, ignorance, and filth. Then, spring would draw near. Days would
lengthen, Lent would begin and somehow each day my thoughts would go back, back
to earlier springs, earlier opening days, earlier first pitches. I hear the
words from Psalm 27 about waiting, waiting for the Lord, or Micah telling
anyone who would listen he would be lifted out of the darkness. In my mind’s
eye I smelled it, the fresh grass from the infield.
I
wasn’t so far off when I told my boys that on the seventh day God created
baseball. After all, it’s about hope, and miracles, perseverance and faith.
And, it’s about renewal every spring.
I
saw the first pitch yesterday and I knew, this is the year.
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