It’s October. I’ve been thinking …

It’s late October which means baseball is in its crucial weeks. The season always begins in early spring. Even before the final bits of snow have all melted north of the Mason-Dixon Line, pitchers and catchers are already throwing in Florida and Arizona. And spring brings hope, hope for fans in every major league city. “This is our year,” they’ll tell you.
            But spring works its way into summer; and in baseball summer is long. All those spring dreams begin to fade as nine game west coast road trips end two and seven. Your ace needs Tommy John surgery. The free agent savior with a lifetime three hundred average is barely above two-thirty. Dreams begin to die as you see the fade in the standings.

            A few cities meet, maybe even beat, expectations and are in the pennant races. Summer fades into fall and only four are left; then two; finally, one. I get baseball. It is representative of life. You start out young, with dreams, and its spring. But youth fades; life gets tough. If you’re lucky you survive and you make it to fall. You survive and you know the season – your life – was tough, and parts of it didn’t make sense, and you know there’s no explanation why you made it and twenty others didn’t. And you decide no matter what, win or lose, October matters. You will leave it on the field. You will, as Dylan Thomas said, “not go gently into that good night,”

            I’ve been thinking about baseball. October does that to me. I came across a quote by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He said, “History has proved over and over again that unmerited suffering is redemptive.” I knew he wasn’t talking about baseball, but somehow I think Dr. King understood the game because he sure understood life.

            Before someone points out that the good doctor referred to “unmerited” suffering – as if there’s a book you can open that points out how much suffering is merited for a particular wrong – I get that. But, I think he was saying life – a lot of times – is about suffering which, quite frankly isn’t fair in our limited way of understanding fairness. You start with the premise that to be human is to screw up (some worse than others), and you look at what people endure in the summers of their lives and you kind of wonder, is God really directing all this?

Every morning I stretch and pray and recite a dozen or so Bible verses I have memorized.

One – Romans 8:28 – goes:

“God causes all things to work together for good, for those who love God according to His purposes.”
          
  Almost every day I think about those words and I must confess there are days I believe them a whole lot more than others.

            I’ve been thinking about Bill Buckner. Buckner was the Red Sox first baseman in 1986. He had a lifetime 300 batting average and was a solid fielder. Buckner was a major reason Boston found themselves in the 1986 series against my beloved New York Mets. The Mets. From the moment I saw their grass infield at Shea Stadium in 1968, I loved that team. It was easy early on. Ten years old and ball players like Tom Seaver and Tommy Agee, Cleon Jones, and twenty-two others proved to me miracles happen with their 1969 World Series win. God I knew was a Mets fan. God was fair.

            It didn’t last. Baseball’s business side led the Mets to trade the greatest right hander in the last fifty years – Tom “Terrific.” They barely won even half their games. But I stayed and I watched, and every spring I believed this would be the year. It never was until … until 1986.

            The Mets were the bad boys of baseball. They were brash and they backed their egos up with a 108 win season. Then it got tough. October was tough with a seven game series against the Houston Astros. I watched and agonized through every pitch, every inning, every game. And then there were two.

            The Mets lost games one and two, both at home, to the Red Sox. And Bill Buckner, with knees barely able to hold him up, played, He hit, and he fielded, and Boston went to Fenway halfway to the championship that so long eluded them.

            Baseball is like life. You can give up or you can fight. An elderly Presbyterian minister friend put it this way: “We are commissioned to keep the faith, to fight the good fight …” After three games in Boston, the Mets were still alive taking two of three. And they returned to New York for game six.

            Game six. Every baseball fan knows game six. The Mets, down two runs in the bottom of the tenth inning, down to their last strike with no one on base, and their own scoreboard posting congratulations to “The World Champion Boston Red Sox;” and a hall of fame catcher – Gary Carter – skewered by his own teammates because he was too “nice,” telling the umpire “I’m not making the last fucking out,” because it’s better to go down fighting; and the hits start coming until … until … “The ball gets by Bill Buckner.”

            Miracles. Elation. A twenty-seven year old lawyer standing in his living room telling his twenty-four year old wife “baseball is never over until last out!” And there is Bill Buckner. “Unmerited suffering.”

            Buckner had to leave Boston. The boos and the death threats became too much. Boston’s failure to end their World Series drought in 1986 was exemplified by that little red seamed white ball sliding under Bill Buckner’s open mitt as his knees buckled. Buckner, one of the reasons Boston even made it to the series, was alone, exiled, vilified. He didn’t deserve it, but it was as it was.

            Buckner never vented at his enemies. He never fought back. He wore the abuse and the exile and went on. On was a ranch out west, far away from Boston and baseball and failure. Like I said, I’ve been thinking a lot about Bill Buckner. Baseball is a game for boys. It’s a game you have to love to really get. And Buckner had to give all that up; he had to walk away from what he loved, without a fight; he had to give up the dream.

            I remember every detail when I got the letter. I can recite it from memory: “There is no us. I don’t love you and haven’t for a long time.” The divorce was expected. I’d felt it for years. And, I’d fucked up – more than once. Funny what we convince ourselves is ok to do when we’re afraid. And fear and desperation go hand and hand, and disaster will follow.

            The papers arrived. I read them and my heart broke, I wrote her a letter and mailed her my ring. My friend came to see me. He said my letter made her cry. And then I did nothing. I signed everything away, didn’t try and delay the divorce, and died little by little inside. I couldn’t shake that picture in my mind’s eye when I was young, so young, and had my life ahead of me. And she turned and I saw her eyes and fell in love.

            “… unmerited suffering is redemptive.” I wonder if Dr. King ever uttered those words to a convicted felon while he was still behind bars? Did he ever say them to an aging ballplayer that let a ball slip under his glove? I sit here and watch the new boys of October making a living playing a game, a marvelous, wondrous game and I wonder does Bill Buckner ever say “if only.”

            “If only.” Such small words, yet the weight of our lives hang on them so many times. Can you forgive yourself, can you move on, can you put “if only” to rest? A famous preacher was once asked about the pain he experienced following the end of his marriage. “I am filled with sadness every day,” he said. “But,” he added, “I have no regret. You don’t learn or grow from regret.”

            The Red Sox found themselves down three games to none in the American League Championship Series. They had lost games one and two in New York to their arch-enemies, the hated New York Yankees. It was 2004, and Red Sox fans still felt the pain of all those years of collapse and failure. It was the curse of the Babe, Tony Conigliaro, 1967, 1975; it was Bucky “Fuckin’” Dent and the Yankees, and it was Bill Buckner.

            And Boston resigned itself to another year of hopes dashed, of dreams broken, of baseball’s renewal in the spring being left in pieces in the fall. Something was different this year. The players didn’t look back, and baseball – a blessed game I told my sons God created on the seventh day to remind us that it’s never over until the last out is recorded – was redeemed and renewed in Boston. The Red Sox took four straight from the Yankees and marched into the World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals.

            It happened in St. Louis on an October night that Boston buried all the hurt and pain and disappointment from so many seasons. They won. And a city rejoiced … the past was let go.

            The next spring, there on the mound throwing out the ceremonial first pitch with the Red Sox World Championship banner snapping in the crisp April air stood Bill Buckner. With the crowd standing and clapping he threw the pitch and a new season began. I think Dr. King was smiling and nodding his head and whispering “redemption.” And, I think about that moment as I watch this year’s World Series.

 

First Pitch

Yesterday was opening day and it wasn’t lost on me that the first pitch of the first game of the 2013 baseball season occurred the night before, on Easter Sunday. How appropriate. Easter is the day of hope and renewal. It’s the day we Christians consider “the big one.” It’s the day we know God has final say and nothing is bigger, or more permanent than Him. Simply put, Easter says “God is.” He’s life, love and hope.

            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.