The Importance of Being Baseball

Nothing says “Baseball” like cucumber sandwiches and bottles of champagne.  I love baseball, and it is definitely a central feature in my life.  I can recall tucking my little girl in at night and whispering, “I love you more than anything”, to have her whisper back, “More than the Mets?” Ah, from the mouths of babes. 

Of course not more than the Mets – I’ve had the Mets for forty years and her for seven.  She’s a terrific kid, and given time, maybe the same twenty-seven years, she could do something as fantastic as the 1986 World Series Game Six. I’m not holding my breath though.  She’s lucky her name isn’t Mookie.

Baseball has always been central to my life – baseball cards, Little League, rolly-bat and 500.  Having a catch with my Dad and brother in the backyard where I learned to catch a wicked curveball with my Frank Howard model glove.  I remember playing the role of Carlos Beltran in the championship game in Little League, as Woody Mabry, in the Adam Wainwright role, threw a pitch past me.  I swear it was low.  He and I still argue about it today.  Since he won, he’s kind enough to say, “Maybe it was a little low.” I mean it’s not like we are going to replay the game.  Hmm.

Baseball has provided me with so much joy over the years, and it isn’t restricted to the Mets.  I play(ed) in the MSBL (30+) baseball leagues in Philadelphia and South Jersey in the mid-90s.  I struck out against a former MLB pitcher!  I kept playing when I moved back to North Carolina.  Heck, I made that all-star team one year, and the next season, hit a prodigious home run at the Durham Athletic Park, just like Crash Davis.  I was much better as an adult than I ever was as a kid.

I remember Pete Rose cold-cocking Bud Harrelson, and Wayne Garrett coming in and jumping on Rose.  The World Series game that Reggie Jackson hit three home runs in – my mom was in a pool at work, and that third home run kept her from winning $1000 dollars.  The day the Mets traded Tom Seaver – well, I can’t talk about that yet.  It needs more time.  Even games like Bobby Bonilla hitting his second home run of the game in extra innings on his first Mets Opening Day to beat the hated St. Louis Cardinals have provided me tremendous joy. 

The warm rush of peace that comes on as you walk into a ballpark is, well, love.  It’s relaxing and fills me with a sense that the next three hours are going to be great.

Since the day she was born, my little girl, who I call Red (like Ruffing, or Faber), has been watching baseball games with me.  Literally.  The night she was born, the Mets were in Arizona, and we got to watch the whole game.  No, really, she was watching.  Or listening.  The Mets really stuck it on Todd Stottlemyre too.  That was a really great day (except for Stottlemyre - that was his last MLB start).

Baseball cannot be a salve to all things.  Last October, my dear friend Kay was losing her battle with breast cancer, and called us to say her time was near.  We hopped in the car and went to Columbia, SC.  While we talked about our lives, we watched the Red Sox and Devil Rays game.  We talked about the 1995 World Series.  Kay was a Braves fan.  In 1995, I had tickets to the World Series in Atlanta, but had to work, pouring concrete in Pomona, NJ at the FAA Technical Center.  I sent them to my brother, and he and Kay, his girlfriend, went to the Braves only World Series win in their long run. Steve had died the following spring in a boating accident, and now Kay was leaving us.  Even twelve years after Steve’s passing, Kay had remained a member of our family – Christmases and Thanksgivings, Independence Days and trips to the beach.  My little girl never knew my older brother, but she knew her Aunt Kay.

Red is keen to remind me there are more important things – mostly *her*, of course.  For her birthday this year (she turned seven), she requested her party guests not bring gifts, but pet food to donate to a shelter.  She hopes to be a veterinarian when she grows up.  Which is fine with me, because it’s hard for a girl to make it to the majors, and she’s right-handed.

This coming Saturday, she (and I and her mom) are doing something more important than baseball – we are participating in a 5K to raise money for Cancer Research for the Susan G. Komen Foundation (er, the non-competitive division).  Red enjoys running, and thinks it will be fun.  I imagine I will spend much of the time smiling at her with tears rolling down my cheeks. 

Red does enjoy baseball, but she loves to help others more.  I guess she is already more fantastic than Game Six.