Writer's Note: I know this isn't the tone this blog typically takes, and the length will be much greater, and there won't be any pictures. I know it's going to seem disjointed, stream of consciousness, muddled. Perhaps this one is for me, and for that, I apologize. But writing will always be a vanity project, to an extent, and I need you all to indulge me, just this one. Consider it another origin story, perhaps a chance to understand why this blog even exists in the first place. The events here are all real, but some names have been changed.
It isn't a lineup card, or a set of baseball cards, or your first foul ball. It isn't the smell of fresh grass, that weird gummy feeling on your hands from the pine tar. It isn't your first soaring victory, or your first defeat, hanging solid in your gut, inexorable, unrelenting.
It's none of these things, and yet, all of these things.
It's the first time your dad takes you out to play catch, the first time your brother teaches you how to throw a sliding curve. It's the first time you take a girl to a ballgame, and the first time you meet your favorite player.
It's the first time you use baseball to get through life. Through loss, through grief, through confusion, rage, hatred, fear.
Baseball, for so many of us, isn't just a game. It's not a sport, it's not a pastime, it's not even a way of life. For so many of us, player and fan alike, baseball is a tool of understanding. Baseball is what we use to make sense of a breakup, a college rejection, a firing. It's how we bond with a good friend, and how we cope with the loss of another. Baseball isn't our lives, in fact it's quite the opposite. Baseball is life's handbook. It's what we turn to when the proverbial engine won't turn.
I remember the exact moment that baseball stopped being a sport for me, and became a means of therapy.
On September 12, 2001, right around two a.m., I heard from my dad. If it had been September 8, September 9, September 10, this wouldn't have mattered. I would have been confused as to why he was waking me, but hearing his voice would not have led to sudden, hysterical, inconsolable tears of pure, unadulterated joy, and grief, and loss, and...And. And, and, and.
I wanted to hear my dad's voice more than anything else in the world. More than I wanted Sarah Stone to kiss me after school, more than I wanted to learn how to drive, more than I wanted Vicky Cunningham's black Mustang. I wanted to hear his voice, with or without his trademark stoicism, more than I have ever wanted anything in my life. I wanted to hear him scared, confused, angry, calm, happy...anything. Even if he was telling me things weren't going to be alright, I wanted to hear his voice.
I wasn't ready for what I heard, and to this day, only a few people have ever seen me cry so intensely, so violently, so wholly as I did that morning. With a game of Triple Play Baseball paused on the screen, and my best friend sitting silently next to me, I wept as my father told me
Nick, it's Dad. I'm not hurt, I'm not injured, but I can't come home right now. I love you and your mom and your brothers very much, and I will be home soon, but I can't come home yet.
For the next four hours, until exhaustion overtook us and sleep became more important than a match-up between the Cubs and Cardinals (Braves and Astros, Yankees and Red Sox, Expos and...), my best friend and I ignored that my dad was shuffled away in an emergency command post somewhere, feigning calm while the world burned. We played inning after inning, game after game, because baseball needed to matter more than my dad. At that point, baseball was the only thing in my life, because I didn't know how fit anything else in.
On September 23, 2001, right around the fifth inning, Cal Ripken hit his last major league home run, and he did it against the New York Yankees. I remember sitting in the stands, hearing the stadium erupt with the most cathartic cheering...we knew this was Cal's night. We knew he was retiring, we knew he had given us 3,001 games (2,632 consecutively), and we knew he wasn't a Yankee. After 12 horrible days in September, Cal gave us a reason to make it about baseball again. Cal made it okay to boo the Yankees, if only tonight. We had wept on the 11th, we had wept earlier that evening during the National Anthem. Now, we cheered. We hugged each other a little closer, and we cheered. When Cal's home run sailed over that outfield wall, a vicious wound came one stitch closer to healing. When Cal's foot touched home plate, when it could be Yankees/Orioles instead of the New York area against the DC area...we all realized that we had survived.
When Opening Day arrives each season, I will admit to tearing up. I take the day off of everything else, just as I have since turning 18. I don't even take my birthday off work, but I will never miss opening day. I sit in the stands, or at home, and I watch. I watch because sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, and sometimes it rains. But sometimes, you realize that it's okay that life often makes no sense. In the end, we'll have what we need as long as we have a sliding curve, a solid catch and throw, and a good crowd to share them with.
It was never really about baseball, but in the end, that's all it was, because that's all it ever needed to be.
It isn't a lineup card, or a set of baseball cards, or your first foul ball. It isn't the smell of fresh grass, that weird gummy feeling on your hands from the pine tar. It isn't your first soaring victory, or your first defeat, hanging solid in your gut, inexorable, unrelenting.
It's none of these things, and yet, all of these things.
It's the first time your dad takes you out to play catch, the first time your brother teaches you how to throw a sliding curve. It's the first time you take a girl to a ballgame, and the first time you meet your favorite player.
It's the first time you use baseball to get through life. Through loss, through grief, through confusion, rage, hatred, fear.
Baseball, for so many of us, isn't just a game. It's not a sport, it's not a pastime, it's not even a way of life. For so many of us, player and fan alike, baseball is a tool of understanding. Baseball is what we use to make sense of a breakup, a college rejection, a firing. It's how we bond with a good friend, and how we cope with the loss of another. Baseball isn't our lives, in fact it's quite the opposite. Baseball is life's handbook. It's what we turn to when the proverbial engine won't turn.
I remember the exact moment that baseball stopped being a sport for me, and became a means of therapy.
On September 12, 2001, right around two a.m., I heard from my dad. If it had been September 8, September 9, September 10, this wouldn't have mattered. I would have been confused as to why he was waking me, but hearing his voice would not have led to sudden, hysterical, inconsolable tears of pure, unadulterated joy, and grief, and loss, and...And. And, and, and.
I wanted to hear my dad's voice more than anything else in the world. More than I wanted Sarah Stone to kiss me after school, more than I wanted to learn how to drive, more than I wanted Vicky Cunningham's black Mustang. I wanted to hear his voice, with or without his trademark stoicism, more than I have ever wanted anything in my life. I wanted to hear him scared, confused, angry, calm, happy...anything. Even if he was telling me things weren't going to be alright, I wanted to hear his voice.
I wasn't ready for what I heard, and to this day, only a few people have ever seen me cry so intensely, so violently, so wholly as I did that morning. With a game of Triple Play Baseball paused on the screen, and my best friend sitting silently next to me, I wept as my father told me
Nick, it's Dad. I'm not hurt, I'm not injured, but I can't come home right now. I love you and your mom and your brothers very much, and I will be home soon, but I can't come home yet.
For the next four hours, until exhaustion overtook us and sleep became more important than a match-up between the Cubs and Cardinals (Braves and Astros, Yankees and Red Sox, Expos and...), my best friend and I ignored that my dad was shuffled away in an emergency command post somewhere, feigning calm while the world burned. We played inning after inning, game after game, because baseball needed to matter more than my dad. At that point, baseball was the only thing in my life, because I didn't know how fit anything else in.
On September 23, 2001, right around the fifth inning, Cal Ripken hit his last major league home run, and he did it against the New York Yankees. I remember sitting in the stands, hearing the stadium erupt with the most cathartic cheering...we knew this was Cal's night. We knew he was retiring, we knew he had given us 3,001 games (2,632 consecutively), and we knew he wasn't a Yankee. After 12 horrible days in September, Cal gave us a reason to make it about baseball again. Cal made it okay to boo the Yankees, if only tonight. We had wept on the 11th, we had wept earlier that evening during the National Anthem. Now, we cheered. We hugged each other a little closer, and we cheered. When Cal's home run sailed over that outfield wall, a vicious wound came one stitch closer to healing. When Cal's foot touched home plate, when it could be Yankees/Orioles instead of the New York area against the DC area...we all realized that we had survived.
When Opening Day arrives each season, I will admit to tearing up. I take the day off of everything else, just as I have since turning 18. I don't even take my birthday off work, but I will never miss opening day. I sit in the stands, or at home, and I watch. I watch because sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, and sometimes it rains. But sometimes, you realize that it's okay that life often makes no sense. In the end, we'll have what we need as long as we have a sliding curve, a solid catch and throw, and a good crowd to share them with.
It was never really about baseball, but in the end, that's all it was, because that's all it ever needed to be.
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