For the Love of the Game

I tend to think that I’m sort of clever concerning my naming of things. Chapters, characters in my books or D&D campaigns and even here on the ole’ website. Thus today’s story has the same name as my blog post for this week. See how clever that is?

But beyond my own personal inside jokes, this name actually has a reason for being used. Some of you might recognize it as the name of a Kevin Costner film. He plays an aging Major League Baseball player who is pitching I think a perfect game, but it might have just been a no hitter. Throughout this game he keeps having flashbacks of his personal life up to this point in. I’m actually a fan of baseball but this movie was a pale comparison to Costner’s other baseball movies the vastly superior Bull Durham and Field of Dreams.

I’m changing up the usual formula here a bit. Rather than be one rather singular story this is kind of a catch all in celebration of my longtime love of baseball at the same time as the actual MLB is holding their playoffs.

If you couldn’t tell from the picture, I’m a Chicago Cubs fan. How I, a boy that grew up in rural Idaho became a Cubs fan in the first place, is where we will start.

If you’ve ever lived in the western United States, then you’ll have some idea of what people refer to as ‘dry’ heat. In the summer the midday temps can easily reach into the 100’s, only to have them fall back down to almost livable levels once the sun goes down. This meant that while we would often spend quite a bit of time outside, there were a few hours most afternoons where you really didn’t do much but hide in the basement.

It was in said basement where, after my parents broke down and got us a cable tv subscription, that my love for baseball really kicked off. In those days when you got cable, you got like 20 more channels than you had previously. Two of those channels were TBS Superstation out of Atlanta, and WGN out of Chicago.

These stations had what I assume at the time was a relatively exclusive contract with their local Major League teams, the Atlanta Braves and the Chicago Cubs (yes I realize that Chicago also is home to the White Sox but WGN rarely showed their games and even when they did, well you’ll see). Of these teams though there was something that made the Cubs different. Their stadium didn’t have lights.

Back in those days, Wrigley Field which had been the home of the Cubs for decades, didn’t have spotlights that could be shined on the field in order to play games at night. Thus the Cubs played about 95% of their home games during the day. This is important because with the time difference, this put the Cubs on tv in Idaho starting at around 1:00pm or so when they played at home.

The Braves and White Sox both had lighted stadiums where they could play games in the evening and other than an odd matinee, they both were usually on later in the evening, after it had started to cool off again. So on many a hot summer afternoon I would retreat into the basement and turn on the Cubs game. My lifetime of fandom had begun.

But it wasn’t just easy access to watching the sport live that made me a fan of baseball. Another aspect of it was the little packs of cards they sold down at the local grocery store. Baseball cards were a great way to spend some of that lawn mowing money I had burning a hole in my pocket during most of the summer. Of course I would try and seek out members of the Cubs to collect, though I did try and get a good collection of unique cards as well. Sadly I never got ahold of any really valuable cards from that time, most of which have lost considerable value these days.

I actually played baseball as well, though I was never terribly good at it. Mostly I enjoyed the science of it all. What made a curveball curve. Velocity of the ball meeting bat speed from a swing. The trajectory of a homerun.

Then there were the statistics. I like numbers, always have. Figuring out things like batting average and earned run average were as intriguing to me as the actual play itself.

I realize that up to this point this post isn’t quite as succinct as most of the other short stories. So I’ll end with the baseball story that means the absolute most to me.

In May of 2000, my dad flew from Idaho to Delaware to visit me and my wife. My dad is a life long New York Yankees fan and so I bought him and I tickets to go see the Yankees play in New York. This was at the old Yankee Stadium and they were playing against their heated rivals the Boston Red Sox.

We headed out early in the morning and drove up the New Jersey Turnpike. This was the first time I had visited New York and I soaked up everything that I saw. The massive shipping yards, the bridges, the Twin Towers. We had no clue what to expect as we approached the stadium. The traffic just sort of crawled along as we drove partway around the stadium and then headed up a side street. We were on a car congested road and didn’t really know where we could find a parking space.

Suddenly a guy approached our car and my dad rolled down his window.

“You need to park?” the guy asked us.

My dad replied in the affirmative.

“$25” the guy said.

We were in a rental car and my dad basically said, well we’ve got insurance so lets go.

We paid the guy the twenty-five bucks and he pointed to a sign about halfway up the block and gave us a ticket.

“You can pick up your car there after the game.”

We made it into the stadium just as the first inning was winding up. It took us awhile to get to our seats which were right down the third base line. We were treated to a great game with an incredible pitching match-up between Pedro Martinez and Mike Mussina. To top the experience off the Yankees won!

Just as promised we returned to the sign and found a man sitting in a little lawn chair. He took our ticket and about ten minutes later a different man drove up with the car. We got in and headed home. All in all an incredibly fun day with my pops.

You’ll have to forgive me a moment of sentimentality here. My dad and my love of baseball are very much tied together, and not simply because of this trip. All while I was growing up my dad supported me in my attempts to play the game. He taught me how to throw a sinking pitch. He told me stories about his days playing high school ball. He’d come home from work, likely tired and wanting nothing more than to relax, and head out into the backyard and with no padding let me pitch to him. I really don’t remember if I expressed enough appreciation for him then, but I’ve been working at making up for it ever since.

Thanks for hanging with me on this one good reader. I hope you have something that brings you just as much joy as baseball has to me over the years. Until we read again, take care.