The Lost Season

To say that I grew up a baseball fan would be an understatement. In St. Louis, baseball skirts the outer rim of religion. Cardinal baseball embodies not only the heart and soul of the city but the hearts and souls of many of the people who live there as well. Baseball in St. Louis provides a significant piece of the city's identity - who they are.

I learned to love baseball the same way many children do - from my father. He was a lifetime fan who could sit and tell endless stories about Bob Gibson, Mike Shannon, Ted Simmons, Curt Flood,and many others. He attended games at old Sportsman Park and was there for the very first game ever played at the new (now old) Busch Stadium. He would recount magical games or seasons from the glory years of the 60's with remarkable attention to detail. It meant a lot to him - Cardinal baseball - and I admired him for it.

Growing up, he and I watched or listened to hundreds of games together as I began to grow my own list of names that would forever be a part of me - Tommy Herr, Ozzie Smith, Willie McGee, Bruce Sutter, Terry Pendleton, John Tudor and on and on. I would live and die with the team. To watch them fall would make me feel as though I, too, had lost. It would depress me. But to watch them win would mean an emotional high that those who have never truly loved a team could never comprehend.

Not too long after I became a teenager our lives were forever changed. My father suffered a number of physical and medical crises that you would never wish upon even your worst enemy. Left unable to walk or leave the house for weeks at a time, he lost much of what he loved and enjoyed most - running, bowling, church, work. From my perspective, all he had left was his family and baseball.

It's hard to grow up healthy and able-bodied in the presence of someone who has lost so much. You feel a sense of guilt(I believe it's called survivor's guilt). This I know, it is very real. Over the years I avoided sharing stories about cycling or running or any of these things for fear of depressing him or making him feel jealous (concerns that years later I was able to see as ridiculous). It was around this time that we started to find that we didn't have that much to talk about. He didn't have any new experiences to share (outside of his sickness) and I felt uncomfortable sharing my own. So all that we had left was that which we started with - baseball. Suddenly baseball took on a whole new importance because it provided us a common thread. Something we could still talk about and share.

It's a wonderful bond - baseball. That is, until it is the only one you have. For those last few years we had together we talked a lot of baseball. A lot of baseball when we should have been talking about other things. More important things. I think over time I came to mistrust and perhaps even resent that baseball bond. I saw it as something that, while it seems on the surface to pull them together, keeps fathers and sons apart.

When Tricia was pregnant with Harper I was constantly asked, "What do you want, a boy or a girl?"

"Oh, it doesn't really matter to me," I would say. But secretly I wanted a girl and sure enough we had one.

A few years later when Tricia became pregnant again everyone would say,"I bet you're hoping for a boy this time!"

"Oh, it doesn't really matter to me," I would say. But, again, I was secretly hoping for a girl. I was afraid of having a boy. I was afraid that the day might come when the only thing we would have to talk about was baseball. I imagined that maybe fathers and daughters could do more than this.

The Cardinals lost tonight. Projected as favorites to reach the World Series, they somehow managed to be swept out of the first round by the Los Angeles Dodgers. Though something as inconsequential as a lost baseball season no longer means the world to me, I was sad to see their season end. While I was watching them struggle to string together hits and record key outs, all four of my kids were upstairs watching Free Willy - oblivious to the game or its significance to the city I still love. And now it has hit me that I was wrong to blame the game.

My father and I had so much more than baseball. I know that now because as the years move past I remember more and more of the small things we shared and I become more aware of the countless things I learned from him. But, with that, I don't deny that baseball was a very important bond between us. One that I could never truly regret. In all honesty, if I could somehow see him one more time I think I'd choose to go to one last baseball game together and just sit - and talk.

This season is lost and now is time to look ahead to the potential of the new season that lies ahead. Perhaps this time we can all share it together.

Childish Adult (Dad)