"The game has a cleanness. If you do a good job, the numbers say so. You don't have to ask anyone or play politics. You don't have to wait for reviews." - Sandy Koufax
I've spent the afternoon watching my favorite baseball team on television. Thus, I have borrowed the wisdom of Earl Weaver and Sandy Koufax to open this post. The Mets are playing the Phillies on a sunny day in Philadelphia and for nine innings I can forget my worries.
You see, when I was a baby, growing up in New Jersey, my mother would rock me in front of the television while watching the Mets play. I was born on April 10, 1970. That day, the Mets lost to the Cardinals 7-3 and Paul McCartney announced the break-up of the Beatles. Overall, it was not a very good day. My brother teased me for years by telling me that I broke up the Beatles. Nevertheless, it was 1970. The Miracle Mets of 1969 had just won the World Series. The baseball season was less than a week old. A new decade had just begun, full of promise.
Now, 37 years later, I am still a die-hard Mets fan. I watch them whenever possible. When my brother died, I was in New York. Before I came home to be with my family, I went to Shea Stadium and attended a Mets game. Why? Because Scott would've wanted it that way. He was the ultimate fan. I had already planned to go to a game and his death made that plan even more firm. I watched some of his favorite players, like Todd Hundley, who my brother was friends with when Hundley was playing single A ball in Columbia, SC, play the game. I savored the sounds and smells of the stadium and remembered the games we attended when I was younger and my parents would drive Scott and I into the city and we would all watch a game at Shea.
"The only problem with success is that it does not teach you how to deal with failure." - Tommy Lasorda
I still have a lot more lessons to learn, but its summer. I hear the sound of bat hitting ball and ball hitting glove. I hear the roar of the crowd and smell the marvelous foods the vendors are hawking. I'm a kid again and everything is okay. The promise of life is still ahead of me. I can do anything. I can conquer the world, strike out the side, or hit one out of the park. If you will excuse me, I have a game to watch.
"When you're through learning, you're through." - Vernon Law
