how did this happen?

At one point in time, my family starved during September and October. I was watching baseball at dinnertime. We lived on the West Coast and the games started early.

Now I don’t even know this is the week of the All-Star break.

I also probably don’t know any of the all-stars.

I grew up with a father who followed the St. Louis Cardinals. In a living room, dark after the summer’s late twilight, Dad would sit and listen each night to Harry Carey’s play-by-play. If it was an afternoon game, the radio could be heard at the back of his store. When I visited my grandfather in St. Louis, we went to Sportsman’s Park for a Cardinal game and he taught me how to keep score. I am certain Grandpa lived as long as he did because his team kept winning in October. We never owned any Cardinal memorabilia. It was a different kind of head and heart thing.

Baseball is a beautiful game. As an adult I loved it for reasons that sound really hokey. I watched the Orioles and their rookie, Cal Ripken, as I was ironing in Virginia and my oldest was doing his own play-by-play outside with a tennis ball thrown against a tennis playback net. I watched the As on sunny afternoons that are particular to Northern California. The children and I could get into games for $2 and a Sprite can. An empty one. We could walk into the team offices and touch their World Series trophies. That’s where we bought season tickets after my parents moved to the area. Dad always wanted to get to the game in time for the first pitch. Most of the time, he went with one of the boys to the games. I am certain he was as excited as they were with the anticipation of a win for their team.

Dad also said that baseball would break your heart. He was talking about the team you love not winning when you want them to or when they need to or when they should have won.

How is it that I can have lost that caring about a team? I am definitely on the injured/disabled fan list.

I can change that.  But Dad was right it might break my heart.

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