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Have You
Seen My Baseball?
"Hello. My name is Angela and I've been addicted to baseball for a
season now. I hope to get better. I hope to be able to walk past
the televisions at work without stopping to see the scores on Sports Center.
Some day, I hope to be able to wait on a table where a fellow is wearing a
Red Sox hat and not challenge his manhood. In the past I've rushed out
of work with my tasks half-assed done to make it home in time for a pre-game
show. I curse, drink beer, and get into arguments because of this
addiction. I have even challenged grown men to fight me, all because
of this illness. One day at a time, Angela. One day at a time."
After
work on Thursday, I was incredibly excited. My best friend Julia and I
were taking our sons an hour away to Ft. Wayne, Indiana to watch the Wizards
play. I was under the impression that they were the farm league for
the Minnesota Twins, but that had changed since the last time I had seen
them play a few years ago. This team is now the Triple A farm league
for the Detroit Tigers. Basically, on the food chain, it goes Little
League, the Wizards, the Toledo Mud Hens and then the Tigers. So I
didn't expect to be blown away with fabulous pitching and an overwhelming
amount of double plays, but I knew it would be a good game and exciting for
my kids. Not to mention, hell… it was going to be me and Julia far
away from work eating popcorn and singing the Star Spangled Banner.
And we can sing. We're like the Bangles or something.
So we
arrive at the stadium and it's slowly filling with little league groups of
boys and an occasional fan here and there. The stadium was hosting
Little League teams and awarding them different prizes and allowing them to
run the bases after the game and have their picture taken with players.
This was my sons' first time at a game, and since I have forced them to be
Yankees fans and watch every game with me, they were smiling like it was
Christmas and ready to cheer for the home team. We got good bleacher
seats beside the concession stand and were the perfect target for foul balls
behind first base. The weather was absolutely beautiful for the first
time in weeks. Sitting there was like having God's air conditioning as
the breeze was cooled by the St. Joseph River just a few yards away. I
was more than excited that Julia had invited us along. I was in
heaven.
We
decided it was time for the boys to have their first stadium hot dog and
went to the concession stand before the game got underway. The boys
watched the players warming up as Julia and I stood in line. Of
course, the first person we see was our manager. Yep, it seems the
corporation was also sponsoring the game and the managers of all the local
franchises were there to play five games of ball all day. So there was
Doug, sporting our work logo on a professionally made baseball jersey and he
could not get more sunburned if he smeared Crisco all over his face and
neck. Not only was he there, but the scoreboard was also decked out
with our logo and every so often the restaurant was advertised on the PA.
So much for escaping work, and I thought my sore feet were reminder enough.
But
enough of work, I was there to watch some ball and the game was starting.
I was ready to see these Wizards beat the West Michigan White Caps (Triple A
for the Chicago Cubs). Let me just spoil it for you now… that was NOT
going to happen.
The
Wizards were neither magical nor did they horde any special talents.
In fact, it took just two batters for Julia and I to realise that they had a
hard time standing upright. You know the old joke about people who
can't walk and chew gum? Well, it seems that the Wizards can't walk.
Period. They'd catch a ball and then take a step and fall down.
They'd hit a ball, take a step and fall down. Wait, did I say hit a
ball? Strike that remark. They didn't hit anything but a nerve.
Before I knew it, the score was 12-0 and someone behind me told me they had
just spent the last three games previous to this one without scoring.
They literally could have traded their players with toddlers from the local
day care center, padded the baselines like in bumper bowling, blindfolded
and hobbled the other team and still had the same outcome. Yes, they
sucked OH so mightily.
Yet
they had games. Games aplenty for the fans throughout the innings.
It was as if they were trying to distract us from the field with Bingo, a
girl in a ball, and t-shirts being shot out of canons. So maybe the
Wizards do know a little magic, for it was the craftiest slight of hand I
ever saw. Quick! Look over here as the mascot delivers flowers
to the stadium sweetheart of the day! No peeking as the first baseman
just fell over trying to put his glove back on!
I just
couldn't sit there and take these shenanigans. I ignored the
distractions and started in on my loud heckling of the teams; the home team
for being so Three Stooges, and the away team for being an away team.
I was civil, just using my normal tirades until one of the players for the
White Caps struck out and threw his helmet. The score was now 13-0 and
this hot head dared to throw his helmet for striking out?? I was on my
feet and yelling with everything I had, "There's no crying in baseball!!
Get off the field, Cowboy! That's it, keep walking! Yeah… yeah…
you see me 22! I'm talking to you. Get off the field!" He was
marked. He was mine. For the rest of the game, 22 could not do a
damn thing without me letting him know what a crybaby he was. "You
caught it, 22! Good job! Now you don't have to go home and beat
your wife!" and "You get two more strikes before I'll get you some tissues,
22!" And we can't forget the, "Yeah, come on up here, 22. Just
don't cry when you try three times to hit me and can't!" I am the BEST
example for my kids. I should mention though that through all this,
they were cheering loudly for the Yankees.
The
Wizards, though lacking in talent, thought they had a gimmick. Each
player had a theme song, or part of one anyway, that the organist would
attempt to play as he walked up to bat. The organist must've been born
like Lobster Boy, for nothing he/she played made any sense and they never
ever finished a song. The popular "CHARGE!" song played at baseball
games everywhere was basically a four note jumble, or a Name That Tune game
the stadium had set up, I'm not sure. But these lads who couldn't walk
had a theme song just the same. It was as if they had spent their
training season around a DJ trying to see which Kid Rock song suited them
instead of going over which end of the bat should be held. To amuse
ourselves, and we were so very amused, Julia and I decided to just complete
the songs or try to name the player the song went to before he was
introduced. All of them should have stuck with Patsy Cline's "I Fall
to Pieces".
The
game was now in the ninth and everyone was going home. Julia and I
decided to stay to the end, because we and the boys were having too much fun
despite all the tripping, falling, and beginner organ lessons. The
boys wanted to walk near the bullpen and get some autographs and we watched
them happily run off. They were so caught up in the lights and the
crowds, the announcing and the food that they didn't care how badly this
team sucked. These were heroes to them anyway and that made me feel
really good. I let them hang out there awhile before I walked over to
make sure they weren't bothering the players during their nap or something.
My seven year old had his shoe signed (yeah… a shoe), and my three year old…
well. Okay, so my three year old was telling the players that the
Yankees were the best team in the whole world and that they, the Wizards,
were not. Then he tells them he knows this because his mother told him
so. So I sheepishly grin and try to round up Julia and my kids all
casual like and without bringing much attention to myself, whereas I had
spent the last nine innings bringing as much attention to myself as my voice
would allow. Not to mention there was this overwhelming urge to say,
"Boys, leave the players alone now. They need to concentrate on the
game so they know what they're doing wrong." PLUS, I had to watch my back
in case 22 was loose somewhere. But the lads weren't ready to leave.
My three year old told me he hadn't told the players yet about Jason Giambi,
his own personal baseball God. He wanted to tell them how good Giambi
hit the ball and how fast Giambi could run. In fact, he wanted to go
on to the field to show them. All I could do was secretly be the
proudest mother and Yankees fan alive, and just smile at the team saying,
"It's
midnight. We need
to get him home."
So as
the clock struck midnight, we packed up the Saturn and left that magical
land of Wizards and White Caps, grass that trips you when you walk and bats
that turn invisible when you swing allowing a solid object to pass right
through. The kids are smiling and each talking about how they'll play
baseball someday. Julia and I are smiling because we got away from
reality for awhile and could put grown men in their place. We'll never
see those players on ESPN, although I'm fairly sure #22 might make an
appearance on CNN sometime when he goes postal after finding one egg out of
twelve cracked in his carton. And to think, all of this fun was
sponsored by our restaurant. Odd how things like that work out. |
