Fall Ball 10/28/04

We had an amazing view of the eastern sky last night. The giant orange harvest moon was rising over the tree line that bordered the lower of our two fields, in the tree-encircled sloping park as we arrived to unload for our semi-final game on the upper field. Our game started at 8:00 and ended at 10:20, just as the eclipse was reaching its glowing pumpkin-colored climax. I wish that I could say that the lunar eclipse benefited my odd but determined little group of young men, most of whom attend an alternative high school. We led through six innings against the number one team in our sixteen-team league, but it was close, 3-1, going into the 7th inning (the last inning by high school rules). Unfortunately, and I knew it would likely happen, we ran out of pitching, and they tied it up in the bottom of the 7th. We were unable to score in the top of the 8th but were one out away from sending it into the ninth at 3-3, when our second baseman, one of the few non-alternative school boys on the team, a great kid and one of my best defensive players, bobbled a routine ground ball that should have ended the inning. I would have to check the scorebook to be sure, but I think it was his first error of the season. The resulting base runner ultimately scored and we lost, just as the eclipse was reaching completion. I was proud of them but would have liked one more real game. We will play Saturday morning for third place (and a t-shirt) but it’s not the same. This fall, I haven’t had the heart for baseball and feel like I’ve been just going through the motions, although I’m hoping that my players and their families haven’t noticed, wouldn’t notice (they are motions that I know so very well). I am sure that the fine fellows, who include me in the league’s board, have. I am just as sure that they will forgive me, and let me slide, at least for a little while, based on my past contributions. My heart and my mind have been elsewhere, worried about making ends meet and taking care of our kids, feeling like everything is finally crumbling and some days feeling barely able to keep putting one foot in front of the other, not sure which way to move, wanting to make it better, but not knowing how, desperately hoping that our luck will change, that we’ll catch a break, that one of our efforts will succeed. I feel like, for the first time, I’m really ready to sell the patents and move on. With all that is left of me, I watch the election and take little moments of joy where I can find them, on the baseball field and in the unseasonably warm autumn night sky. I pray for strength and guidance and the wisdom to know what to do about it all, and I pray that the people will rise up next Tuesday and elect a president who will make decisions based on information and understanding rather than faith and intuition, that we’ll elect John Kerry. One day, a championship would be nice too. Ask the Red Sox. If we’re lucky, next week we’ll know who will be the next president, but there will be no more baseball until spring is in close view. Maybe it will all be better by then.