The Day That I Was 12…
Nobody that knows me would be surprised to know that yesterday was a very special day for me. Baseball has always been important to me. More so the Yankees and Derek Jeter have been important to me.
Maybe thats not healthy. Maybe I should save all my worries for actual things of consequence. I do have perspective of what is actually important in the world, but I think that is exactly why baseball matters to me. If you are always taking the worries of the world as your own, with no outlet to just enjoy something with no actual consequence, you would just explode. Everyone escapes in some way. Some people escape from reality with art, music, or countless other forms of expression, I escape with a ball, a bat, and pinstripes.
One of the things that has been a goal of mine in recent years was to give myself, if I could, a chance to see Derek Jeter’s 3,000 hit in person. I wanted to be a part of it, I wanted to experience it. I fulfilled that goal when I bought tickets to go to the game friday night, which would be his first real chance to get that hit. Unfortunately the weather had other plans, and it down-poured in New York City and the game was postponed until September. I was extremely upset, I felt as if something had been taken from me.
To make matters worse I had a shift at work that began at 3pm, so to avoid possibly being on the subway when he got the hit I had to go to work two hours early. I held that bitterness through hit number 2,999 and through a 3-2 count in his second at bat. Then as the ball flew into the beautiful, blue New York sky and landed just in front of the right field bleachers all the ill feelings and about twelve years of time were washed away, just as the game was the night before.
I wasn’t sitting and waiting for work anymore. Suddenly I was 12 and out of breath from just running inside from playing, and arguing over, a wiffle ball game to watch the Yankees on MSG. For that moment all was right with the world.
Yesterday had a little bit of magic, and I’m not just talking about what went on at 161st and River Ave. I came to realize that as I reflected on all the moments of baseball I enjoyed over the years, it wasn’t only the moments that remain vivid. What I remember is what I was doing and who I shared those moments with.
I thought about my mom running upstairs thinking I’d hurt myself because of how loudly I screamed at “The Flip.” I remember watching, with my entire family speechless, the “Mr. November” home run. I remember being equal parts excited about the Jeffery Maier home run and just being able to stay up past my bedtime to watch it. I remember the first trip I made to Yankee Stadium, a surprise trip by my Grandpa, and how I knew even then that this trip was going to effect me greatly.
That is why today I have no qualms talking about how important baseball is to me, because it doesn’t just help me escape from what is important. It also reminds me what is truly important.
I have no shame in saying that as I watched Derek round the bases, reflecting on all this, and bringing me back to years gone by my eyes may have been a little misty and words probably would not have been able to escape my throat at that moment.
Since that ball landed in the stands, nothing has taken the small smile off my face, because when you are 12, and there is some magic on the field you believe it is possible anywhere.
