Worthy

June 8, 2015

This is my last baseball post...for now. Let's face it, in the midst of poverty and abuse and pain and conflict and trouble all around, it's just baseball. What I've learned, however, is that those things that may seem trivial in the shadow of the many plagues on humanity (music, art, theatre, cinema, a good book, a good meal) are the very things that elevate us from existing to living. As John Keating observes in Dead Poets Society, "...the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for."

Baseball is not for everyone. It isn't necessarily even for me. But when the Bears lost their final game 3-2 yesterday, their dreams of the College World Series dissolved. My staunch 10-year-old, whose poetry and music and art are baseball, put his head in his hands and wept. These almost-men who play are his heroes. They lost. And his little shoulders shook as he sobbed silently against this new reality. I let him mourn.

As the tears ran their course, he recovered and followed his Papa to see his friends in their defeat. They hugged him and he high-fived them. He saw that they were okay, even though the disappointment was palpable. So he was okay.

When I was a junior in high school, in the throes of a thriving debate career, my partner and I were eliminated from the national qualifier. It was a surprise to all. As I wept ample tears, my dear father-figure friend Jack, with whom I student taught and against whom I eventually coached for years, put his arm around me. "Nance," he said, "if it didn't hurt this much to lose, it wouldn't be worth doing."  I used those words to counsel countless students after rough losses throughout my coaching career. Yesterday they came flooding back.

I love my son; I love my Dad and what baseball has done for him, for MSU and for us. 

So it goes...and it's worth it.