The Education of a Guinea Pig: On Love, Loss, and Pringles

Until one has loved an animal, a part of one’s soul remains unawakened. – Anatole France.

When I was two years old, I stood by the front door of our house in Phillipsburg, New Jersey, and watched helplessly as our dog, a small toy fox terrier named Skippy, chased after a squirrel and crossed the street as a car sped past.  He was struck and killed instantly.  I can still picture the young driver, a teenager with grease-backed hair, remorsefully carrying Skippy from the street after wrapping him in a blanket. “Car kill ‘kippy, Mommy,” I allegedly repeated for several days thereafter, too young to understand why something that I loved and cared for, a member of the family really, could be taken away from us so suddenly. It is my earliest living memory.  I discovered at a very young age the pain that comes from a willingness to love what death can quickly erase.

The next year we welcomed a new dog into our lives. Peppy was a little chubbier; a black-and-white terrier with no tail, he looked a bit like a pig with a large nose. For the next sixteen years, Peppy and I lived under the same roof. He was the first to greet me when I arrived home from school each day, and he kept me company whenever I sat in the big chair in the living room or watched television in the family room. I took him for walks, snuck food to him under the dinner table, and played tug rope with him on the kitchen floor. We understood each other and hung out together almost every day. When he died, during my freshman year in college, it was like losing a brother.

Anyone who has ever connected with and loved an animal understands the emotional bond that forms between people and their pets. Last week, Pringles, my daughter’s guinea pig, had to be put to sleep at the age of six – a good life for a guinea pig, but a difficult and sad day nonetheless. Pringles’ intestines had started to fail and, despite the best efforts of the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine, there was little they could do for him. Hannah and I were heartbroken. The death of a special pet is like the loss of a good friend.  In the words of Kabril Gibran, “Love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.”

As small and insignificant as it may seem to speak of a guinea pig, we loved Pringles. He was a member of the family and, while he could not communicate with the same emotional clarity as a dog, or demonstrate independence and contempt in the manner of a cat, deep down I know he loved us back. He regularly cuddled with Hannah, laying against her chest as she rubbed his chin or stroked his neck and back. He was extremely sociable and loved being with people. For the first few years of his life, we let him run around the living room floor and explore the nooks and crannies of the furniture as we talked, read, or watched television. He never ventured far from us and seemed to appreciate the freedom and trust we bestowed on him.  This past year, he slowed down considerably and became increasingly affectionate as Hannah, Andrea and I took turns holding him as he breathed contentedly and occasionally squeaked with delight.

I am convinced that Pringles was a Cardinals fan.  He was our good luck charm during the last two months of the baseball season and his presence helped jumpstart many late-inning Cardinals’ rallies.  I kid you not.  Forget the Rally Squirrel, we had the Rally Pig! Leaving nothing to chance, we ensured that Pringles was with us for several innings of Game Seven, an insurance policy against a potential Rangers comeback that paid dividends as the Cards put the final touches on their World Championship. Although I will confess that Pringles seemed a bit perplexed when I attempted to fist pump him during the post-game celebration.

“Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful,” said Russian born author Isaac Asimov, “It’s the transition that’s troublesome.” I do not question the necessity of our decision to let Pringles go. It was peaceful and painless and best for Pringles. And I am grateful that he was allowed to spend the final moments of his life in Hannah’s arms, happy and content. But we were unprepared for the decision. Hannah and I brought him to the veterinary hospital because we thought, we hoped, that he could be treated, perhaps given some medication or other remedy that would make him better. When confronted with the prognosis, we were caught off guard and forced to choose between the selfish desire to hold onto our friend for a little while longer and the selfless decision to let him go, in peace.

As our memories of Pringles live on, we can obtain a small degree of solace knowing that, for six full and engaging years, this small, furry rodent connected with us, and we to him. “The risk of love is loss, and the price of loss is grief,” noted teacher and author Hilary Stanton Zunin. “But the pain of grief is only a shadow when compared with the pain of never risking love.”

Each morning this past week, upon entering the kitchen, I have experienced a void left by Pringles’ absence. Life seems a little lonelier now. He no longer greets me in the morning as if to say, “It’s about time, bud. Now what’s for breakfast?” He is no longer there to keep us company as we prepare dinner. In a small but significant way, he touched our lives, and we touched his, and each of us was made better because of it. And while I would like to believe that, in the words of Lord Alfred Tennyson, “God’s finger touched him, and he slept,” I know for certain that he will be missed.

Almost Time to Rake the Leaves

The long shadows of September now behind us, the leaves change colors as the sun sets and darkness descends by early evening. Dried sunflowers, orange pumpkins, and the multi-colored gourds of autumn decorate neighborhood porches, as the brisk air and blue skies of October transform summer into fall. The Cardinals having fallen from grace with a mysterious and inexplicable late summer collapse, baseball season is essentially over for me and all of the unfortunate souls who embrace the 24 teams that failed to make the postseason. Weaker fans with football allegiances transferred their emotional investments to pigskin rivalries weeks ago, filling their weekends with tailgate parties and the sounds of clashing helmets. Soccer moms transport budding athletes to tournaments and practices, where soccer and lacrosse and field hockey are played on rectangular fields devoid of the charm and history that pepper the diamond-shaped pastures of our national pastime.

For the suffering baseball fan, whose team was mathematically eliminated or realistically out of the race by early September, the last weeks of the season are a slow, tortuous journey into the abyss of the soul. It ends only after the last out of the ninth inning of the 162nd game, when the season comes mercifully to a close and the baseball angels, at least those of non-playoff teams, pack up for winter.

After the locker rooms are emptied and clubhouses cleaned out, after the players and coaches return to their real lives, to their families and homes and off-season workouts, only then can one partake of a sabbatical from the excesses of fandom and the irrationality of caring so much for a team that knows not of your existence. The sports pages no longer filled with box scores and the running soap opera that is the pennant race, it is almost time to rake the leaves again.

For the third time in the last four seasons I have been forced to watch the post-season with an unwelcome dispassion. Granted, it is less stressful and, with the Cardinals a distant memory of a long, frustrating summer, I can watch and enjoy the games for the pure skill, strategy and drama that is baseball at its highest level. How could anyone not appreciate the masterful performance of Roy Halladay’s no-hitter in Game One of the National League Division Series, or the nearly equally impressive, fourteen strikeout performance by Tim Lincecum? I can relax and enjoy, as a baseball fan, the pitching matchups between the pesky Giants and the powerful Phillies, as I look forward to the much anticipated rematch between Philadelphia and New York in the World Series.

But in my solitary moments, if I am completely honest, thoughts of the postseason without the Cardinals – even the act of writing these words – brings a sharp and profound pain to my heart. If my lifelong love of the Cardinals has taught me anything, it is that there is far more losing than winning in baseball. “Strong feelings do not necessarily make a strong character,” wrote William Carleton. “The strength of a man is to be measured by the power of the feelings he subdues not by the power of those which subdue him.”

Baseball is a metaphor for life, or so it seems, and I could not help but feel sorry for Brooks Conrad, the 30 year-old journeyman infielder of the Atlanta Braves who made three errors in Game Three of the NLDS against the Giants, costing the Braves the game and, quite possibly, a chance at the World Series. Brooks is the Everyman, a hard working, career minor leaguer, who only made the post-season roster because of injuries to Chipper Jones and Martin Prado, two of the Braves best players. He had played a total of eleven games at second base in his major league career when, due to circumstances outside his control, he was called into duty against the Giants. But in baseball, as in life, when you seek anonymity, there is no place to hide. The ball will always find you.

Before a sellout crowd and a national television audience, with millions of people watching, Conrad made a wild throw to first base in the first inning, dropped a pop fly in the second, and let a routine ground ball go through his legs in the ninth. The last two errors resulted in two of the Giants’ three runs in what turned out to be a 3-2 Giants win. To make matters worse, the ninth inning error followed what would have been a heroic two-run homerun by the Braves’ Eric Hinske in the bottom of the eighth, a dramatic shot that propelled the Braves to a 2-1 lead and erupted a previously quiet hometown crowd. But when Buster Posey’s ground ball went through Conrad’s legs with two outs in the top of the ninth, the go-ahead run crossed the plate and the Giants won the game. Brooks Conrad is now forever tarnished as the kid who blew the playoffs for the city of Atlanta.

“Don’t you know how hard this all is?” Ted Williams famously asked a reporter who had criticized his team in the previous day’s paper. “Baseball is the only field of endeavor where a man can succeed three times out of ten and be considered a good performer.” Baseball is a test of character that regularly challenges one’s capacity for handling adversity and coping with failure. Even a great player fails more than he succeeds, and a really good team will lose 60 to 70 times in a season. It is for this reason that the true fan develops defense mechanisms for coping with disappointment, for caring about a team that consistently breaks your heart.

But fans can be cruel. As the Braves came to bat in the bottom of the ninth, after Conrad’s two-out error had parlayed victory into possible loss, and as Conrad sat in the dugout, alone and head bowed in shame, the Atlanta scoreboard played a video of Conrad’s walk-off, pinch-hit grand slam that had beaten Cincinnati earlier in the season. The crowd at Turner Field booed mercilessly, even though it was that home run in May and a second pinch grand slam later in the season that helped the Braves earn the wild card berth and earned Conrad more playing time -- and the confidence of his teammates. “What have you done for me lately?” is today’s constant refrain, magnified in professional sports, where exceptional play and heroic efforts are expected every day.

"You hurt for him," Braves outfielder Matt Diaz said after the game. "This should be the time of his life." For Conrad, the memories of this one game will linger for a lifetime; his dream has become a nightmare.

Kahlil Gibran wrote, “Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.” Conrad is hardly alone in the annals of baseball misery. When Bill Buckner let Mookie Wilson’s groundball slip under his legs in Game Six of the 1986 World Series, allowing the winning run to cross the plate for the Mets (who naturally went on to win Game Seven), it took Red Sox Nation two decades and two World Championships before it could offer forgiveness. No one suffered more than Buckner. Despite a magnificent career that spanned 22 years and compiled over 2,700 hits, he was forever marked with a scarlet “E” on his chest to the fans of Boston. When his son and daughter were cruelly mocked and taunted in school, Buckner, a strong, rugged first baseman, moved his family to Idaho, where he could live in peace and in the solitude of his own suffering.

“To err is human, to forgive divine,” wrote Alexander Pope in the 18th century. In 2008, twenty-two years after his misplayed groundball, Buckner was invited to Fenway Park to throw out the first pitch. When he walked from the Green Monster in left field to the pitcher’s mound, the Boston fans gave him a prolonged, apologetic standing ovation, as if to say, at long last, we forgive you. Buckner stood on the field overwhelmed with relief, tears streaming down his face. He had finally come to peace with his internal demons and soothed his misery; and in his own gentle way, he could now offer forgiveness for the unfairness of it all.

As fans, we too easily forget how truly difficult it is to play this game, even when the outcome is not magnified by world-wide television coverage and the exaggerated meaning individual fans ascribe to what is, in the end, just a game. Baseball is a team game, and the cumulative performance of the parts is what counts, not the individual success or failure of one player. “The way a team plays as a whole determines its success,” Babe Ruth once said. “You may have the greatest bunch of individual stars in the world, but if they don’t play together, the club won’t be worth a dime.”

Good teams not only have good players, they have chemistry, that intangible something that the Cardinals desperately lacked this year. I could sense it when I watched them play, especially in late August and early September, when the stress of the pennant race and the burdens of competition were at their peak. They looked uptight, a group of men blessed with the opportunity to play a child’s game, something that many of us can only dream of, that still dream of; and yet, it appeared, they were not having fun.

So, for me and the faithful loyalists of all but a few remaining teams, it is time to rake the leaves. Yet the sense of loss I feel at season’s end is inevitably and optimistically followed by a sense of hope. For a baseball fan, the end of one season opens up fresh dreams and new possibilities, the unbridled optimism that spring will once again bring a harvest of bright young stars and reliable veterans, when team chemistry will click, and when the baseball angels will reward my faithfulness and determination with a contender. “Wait ‘til next year” is the oft-repeated maxim, from which I have found comfort on many occasions. Although the darkness of fall has arrived and the harshness of winter beckons, for baseball fans, next year is never all that far away.

Opening Day and Superstitions of the Faithful

The snow has melted and the warmth of the sun, the smell of barbecue, and the blooming flowers of spring have replaced winter’s harsh edges. Historically, the winds of March and the cold, wet rains of April delay the advent of spring’s gentle touches, but that matters for little now because, come the first week of April, baseball is for real. The rookies who gave their all in Spring Training have been sent packing to farm teams in small town America, places like Asheville, Bowie, and Reading, their dreams deferred until rosters expand in September or, through the happenstance of luck and fate, a big leaguer is cursed with injuries or a prolonged slump.

For fans spiritually and existentially attached to their teams, the ones who invest emotion and passion and irrational exuberance, this is when the games count, when every pitch, every at bat is recorded in the box scores, the standings a daily reflection of a team’s worth. On Opening Day, every team is a contender, each tied for first place, when all possess hopes and dreams of October success. Even fans of the lowly Washington Nationals – well, at least the young, innocent ones, those for whom the drumbeat of defeat has not beaten down the soul – believe they have a chance on Opening Day. If our players remain healthy, if Jones can make a comeback, if our defense holds up and the bullpen doesn’t let us down, if . . . .

On Opening Day, last year’s disappointments and life’s discouragements are temporarily washed away, the fresh scent of optimism a direct corollary to the sun’s reflection on the outfield grass. For Roger Angell, it is when the season becomes the “real thing”, when “the sudden new standings and fresh stats, the return of line scores and box scores and speculation and involvement” can make us well again. As explained in Game Time (Harcourt Books, 2003), a collection of Angell's baseball essays from The New Yorker:

Seen from the veranda of Opening Day, the sunlit new season appears to stretch away almost endlessly into summer. The winners of each first game may entertain hopes, however manic, of a wholly unexpected pennant, while the losers remind themselves that there remain one hundred sixty-one games in which to do better.

Opening Day is when baseball superstitions reassert themselves, when seemingly rational people displace logic and adopt a respectful adherence to the Gods of Baseball. Of course, one must tread lightly on this topic, for the baseball gods are sensitive, fickle souls. As any baseball player can attest, you must not disrupt or upset the angels and demons of the national pastime. There are certain rules for which nearly all players abide: do not step on the foul line; do not talk to a pitcher in the midst of a no-hitter; and do not mess with a winning streak. Skeptical ballplayers ignore superstitions at their peril. Mel Stottlemyre, pitching coach and former ace of the New York Yankees, once thought that the foul line myth was a silly belief, that stepping on the foul line would have no effect on his performance. He once tested this proposition against the Twins, cavalierly stepping on the foul line on his way to the mound to start the game. “The first batter I faced was Ted Uhlaender,” Stottlemyre recalled to the Baseball Almanac, “and he hit a line drive off my left shin. It went for a hit. Carew, Oliva, and Killebrew followed with extra-base hits. The fifth man hit a single and scored and I was charged with five runs. I haven’t stepped on a foul line since.”

The baseball gods have been known to curse entire teams, refusing championships for decades, even centuries, the curse removed only upon adequate displays of remorse, misery, and despair. Perhaps the most famous curse to afflict an entire team is the one that no longer applies – The Curse of the Bambino – inflicted on the Boston Red Sox following the 1919 season when the team’s owner sold Babe Ruth to the Yankees for $125,000. For 84 long years, Red Sox fans suffered in pitiful agony, occasionally flirting with victory only to have their aging first baseman watch a groundball go through his legs, or a Game 7 end in painful defeat. The Curse of the Bambino ended in 2004 at the dawn of a new century, when the Gods of Baseball had a change of heart, satisfied that sufficient despair had transpired over the banks of the Charles River.

The Cubs have not made it to a World Series since 1945, the year Billy Sianis, owner of a Chicago tavern, was ejected from Wrigley Field during a World Series game. Sianis had brought his pet goat to the game (he had bought a ticket for his goat, which displayed a sign that said, “We Got Detroit’s Goat”), but by the seventh inning, the stench became intolerable and stadium security removed Sianis and the goat from the park. Outraged over the treatment afforded him and the goat, Sianis placed a curse upon the Cubs, declaring that they would never again play in another World Series game at Wrigley Field. 65 years later, the Curse of the Billy Goat remains intact as the Cubs have yet to return to the World Series.

The baseball gods exert their influence in Japan as well. For the past 25 years, the Hanshin Tigers of the Japanese Baseball League have endured the Curse of Colonel Sanders. In 1985, the Tigers won their first championship in 68 years and, in celebration, fans resembling Tigers stars began jumping into the polluted Dotonbori River in Osaka. Unfortunately, no one among the inebriated fans resembled the Tigers’ American star, Randy Bass, so in a creative attempt at improvisation, resourceful fans went to a nearby Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet and forcibly removed a statue of Colonel Sanders, tossing it into the river. Since that fateful day, the Tigers have plummeted back to mediocrity. Legend has it that the team will not win another championship until someone finds the Colonel. Although city officials have attempted to recover the statue from the river’s depths, it has been for naught. The Colonel remains at the bottom of the Dotonbori, and the Tigers remain in the cellar.

It is well known that players are always on the lookout for anything that might provide Divine assistance. Minnie Minoso of the Chicago White Sox once showered in his uniform after going hitless in a game, believing he needed to wash away the evil spirits. The next night, Minoso got three hits and, following the game, eight of his teammates jumped in the shower fully clothed.

When Frank Viola pitched for the Minnesota Twins in 1984, he noticed during one home game that a fan held up a large banner that said, Frankie Sweet Music Viola. Whenever the banner appeared, Viola seemed to pitch well. In fact, neither he nor the Twins lost that year when the banner was displayed; Viola went 15-0 in games that the banner appeared, and his four no decisions all resulted in Twins victories. According to an account in Sports Illustrated, when Viola met the fan, Mark Dornfield, they talked for two hours. When the Twins made it to the World Series, Viola learned that Dornfield was without a ticket. At the last minute, Viola’s wife, Kathy, called Dornfield and gave him tickets to the first and seventh games. With the banner proudly displayed, Viola won both games and the Twins won the World Series.

I would like to tell you that all of this is silly, that it is simply the irrational imaginings of men who play a boys' game. I know from experience, however, that this is not so, that you really must respect the Gods of Baseball. If your team wins whenever you wear that unwashed, grimy, spaghetti stained tee shirt, then wash it at your peril. On the Cardinals’ opener on Monday, I tried to anticipate the needs of the Gods that I imagined would be in charge that day. I put on my bright red Cardinals polo shirt commemorating the World Series Championship of 2006, classy but low-key, so as not to offend. I brought out my favorite Cardinals hat – the one with the sweat stains that has brought good luck on past occasions – and placed it strategically on the couch; wearing it, I thought, might be deemed arrogant and cocky, a surefire means to agitate the higher powers.

My strategy initially paid off; the Gods were in a generous mood, allowing a Pujols homer in the first and a Rasmus dinger in the fourth. But later that inning, with the Cardinals up 3-0, things started to falter. Carpenter conceded two home runs to the Reds in the bottom of the fourth, narrowing the lead to 3-2. As anxiety quickly set in, I knew that an adjustment was needed. So, I put on my hat, believing that perhaps my display of team loyalty was overly modest, as today – Opening Day – the Gods of Baseball expected more. Was it the displaced hat that disrupted the spirits, or something else? Then I recalled that, in the middle of the fourth inning, I had turned off my ceiling fan to accommodate a slight chill. Was it just a coincidence that the Reds soon thereafter hit two home runs? I think not. After the fan powered back on, the sweat stained hat positioned atop my head, the Cardinals went on to score eight more runs, including a grand slam by Molina and a second Pujols home run. Colby Rasmus in centerfield robbed Scott Rolen of a home run with a fantastic jumping catch over the outfield wall, and the game’s balance comfortably drifted back in my favor. The world was set right again, the Gods of Baseball temporarily satisfied. At least until next game.

A Hint of Spring

People ask me what I do in winter when there's no baseball. I'll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring. -- Rogers Hornsby

As we approach the final weeks of winter, I glance from the upstairs window of my home in Horsham and see snow-covered yards and rooftops, icicles hanging from gutters, and brown, worn, tired-looking Oak trees, cold and naked, betraying not a hint of spring. The cold winds of March have arrived early this year, the winter chill stalking the Pennsylvania air, refusing to allow the sun’s warmth to penetrate the ground below.

I am thus especially grateful for the start of spring training, the annual baseball ritual when teams ready themselves for a new season, each club beginning with a fresh slate and a zero in the loss column. Pitchers and catchers reported to camp in mid-February, followed by position players a week later. It is at this time each year I discern from a distance the first signs of spring, the sounds of baseballs popping into the webbings of catcher’s mitts, the smell of grass accompanying a cool breeze and blinding sky over green and ordered fields. Spring training is when rookies and prospects compete for a spot on their teams and a chance to fulfill lifelong dreams; when aging veterans struggle to prolong their careers, work on their timing and condition their bodies to minimize the chance of injury and elude, for one more year, the inevitable decline of their natural skills.

With the sun brightening the Florida and Arizona skies and casting summer-like shadows over the cozy ballparks of the Grapefruit and Cactus Leagues, players condition their arms, hone their fielding skills, run wind sprints, and take endless rounds of batting practice. In March, they play a month of exhibition games, primarily to allow pitchers adequate time to build endurance and get their arms into season-ready condition, while the position players bide their time for when the real play begins. The outcomes of these games are meaningless, and it is the one time of year I can follow the Cardinals calmly, enjoy the game’s slow, steady rhythms, and connect with a simpler time, when baseball was played in the daytime in small, intimate ballparks like Ebbets Field and Sportsman Park, where fans could practically reach out and touch the players.

I look forward to spring training every year, in part because it grants me a visual escape from winter, and in part because it fuels my enthusiasm for the upcoming baseball season and gives me permission to study the rosters, check out the new additions and promising rookies. It permits me to live vicariously through the lives of men who, though half my age, I somehow equate to older brothers, as if time and perceptions have stood still since I was twelve years old.

The start of spring training allows me to indulge in the annual baseball previews, to study the scouting reports of opposing teams, analyze the expected starting lineups and pitching rotations, and evaluate the depth of each team’s bullpen. It allows me to examine the schedules and visualize the early season games; to note when and where the Cardinals play in April; and to plan and prepare for their arrival to Philadelphia – this year, four games in early May – when my anxiety levels will surely increase as I experience war-time rushes of adrenaline when crossing enemy lines into Citizens Bank Park.

Spring training causes me a certain amount of mental anguish as well, as I worry about things over which I have no control – the health of Chris Carpenter’s shoulder and Kyle Lohse’s forearm, and the proffered terms of Albert Pujols’ contract extension. I’ll worry, too, about whether Colby Rasmus will hit left-handed pitching this year, and whether Ryan Franklin can repeat his All-Star performance at the back end of the bullpen. I could go on, but unless you are a true baseball fan, one with a lifelong, unending passion for a particular team, I am afraid you may not understand, or worse, even care.

It is difficult to explain to a non-fan why I care so much about baseball in general and the Cardinals in particular – perhaps only other fans can truly appreciate my distorted priorities. Roger Angell, the long-time literary editor of the The New Yorker, came close when he wrote in Five Seasons (Bison Books, 2004):

It is foolish and childish, on the face of it, to affiliate ourselves with anything so insignificant and patently contrived and commercially exploitative as a professional sports team, and the amused superiority and icy scorn that the non-fan directs at the sports nut (I know this look -- I know it by heart) is understandable and almost unanswerable. Almost. What is left out of this calculation, it seems to me, is the business of caring -- caring deeply and passionately, really caring -- which is a capacity or an emotion that has almost gone out of our lives. And so it seems possible that we have come to a time when it no longer matters so much what the caring is about, how frail or foolish is the object of that concern, as long as the feeling itself can be saved. Naiveté -- the infantile and ignoble joy that sends a grown man or woman to dancing and shouting with joy in the middle of the night over the haphazardous flight of a distant ball -- seems a small price to pay for such a gift.

There is a scene in Fever Pitch, the 2005 romantic comedy starring Jimmy Fallon and Drew Barrymore, which captures, painfully and humorously, Angell’s meaning. Ben, a Boston schoolteacher and, let’s just say, committed Red Sox fan, is asked by his girlfriend Lindsay to accompany her on a short business trip to Paris. Ben’s initial reaction is excited anticipation, until he realizes she means this weekend . . . when the Mariners are in town for a crucial series with the Sox. Ben hems and haws and suggests it may not be such a convenient time for him, that he is really busy with, well, things. Lindsay quickly realizes Ben’s “dilemma” -- flying to Paris would require him to miss the next three Red Sox games. Lindsay understandably reacts as one would expect (without giving anything away, she is not happy). Even though she is by now well aware of Ben’s over-the-top affection for the Red Sox, she cannot comprehend the degree to which Ben’s identity and everyday existence revolves around his favorite baseball team. No matter how hard she tries, she cannot fully appreciate “summer guy” Ben, who falls a bit short, in her view, of “winter guy” Ben. “You don't see us tangled up in the sheets with the Eiffel Tower in the background,” she exclaims, “You see the Mariners are coming in, and Pedro's pitching Friday.” Ben immediately corrects her, “No. On Saturday, Schilling’s on Friday.”

I sadly confess that, when I first saw this scene, for one brief moment, I knew exactly how Ben felt. Don’t get me wrong, if I ever had the opportunity to go to Paris on a whim with the woman of my dreams – even if it meant missing Carpenter and Wainwright pitching in a crucial series – I would suck it up and go to Paris. Well, as long as it wasn’t the playoffs, or the final series of the season with the fate of the division title on the line….

My youngest daughter, Hannah, who shares my passion for the Cardinals but retains a sense of proportion and innocently believes baseball is simply a game meant to be fun, fails to understand why I get so upset when the Cardinals lose, or when something really terrible happens like, you know, Ludwick taking a called third strike with runners in scoring position. She has admonished me on more than a few occasions, “Dad, don’t sweat the small stuff!” to which I inevitably respond, “This isn’t small stuff!” I am nearly 51 and still hopeless, I know. But as Ben explained to Lindsay, “I like being part of something that's bigger than me. . . It's good for your soul to invest in something you can't control.”

There is something about baseball in the spring, when the games don’t count, that captivates me in the same way I am drawn to baseball at all levels; it is why I occasionally stop to notice a high school game in the distance, and why I arrive at the ballpark early to watch batting practice. As Roger Angell described in The Summer Game (Ballantine Books, 1972):

…what kept us there, what nailed us to our seats for a sweet, boring hour or more, was not just the whop! of bats, the climbing white arcs of outfield flies, and the swift flight of the ball whipped around the infield, but something more painful and just as obvious – the knowledge that we had never made it. We would never know the rich joke that doubled over three young pitchers in front of the dugout; we would never be part of that golden company on the field, which each of us, certainly for one moment of his life, had wanted more than anything else in the world to join.

As time passes and my baseball playing days recede ever so farther into the background, it is the small things, the relaxed atmosphere of spring baseball and the orderliness of fielding drills and batting practice, which for me brings forth memories of summers long gone. When I am watching a ballgame, as for Angell, “for those two or three hours, there is really no place I would rather be.” Baseball is in my blood, it is the one constant in my life outside of family. It brings me joy and frustration, heartache and exhilaration, but in the end, it is “a Little Leaguers game that,” in the words of Mario Cuomo, “excites us throughout adulthood . . . even as the setting sun pushes the shadows past home plate.”

Life as a Cardinals Fan: Of Hope and Heartbreak

It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone. ~A. Bartlett Giamatti, November 1977

For those who know me well, it will come as no surprise that, at around 9:15 p.m. on Thursday night (October 8, 2009), I suffered a bit of a meltdown. You see, Matt Holliday dropped a fly ball. Not just any fly ball, mind you, but the routine, right-into-the-glove sort of fly ball that, on any other night, would have been caught, the final touch of a 2-1 Cardinals win. It was the bottom of the ninth inning in Game Two of the National League Division Series and the Cardinals were one out away from tying the series and sending it back to St. Louis. But then James Loney of the Dodgers hit a routine, soft fly ball directly at Holliday in left field. As the television camera panned on Holliday, the baseball sailed in his immediate direction, the game all but over; my fist was pumped, as Hannah (my daughter, and fellow Cards fanatic) and I were ready to celebrate the win with our customary high fives and fist knocks. Then Holliday dropped the ball. He tripped and fell face first to the ground, the ball dribbling away and rolling on the outfield grass like a live grenade, as Loney skidded safely into second. The rest is history. Ryan Franklin walked the next batter, yielded a game-tying single, walked another batter, and then gave up the game winning single to a 38-year old, washed up journeyman named Mark Loretta. I suffered a meltdown. I may have yelled a few profanities, I really don’t remember, my mind is a blank. In the immortal words of Jimmy Hoffa, “My memory fails to recall my recollection.”

The Cardinals had a surprisingly good season this year, winning 91 games with a team expected to finish no better than fourth place in their division. They are a resilient group, with solid pitching, good defense, scrappy determination, and Albert Pujols, the best player in all of baseball. They started strong and, come July, added stars to their arsenal – Matt Holliday, Mark DeRosa, and Julio Lugo – which turned this seemingly mediocre bunch into not just pennant contenders, but favorites. But then Holliday dropped the ball. In the words of Chuck Tanner, “It’s hard to win a pennant, but it’s harder losing one.” I know far too well exactly what that means.

Books are written and movies made of the long suffering Red Sox fans, those poor souls who went 86 years without a championship; the Eastern Establishment and Hollywood glitterati have a soft spot for Red Sox Nation. Famous literary and political figures the world over profess an allegiance to that formerly cursed franchise. But Red Sox Nation has nothing on me. I live in Cardinal Nation – a soulful place where only the faithful dare dwell.

Cardinal fans are considered the best, most loyal fans in the country. We’re polite to a fault – we don’t gratuitously boo and throw objects at opposing players like they do in Philadelphia. In St. Louis, oceans of red swarm to the ballpark every night. One mustn’t be fooled, however, by our wholesome, Midwestern airs. Unlike Red Sox fans – and not to be too technical, but Cubs fans as well – who expect a black cat to show up when the season is on the line, or for the ball to roll through the legs of their aging first basemen, we expect to win. The Cardinals have had just enough historical success to create an expectation of winning. This is what sets us apart. We know we should win, that God is quietly on our side, that the world is not right if the Cardinals lose. But unlike those spoiled Yankees fans, for us, disappointment and despair are always one pitch away. It is only when you know that you are good enough to win, that you should win – when victory is within your grasp – and then, with two outs in the ninth, Holliday drops the ball and your All-Star closer suddenly forgets how to pitch, as four straight Dodgers reach base and turn certain victory into a devastating loss – only then have you truly suffered!

I have often thought that, when I retire, I will move to the Promised Land – uh, St. Louis, that is. No one in my family can quite understand this. After all, I am from New Jersey. No one told me when I was six years old that you were supposed to root for the home team. In second grade, we studied birds, and I fell in love with the cardinal, his bright red feathers accenting the smart, black trim around his beak. Then I discovered baseball, the smell of leather, the clean grip of the seams, the crisp sound of a wooden bat striking a hard, round ball, and the hopefulness of spring. A bond was created. The Cardinals won the World Series that year (against the Red Sox when the curse of Ruth still hovered over the harbors of Boston), and I was forever hooked. I knew then that my heart and soul lie along the Mississippi near the Gateway Arch, in the land of Gibson, Brock, and Musial.

Al Gallagher, who played four seasons for the San Francisco Giants in the early 1970’s, once said, “There are three things in my life which I really love: God, my family, and baseball. The only problem - once baseball season starts, I change the order around a bit.” I do have another life – as a lawyer, father, and citizen. But during baseball season, all else is secondary. The quality of my day is reflected in last night’s box score, my spiritual and emotional well-being affected by the outcome of each game. There may be a complex explanation for all of this, and it would probably take a team of psychologists to figure all the ramifications. Until then, I will obsess over Holliday missing that fly ball, re-playing it over in my mind until I am convinced that he really caught it, that the Cardinals are still headed to the World Series. Perhaps someday I will grow up, develop perspective, finally realize that baseball is only a game, a pastime, a place of pastoral beauty, symmetry, and timeless perfection intended to soothe a weary soul. Then again, I think of Rogers Hornsby, the great Cardinals second basemen who hit .424 in 1924, who said, “People ask me what I do in winter when there’s no baseball. I'll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring.”