Fall Classics

It appears that the Red Sox are on the threshold of their first World Series championship since 1918. Good for them; great for their fans.

Ike and I watched Pedro pitch against Curt Schilling two summers ago in Fenway, when the Diamondbacks came to play interleague contests. A 2-1 win for the Snakes, although the Sox had second and third when Lou Merloni made the last out in the ninth.

I note that all the pent-up frustrations of the Red Sox fans are being tentatively vented in anticipation of the eventual celebration. Column after column - even a thread at the Sons of Sam Horn website - is devoted to departed loved ones who never got to see the BoSox win it all. Many of these pieces are moving.

The thing about all of them that moves me at least a little is the apparent affection that the writer feels - however well or poorly it is communicated - for the deceased. In that it is baseball, and the writers are of a certain generation, many of the tributes are to fathers.

My father died when I was 12, and I never got over it. It was in December - before Christmas, three days after my brother turned 11, at fall's end. Dad and I went to Indians, Orioles, and Pirates games, and I recall those times fondly still. That said, my wish for myself in this life would be to walk through a fresh-mown fairway in a warm Ohio spring breeze with my father, to arrive at our equal drives.

This evening's thought is not about Dad, or really much about Dadism. (Those who know me would probably expect it to be about Dadaism.) As I read some of the tributes here a few moments ago - especially one by a woman whose father died last fall on the golf course at age 65 - what I am wondering is, "how in the hell could my kids ever miss me like that?" Intellectually, I know that they must have feelings for me not unlike I have for my father and mother - although I am but an electron in an atom in a pimple on either of my parents' butts. Why would they care? When I see them, they take me for granted. Often, what passes for discourse is more about getting something with ease, or tolerating restrictions of their freedom. We still hug and speak fondly to one another. We say "I love you" out loud regularly. We rarely quarrel. But I see nothing that would indicate that they would urinate on me if I were to spontaneously combust.

I miss the times of a few years ago, when they sat in my lap without thinking, when they sought kisses, when they felt less ready for sleep if they were not formally tucked in. I wonder how our relationships would have evolved if our family had not been obliterated. I suppose I feel like a failure as a parent because my children have suffered so much hurt as a result of divorce. Why would they care if I lived or died? What's in it for them when I am "not dead"?

Baseball is my favorite sport. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. Fall is my favorite season. The air has a bearing of decay; the days growing shorter remind one of the passing of one's own days; there is a soulfulness in interactions with others that only fall promotes. Winter is withdrawn; summer is sticky; spring explodes: in fall, we get ready for the coldness, and are receptive to needing and need-meeting as winter approaches. We grow reflective, recalling the big ninth-inning rally that turned the season - or the changes since the first of the year that have defined our existence. Like an untimely gopher ball by a closer, our mistakes are often in the forefront of our thoughts, and we are humbled. We recognize that our successes are so often interwoven with the loving participation of others, and we ponder what we have received with wonderment. The ball pops the catcher's mitt, and the season ends. We anticipate being interrupted from our reverie by violent collisions on weekend days and evenings. The meandering, humanistic game gives way to the land war game, and we prepare to rest - to await, God willing, whatever metaphoric spring training may lie before us.