Reading

There are countless reasons why reading is important, one of which is that it shows us that pretty much any calamity is not unique to ourselves, which is what I thought of when I read this from Bottom of the 33rd: Hope, Redemption, and Baseball's Longest Game:

Is he crazy for still being there? Why is he still here? Part of the answer reaches back into childhood, when he and his father left a game at Fenway with Boston several runs behind, in what seemed like a losing cause. But the Red Sox stormed back and won the game, after which Brex vowed to see future games to the end.

Sigh.  Been there, buddy:

The game having gotten into the last inning, my mother decides it’s time to go home so she can beat the traffic outta the parking lot. To a kid, “traffic” means “nothing.” But the Braves were down by three runs, it was the last inning, I don’t remember us putting up too much of a fight. Our mothers’ cars were parked behind the right field fence, and after we had run ahead and started clowning around waiting for my mother and friend’s mother to get there, my brother found a crack in the fence big enough to look through. “What’s happening?! we asked him – knowing the sounds of baseball as well as we did, we could tell by the crowd in the time we had left our seats and arrived by the car the Braves had done SOMETHING with their bats; although we certainly felt three runs was too great a deficit to make up in only one inning.

“The Braves got the bases loaded,” he announced. We scrambled to the crack, each of us trying to peer through to witness our Braves trying to come back for a win. Even though we were 500 feet away we could see that Brook Jacoby, a veritable Paul Bunyan, was at the plate. In the bottom of the ninth. Down by three. With the bases loaded.

“Boys! Let’s go, get in the caaaaaaaaah,” my mother yelled at us. We screeched and pleaded, explaining to her the situation. This was when I learned that to a mother trying to get her kids in the car to beat traffic to get home, “In the bottom of the ninth. Down by three. With the bases loaded” means “nothing.” Jacoby’s at-bat was being drawn out by foul balls and a pitching change, and we all were finally physically dragged into the cars and were helpless to know the ending, as we started leaving the parking lot. We were almost out on the main street to get on the highway when we all heard the unmistakable sound of about 20,000 people screaming, losing their minds. My brother and I were speechless…had we…there’s no way, there’s no WAY we coulda missed a…no no, certainly we didn’t miss a game-winning home run?!?!?!?! When we started panicking my mother explained that no no, everybody was cheering cause the game was over and they all could then go home. My brother spit out that he thought we had missed a game-winning homer, to which my mother replied “see, aren’t you glad we left early?”

Mothers and baseball. Don’t mix.

The next morning my brother and I rushed to the sports page. Brook Jacoby. Game-winning grand slam. And, just so God would be clear as to how much he hated me, the ball went out over the right field fence…where we had been standing, beside our car.

Sigh. Happy birthday, me. Well, at least I had a bunch of puppies to give away.