There was a time, around 14 years ago, when my father woke me up really late at night. Blearly eyed and clenching my tattered blue blanket, which I called Snoopy?I have no idea what has happened to that blanket in the intervening decade and a half, but rumor has it somewhere in a trash heap in New York?I dragged my feet from my bedroom, through the fireplace room, into the living room.
It was Game 6, 1986 World Series. Bill Buckner. Need I say more? It had just happened, the history of New York sports had just been changed forever. I really had no idea what this meant. I had kindergarten in six hours and was anxious to reacquaint myself with my He-Man sheets. Yet, for my father, this was his moment; this was bigger than life itself. There was another game left, sure, but the Mets had escaped from sheer disaster, from the very brink of death, to capture this one. This was a moment, frozen in time, when one begins to figure out their parents and what is important to them. It was something I wouldn’t understand until much, much later.
There was a time, around a decade ago, when the backyard of my country house used to become the ultimate whiffle ball battleground. My family’s dented blue 1981 Oldsmobile (later stolen during Game 5 of a Pistons vs. Knicks series) was the centerfield fence?a solid 70 yards for a homer. Not many people cleared that fence, although we didn’t have a shortage of backyard Bondses. It was just hard to jack one 210 feet with only a whiffle ball bat as your weapon. My uncle Terry came close a few times, his majestic bombs were the legend of the housewives that sat along the deck (ah, gender stereotypes, how we love thee). My father wasn’t bad, although I always had a tough time believing he was All-League in 1958, as the catcher for his high school team. My eight-year-old (at the time) cousin threw him a meatball, straight down the center of the plate, and he flailed out in front of it, twisting himself around and almost falling over. The next pitch he lined a weak single to short. I was surprised he beat it out. I never hit that well, because I was around 11 at the time, but I was always excited for these games. It meant sports, competition, lemonade, Chips Ahoy and family. One time Uncle Terry took me deep for a double. It still comes up at family gatherings.
There was a time, about seven years ago, when I did catch a ball. It was 10th grade, and lacking any sports-based activity in HS aside from writing about the gymnastics team the year before (how far I’ve come), I decided to try out for baseball. I had played baseball in middle school, as a pitcher. My split finger fastball was the sickest thing this side of Mike Scott, and I had amassed a fairly decent record; yet this time I went out for first base. My dad and I went to Central Park on the weekend before the tryouts were set to begin?Diamond Six, off the 86th Street entrance. I stood at first and he threw me every variety of high balls, bad hops, way-off-the-base and pickoff throws. He slammed grounders my way. It was continual and constant. I dove in the dirt many a time that weekend, and I made the wrong decision even more (it’s ball, not base … ), but by the end I had emerged a dirty 15-year-old with an impending sense of being the next Steve Garvey.
I got cut. I couldn’t hit.
There was a time, about six years ago, when New Year’s Day meant more than just college football. It meant, at halftime of the Rose Bowl, football with my dad. I used to wait for the seconds to tick down on the first half of the annual classic from Pasadena, just to grab the battered, blood-stained pigskin from under my bed and throw on my ratty blue sweats to head to Central Park yet again. This time it was the Sheep Meadow. It was always the two of us, it was always halftime of the Rose Bowl, and we always had to get back by the start of the third quarter. Some of the greatest conversations I’ve ever had were in that Sheep Meadow. One year, absolutely enthralled by the offensive potential of Washington State and thinking I was indeed Ryan Leaf, I sent my dad deep on about six patterns. He ran back in from one, gasping for air but still having hauled in the pass, and said to me simply, “They don’t call it the Chuck-and-Duck for nothing.”
At the time, with a bunch of other pickup games going on in the frigid January air, and a few couples walking hand in hand, it made more sense than anything I had ever heard.
There was a time, about two days ago, when I sat in the GUSA Office, frantically dialing and re-dialing my home phone number; then spilling the entire contents of my wallet onto the desk, rapidly searching for my dad’s business card. Neither number was working. Stuff like this never happened to me; but who knew if my dad had a meeting that day at World Trade Center? I didn’t know his schedule. As I kept pressing the numbers, almost frozen in time, I thought about games of whiffle ball, Shea Stadium, the Sheep Meadow, diving for balls in the dirt, Billy Buckner. Then the phone on the other end started to ring again, and my dad answered.
“Hello?”
There was a time, about two days ago, when I was more relieved than I may ever be.
