All this past week, my wife, little T and I have been watching the University of Georgia baseball team compete in the Men’s College World Series in Omaha, Neb. It’s been a blast, not least because my wife is an alumni and while I’m not, I was born and raised here, and so red and black are our colors for life.
We’ve been living (or dying!) on every pitch, every swing, every home run that Bulldogs catcher Daniel Jackson hits 447 feet into the stands — and it’s been so awesome to see, as this year is the team’s first trip to Omaha in almost twenty years.
This is also the first time little T has ever really been into watching baseball, my first love as a sports fan back when I was a kid. He’s humored me here and there; we’ve taken him to see the Atlanta Braves play, but at those games the highlight was the ice cream (!), not anything happening on the field.
I must admit, the sport has tried my patience too in recent years. First, the steroids scandal of two decades ago, but more recently the emphasis on sports betting has slowly but surely drained away a lot of the enthusiasm I once had.
That may be why the college game has been such a breath of fresh air. There’s local pride involved; that’s our Bulldogs competing up there in Nebraska, you know? (Even though we don’t personally know a soul involved with the team!)
I realized, I’d forgotten what the rhythm of baseball feels like. In recent years, we’ve watch a lot — a LOT — of college football, which is bursts of action but mostly a lot of… standing and walking around. Golf, also a love of mine, is similar; it’s mostly preparation for (very) brief bursts of action.
Baseball, on the other hand, is subtly misleading. Yes, there’s a lot of standing out in the field. (Especially for the outfielders.) But even in moments when the game feels slow, there’s an undercurrent of action, of thought and strategy bubbling just below the surface.
When you really get into it — when you’re thinking along with the pitcher and the batter, deciding whether the next pitch should be a fastball, curveball or changeup, or which part of the field the batter will try to hit to — you realize how absorbing it can become.
You find yourself leaning on the edge of your seat with every pitched ball, every swing of the bat. (“No way that was over the plate!” you say to yourself when your team gets robbed on a two-out called strike three.) You get wrapped up in it, because it’s fun to get wrapped up in it — it’s fun to care.
Even though you know heartbreak is part of the deal… as, sadly, it was for our Bulldogs. After losing to the University of Oklahoma on Monday, they faced the University of Texas in must-win elimination game on Tuesday; for several innings, they couldn’t put any runs on the board.
Very late in the game, though, UGA broke through with a pair of runs to take down the Longhorns, which gave us hope! But then last night, they had to play Oklahoma again and friends… it’s wasn’t pretty.
Georgia gave it everything they had, but the game reminded me so much of what it was like to watch the Braves battle the New York Yankees in both teams’ heyday thirty years ago. The Yankees played on a completely different level back then, just like Oklahoma did last night.
We were sad, not so much about the loss but that this fun ride for UGA had now come to an end. After all, I’ve seen a lot of baseball games in my life, gone through a lot of disappointment. At 55, the games don’t matter to me like they once did.
But for little T, this is all new to him. Caring about games is new to him; he doesn’t have years or decades to draw on, to know that once the season is over, it’s time to leave it behind and think about the next one. That you’ll get a chance to start anew.
So, I probably don’t need to tell you that there were quite a few tears after last night’s loss. We had to process it, figure it out. “Why couldn’t they beat Oklahoma?” I don’t understand it either, I told him.
There’s a part of me, in moments like this, that wants to calm him down, tell him it’s no big deal, to shrug it off and look forward. But then I remind myself, it’s good to care, you know? It’s good to put our hearts out there, to wear them on our sleeve.
Adulthood has a way of taking a lot of that away, as we all know. And of course, we do have to mature as we grow up and get older; it’s part of how we deal with life, I know. But there’s a part of me that doesn’t want to let go of really caring about something to the point that it breaks your heart.
Maybe that’s because when we can care that way, it means we’re more than just automatons bobbing about, more than the technology we carry around in our pockets — we’re flesh and blood, with heart, sinew and bones inside, a real person who cares.
It’s all too easy, as we get older, to sand these edges of ourselves off. To forget what we were like when we were kids, to leave the things we once cared about behind.
Maybe I needed to be reminded that we shouldn’t. Like Faulkner once said, maybe we need to be reminded of “the old verities and truths of the heart,” you know?
Anyway, I hope you’ve had a wonderful week and have gotten some great runs in — as always, keep in touch and let me know how your running/life is going.
Your friend,
— Terrell
Sometimes we need a child to bring out the child in us. Adulthood has a habit of suppressing it.
I was rooting for the Longhorns on both games against Georgia and was so impressed with the Bulldogs. They play so well and sent the Horns home easily. I live in Austin and have rooted for the Horns for a long time. When my daughter was little in the 80s, we’d go to many Horns baseball games. During the games, I would test her baseball knowledge by giving her baseball situations and she would name them. It was a fun way for her to learn the game, being there with her, my son and wife was a great way to spend time together. She lives in Kansas City now and is a huge Royals fan.