Baseball and Life

It’s autumn, with the days growing cooler and the leaves beginning to expire spectacularly. That means the baseball season begins to draw to a close. Some say sports isn’t very important….but they never had a mentally ill parent who truly thought the seasons involved which shape the ball was….

My father and I sometimes had few things to talk about….or there was the elephant in the room that made it hard to discuss anything personal. But we could agree on baseball and discuss the greats, both past and present. Being a Chicago sports fan probably didn’t help my father’s mental state very much. However, there was Super Bowl XX, where the Bears finally triumphed, and Michael Jordan’s Bulls who dominated basketball for several years.

And then there was the magical year of 2005. My father used to talk about going to White Sox games as a teenager, even walking through the west side to get to the train station. People were friendly, he noted, and waved—even though he was the only Caucasian to be seen for blocks. After decades of waiting and hoping, the White Sox finally came through for my Dad, thankfully just a couple of years before he passed away. I played “Go Go White Sox” for him over the phone as we gloated over the Sox victory.

This year, the White Sox finished a disappointing third, although they did force the Tigers into a playoff with the Twins to determine the division title. I don’t think of Dad every time the Sox play, but this time of year, I do. His birthday would have been September 25, near the end of the baseball season. I usually sent sports-themed gifts for his birthday. If there is a heaven, I’m sure he’s made a point of finding every old-time White Sox player he ever watched at Comiskey back when the west side was safe for walking and before the time when he watched sports on TV because there was little else he was able to manage.