Things I Knew You Know?

In moments of clarity I'll admit there are worldly and things beyond this world more important than baseball. God and love, family and peace, among them. But in other moments I'm more convinced it's those very things that draw me back every year. What I ask you is more calling than fresh sod on opening day, and another opportunity to say the words I come to be served back in September with a side of defeat, "this is the dodgers year, I know it." So it's of no value or consequence I proclaim enthusiasm for another new season, or that this is the year the dodgers take it all, or that I will be unreasonable entertaining any other conjecture.

Gainful employment, and the Dodgers refusal to reschedule opening day around my schedule, means another year of absentee status from opening day. It makes my tender heart melt and cry and bleed, and other illusions of metaphor, but it just is. And a lot of life is about learning to know the stuff you ought to have knew. People in process, we are. And I, no exception.

This year I swapped my blues for an Angel opener. I scurried and shuffled my ballet flats as fast as they'd go, and got to Anaheim in time for the middle of 1st - not bad for commuting 40 miles in rush hour and after I'd walked across a business park, a busy street, and the Angels parking lot, I'd made it. I parused the pop's popcorn, and sat down to watch some ball. Within minutes I fell in immediate discomfort. I'd had some health problems for the past months, but not rising to the point it would take over a good ballgame.

When I sat in silence, I could be ok. I'd say in repetition, "you're ok, you're fine, this will pass, there's no sort of pain that is beyond what you can handle. you're ok, you're ok, you're ok." But when someone would speak to me, because this isn't out of the realm of what's to be expected at a social engagement, I learned I couldn't speak inside my head and reassure my pain, and listen. I excused myself several times, just to be alone, and be in pain alone, until by the 7th inning, I knew this wasn't something I could handle anymore. I couldn't handle this on my own.

"I'm going to have to leave. You stay, I'm going to urgent care."

I tried to call in advance to let them know that while it was 9:30 I was going to break every law to get there by 10:00 by closing and to wait for me, but it was the 7th inning stretch, and while I chose to suffer in silence, fans showed their enthusiasm for the opening of baseball in the way I would have, had I an ability to. I couldn't get through, so I just had to make a run for it.

I'm unfamiliar with Angels stadium. So much unlike the way I know Dodger stadium. I know longtime consession workers, and have hung out with the ice cream guys in their breakroom. But here I was sad and sick and in pain, and lost. I'd never left a baseball game early in my young life, and in a way I can't express through english venacular that also made me so sad. I took what ended up being the longest way out of the stadium, and once I reached a series of ramps that seemed to make no progress towards exit, I prepared to run.

Now if you know my boyfriend you know he loves Angels baseball. Like a lot. So what business did I have to say, "leave and come with me." I couldn't.

But I got to the bottom of those half dozen ramps, and there he was. "Did you think I'd really let you leave and do this on your own?"

I was guilt ridden, but I had to make it before closing. In ballet flats, I ran across two parking lots, major traffic barriers, and a concrete wall, when I made it 4 minutes before closing.

The Angels won, and by the next day I felt better, if for now. The Dodgers lost their first couple games, and that in no way gave my pain a relief. But when I look back over my life, over baseball, the opening days, the 2 grand slams in one inning and 4 home runs I once saw in a September, the spring training games, and trips across the country to see rivals play in Wrigley and drinking beers with Cardinal fans, I have no other choice but to put this at the very top. Because for the reasons I've described, baseball to me is about a showmanship of being the very best you can be everyday, and that image of my boyfriend, the biggest baseball fan I know, leaving his opening day early, to run half a mile with me to urgent care, is what I always knew the best in people was, you know?