After the final out I stood in the dugout and watched TCU celebrate, keeping an eye out for a 6-foot horned frog hopping around the field. Kool and the Gang blared over the PA system, reminding me of dancing at…
Category: Grief
A frat boy chews on sunflower seeds, spitting the shells on the concrete floor as he watches an Indiana State batter jog back to the dugout, head down, after grounding out to second. I’m still thinking of Justin Paulsen. I…
He cracks the ball and races down the basepath, lunging to avoid the Missouri pitcher’s tag. And he falls to the ground. I don’t know him, Aaron Meyer, but I can imagine that as a child he wrapped rubber bands around his…
I hopped down the steps toward the Missouri State dugout in the fourth inning. Earlier that night I’d waited in line with sorority girls and golf players so we could offer two dollars and a glimpse of our photo ID in…
The pitcher is betrayed by a shortstop sweeping the dirt with glove, ball still spinning somewhere in the outfield grass. The run scores. The batter flies around first, then retreats back to the base, kicking the mud off his cleats….
I don’t think my dog liked baseball. He just liked to sit with me. We’d lounge on a futon, analyzing prospects in spring training. He’d curl up on a blanket, then take my seat if I left for a second….
I turned to baseball for solace. Some way to make the day seem normal. Though I make a point to enjoy regular days, the kind I beg for when something happens. Just last week I saw Kansas City play in…
A year ago, he’d played his first major league game. He hit a home run. The fans yelled for more. He took off his helmet, and waved. He smiled. He would do it again: line a pitch over the right…
I can still see the growing green grass covering the lumps and molehills of a baseball diamond. A slice of a red barn cuts through my vision. And somewhere, where I can’t see, my grandfather walks between the yellow backhoe…
Concerning the tiny clods of dirt layered on the cleats of shoes: Might they remain after each series, and move from place to place? There, a bit of mud from Tampa, and a piece of dirt from Kansas City. Here,…