Full Circle
We are a baseball family. From two boys who have played it throughout their lives, from t-ball to house league, to travelling select teams until reaching the age of moving on to higher education and studies assuming much of their free time. As parents we managed teams, functioned as score keepers and we drove them to wherever their games were scheduled. On nights or weekends when both boys were playing, we divvied up the driving and often acted as a surrogate parent, bringing other players whose parents were unable to get away from work to be there. As a family we watched on tv, we attended games and took vacations that centred around watching Major League and Minor League Ball games.
One such trip took us to California where we drove up the Pacific Coast Highway beginning with San Diego and a Padres game, to Los Angeles where we took in a Dodgers game and finishing with San Francisco and a Giants game. We took in all the other tourist spots as we did that drive up the coast, but the focus was always intended to be baseball. The boys sampled the hot dogs at each park and the oldest declared the best he’d ever had was at Giants Stadium. Not eating the things myself, I took him at his word. And to date, from all the other major league baseball stadiums we’ve visited (Skydome (it will always be such), the former Miller Park, Fenway, and Wrigley Field), that San Francisco hot dog holds the number one spot.
Baseball and life have come full circle this weekend for the youngest who was privileged to attend Game 2 of the World Series between the Toronto Blue Jays and Los Angeles Dodgers last night.
When we were in Los Angeles to see the Dodgers, it was Mother’s Day, and the team had players standing at the entrance handing a rose to every woman who entered. Before the game started they held a ceremony to honour those who were dealing with or knew someone who had breast cancer.
At last night’s game, to honour those who have been dealing with cancer or lost someone they love to the disease, those in attendance were given signs on which to write the name of someone they remember. During a Stand Up To Cancer performance these signs were held up throughout the Rogers Centre.
Baseball is not just a game. It not only offers the opportunity to create family memories it is a metaphor for life. You take a chance at an opportunity that is thrown toward you. You might hit that ball out of the park, you might hit it just enough to get where you need to be for the next part of your journey, or you might strike out. And if you’re lucky, you get another opportunity to swing that bat and who knows what might happen when you connect with the ball, hear that crack, and take yourself to places you might only ever dream of. The key is to remember you are not alone on the field. There are other players on your team who are cheering you on so you keep trying, keep swinging, slide if necessary but the secret lies in believing in yourself, in your potential and that you will connect with any number of possibilities thrown your way. Even if you get there by walking, one base at a time.