Precedented Times

Saturday night I escaped reality.  I zoomed back in time to May of 1996.  Here’s how it happened.   In January I had bought tickets to a baseball game in Baltimore.  The date of the game, June 27, seemed safe at the time.  We had heard of a virus that was in the news, but we didn’t feel any immediate threat.  We certainly didn’t see a risk to buying tickets to a game that was nearly seven months away.  These annual pilgrimages to Baltimore had become a tradition.

When the baseball season was put on hold in March, it still seemed possible to us that the late June date might work.  In May, we realized it wouldn’t happen.  We started thinking about Plan B.  There’s nothing imaginative about watching a game on the computer, but I’d never done it through Zoom as a social thing.  My job was to create a menu of old games involving the Orioles, preferably games that they won.

I found some vintage games, like their World Series wins in 1970 and 1983.  I found others that featured classic performances, like a Mike Mussina one-hitter in the playoffs or Eddie Murray’s 500th career home run.  We settled on a game that my nephew suggested.  He remembered it from his teen years, a game in which a player named Chris Hoiles had actually hit not one, but TWO grand slams. In the SAME game!  A rarity, indeed.  I searched it up. The first three Google hits were of the 1-minute variety, quick highlights of the two homers.  The fourth one was what we wanted.  A full game on YouTube.  Wow.  Three hours and 39 minutes. 

What I didn’t realize as I saved the link for our big Zoom night was that the full game was a DIFFERENT game.  Chris Hoiles did play a role in the game (hence the Google hit), but it wasn’t the two-grand slam game that my nephew had mentioned.

I realized my error in the second inning, when my nephew mentioned that this game had been one of the few bright spots in the otherwise-dismal 1998 season, when the Orioles’ long drought had just begun.  “Hmm, that’s odd,” I said, “because I think the game we’re watching is happening in 1996.”  I quickly checked on my phone, not wanting to interrupt the game on our screens.  Sure enough, the two-grand-slam game was in 1998.  Also, sure enough, the game we were watching was in 1996.  I had the wrong game on our shared screen.  

I sheepishly admitted my mistake.  I’d only had about a month to get this right.  Yeah.  

I rallied, though!  I suggested that maybe this would be better.  I could now see in the description on my phone what would happen in the game.  The title of the video pretty much gave away the ending.  My brother-in-law and nephew, though, were blissfully ignorant.  This actually gave them the opportunity to experience the game with some suspense.  

So, there we sat in our little box seats, a stripe down the right side of the field.  The TV image took up the rest of the screen. Our voices occasionally drowning out the announcers’.

There were moments of greatness.  Roberto Alomar makes a diving stop to rob Joey Cora.  Ken Griffey Junior makes a diving, rolling catch in center field to return the favor.  My wife comes down to the basement for a cameo, shuffling between me and my computer’s camera, saying, “Excuse me, excuse me, I just need to get to my seat over there.”    Later she came down to shout out, “Cold beer!” And still later, she came down to do what she often does when I’m watching games (by her own admission).  She just had to tell me what she’d learned from a friend on Facebook: Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio and Bradley Cooper were all sharing a house in the fancy side of our town and had been spotted at a nearby gas station and at a dive bar by the beach.  I promised I would keep a lookout, but I was currently residing in 1996, and those three didn’t even have careers yet.

Another nephew tuned in during the third inning, sharing a couch with his son and daughter. At one point, I suggested, perhaps a bit rudely, that a pitching change was in order.  The Orioles were leading 7 to 2, but their starting pitcher was clearly struggling, barely escaping jams in the previous two innings.  Apparently the Orioles’ manager was listening to our conversation, because he promptly switched pitchers.  I cheered. Within moments of that brilliant move, the Orioles’ lead had evaporated.  The play-by-play announcer AND my family members reminded me of this strategic error at five-minute intervals for the remainder of the game.

I got up to get another cold beverage (and some relief from the barrage of criticism), offering to get some for my fellow spectators, before realizing that, oh yes, we were hundreds of miles apart.   To make them feel better, when I returned, I told them that the lines had been super long. On the plus side, the men’s room was surprisingly clean.

By the ninth inning, the Orioles’ lead stood at one run.  The score was 10-9, when a young Alex Rodriguez, only 21 at the time, came to the plate for the bad guys…with the bases loaded.  On the first pitch, he rocketed a ball into the left field stands, giving his team, the Seattle Mariners, a 13 to 10 lead with one swing.

Even with the mini view of their faces, I could see that my nephew and brother-in-law were not amused.  “Seriously?  You’re making us watch a game that the Orioles LOST? And in the most painful way imaginable? To the young version of that hated future Yankee?”  This was far worse than my ill-advised pitching change blunder. I tried to seem equally disappointed. I apologized repeatedly.

That disappointment, that bleak moment, of course, was a necessary dose of anguish. The hero’s despair. The low point before the redemption.  I think it worked very well from a dramatic standpoint.

The bottom of the ninth was all that much sweeter, as the Orioles, with two outs, loaded the bases. Chris Hoiles, the only Oriole who hadn’t managed a hit in the game, lumbered to the plate.  He had been mired in an 0-for-20 slump.   At several points during the game, I had feigned disgust at his ineptitude.  Now, I suggested that the Orioles should probably pinch hit for him. This was too big a moment for such a lame hitter. 

Well, you would have, too, if you were in my position.

When this happened (did you watch it?), it was all worth it.

For an evening at least, we were living in precedented times.

I write about not writing

I am that reluctant writer, that student I fret about.  The one who says he doesn’t know what to write about.  The one who looks for ways to avoid an onerous task.  I don’t sharpen my pencil or go for the water fountain or drop my head on the table.  No.  I walk the dog.  I weed.  I read.  I water the garden. I think of errands I must do immediately.  I shop online for essential items. You know, important stuff: that special dog bowl to keep Farley from eating too fast. 

This morning I try to correct those escapist ways.  I plant myself in a chair and flip open my computer. Then, after cleaning out my inbox, answering an email, and reading a few slices from more disciplined people, I finally open my Google drive.  I click on the folder that I titled “Tuesday slices” back in April.  Only four entries since the end of the March challenge.  I scold myself…gently.  I switch the font to comic sans, hoping that’s the tonic.  

I’ve set myself up on the screen porch.  Farley is here with me.  He whines to go out, but I can’t let him right now.  In spite of his size (70 pounds at six months), he has dug holes along our neighbor’s fence and manages to snake his way under the wires and  into their yard.  An innocent pup, he is undaunted by the presence of the elderly ill-tempered terrier who frankly despises him.  She barks angrily.  The neighbors apologize for Izzy’s rudeness.  They love Farley.  They shower him with affection.  He stands on his hind legs, plops his giant paws on their shoulders, and slurps their faces.  They have offered to trade dogs.  We laugh, but it is awkward that we have a fenced yard and still have to watch our sneaky galoot at all times.  

So, we sit on the porch, the reluctant writer and the penned beast.  Farley chews on his stick for a time, spreading wood chips over the couch and  around the floor.  Then he heads to the door and whines some more.  A long, pained whine. That sound of discontent, not unlike the crying of a  baby or the yawning of a student, sends the tiniest burn up my spine, a twinge of pressure that I don’t want to feel in summer.  I’m agitated now.  It’s a sunny summer day, one I’ve longed for during this busy spring, and Farley, whose goofiness and exuberance saved us during our sequestration, now does to me what some kids must have been doing to parents throughout our distance learning stretch…and perhaps are doing today.  Voicing their discontent with quarantine and isolation while the adults try to do something we deem essential.

First world problem, I mutter to myself.  Get over yourself.  I realize the truth in this.  Of course I can shut down my computer right now.  I can grab Farley’s leash and head out the door.  All I wanted to do was write for half an hour.  I suppose he’s let me do that.  At least this time I haven’t completely avoided the task.  

Maybe next time I’ll say something important.