Tom Hanks is one of America’s most beloved actors. Forrest Gump, Sully, Captain Phillips, Jim Lovell of the Apollo 13 mission, Walt Disney, Woody, he’s played some of the most iconic roles and endearing characters. Those endearing characters have given us some memorable quotes. “Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re going to get.” “Houston, we have a problem.” “Wilson!” Despite these iconic roles, strangely his most famous quote may have come from his least lovable character, alcoholic, bitter, ex Cubs slugger, now baseball manager Jimmy Dugan, as the manager of the All American Girls Professional Baseball League team the Rockford Peaches. During a game one of the girls on the team gets very upset and starts to cry, to which Dugan replies, “There’s no crying in baseball.” The line is hilarious, quotable, but not entirely true. Let me explain.
Baseball and I have a very long and complicated relationship. I was introduced to baseball by my dad through the Napa Auto Parts tee ball team I played for when I was five years old. I laugh every time I look at the picture of the snaggletoothed kid wearing the mesh snapback trucker hat with the unevenly bent bill, awkwardly holding out the oversized glove like it was some exotic and terrifying animal. Within a few weeks I was in love. Saturdays couldn’t come around fast enough for me. The smell of the fresh cut grass, the smell of hot dogs and popcorn cooking, the stark contrast between the bright white chalk lines and the powdery smooth dirt. The creaking sound the leather glove made when you flexed and squeezed it. The jerseys with a number on the back and your last name at the top. Your friends and family members in the bleachers cheering you on and calling out your name or saying things like “Look alive,” “heads up,” “keep your head on a swivel.” Of course the fans weren’t the only ones making noise. We players loved to “chatter.” “Hey batter, batter, batter” or the bizarre “eh-eh-eh-eh-eh-eh-eh-eh swing!” I loved it all, but the part I loved the most was my dad. He loved baseball too, so much that he coached me practically every year I played. Baseball was “our thing.” There are few things in life as pure and beautiful as the love a little boy has for baseball. After his mamma, it is his first love.
To this very moment I can still feel how much I loved getting dressed in my uniform for a game. Back then the uniforms were these terrible polyester things that came in small, medium or large and were passed down from year to year to the next team. It was a thrill to go up to the square in my hometown and shop for cleats at Sports World. Jerry Hibdon would always be working in the back of the store, building trophies or printing logos and numbers on jerseys. I would make a right turn and go past the George Brett and Dale Murphy posters on my way to the shoe section. The cool cleats were the colored ones that had the long tongue that hung down over the laces.
For the better part of the next decade the one thing I cared about the most was baseball. I played baseball, not just in Little League, but in backyard games in our Green Acres neighborhood, and on Nintendo. I watched baseball, on television and in person on the rare occasion that I got to go to Atlanta Fulton County Coliseum to watch the Braves play. Though I liked girls, they just couldn’t compare to baseball. Baseball wasn’t confusing like girls. It was simple and predictable and consistent. People today complain about the slow pace of baseball games and want time limits and play clocks speeding up the time between pitches, but I always thought the slow pace was intentional. When you are doing something that you love so much, why in the world would you want to speed it up and make it go faster. For me, Ernie Banks famous quote, “Let’s play two” was practically Gospel truth. When I wasn’t playing or watching baseball I was organizing or trading baseball cards. Baseball wasn’t a part of my life, it was my life. It was Henry Wadsworth Longfellow who first wrote, “Into each life some rain must fall” and for me that meant sometimes there was crying in baseball.
The first time I remember crying because of baseball was when I was in Little League and we lost the championship game. I was twelve years old at the time and had been playing baseball for seven years. During those seven years we had lost games, though not very many, but we had never lost a championship. I was twelve years old and we were National League champions, but we lost the overall league championship to the American League winners and I was devastated and I cried. Most people would find that completely understandable, but I also cried at other times. I actually grew up an Atlanta Braves fan, but in August of 1990 they traded my hero, Dale Murphy, to the Philadelphia Phillies, and I cried tears of anger, and swore off the Braves forever. My loyalty would now lie with my idol, and fellow second baseball Ryne Sandberg of the Chicago Cubs. Just a few years shy of being married and after I was old enough to drive a car, I remember crying because a game got rained out. I realize you may be thinking that is a bit extreme, and admittedly, perhaps it was, but I loved playing so much that once I completed my pre game dressing rituals and had on my “game face”, having the game canceled due to weather was emotionally devastating. My tears were a mixture of anger and sadness. The last time I recall crying over baseball was the day I played my last game in high school. Thirteen years of my life was coming to an end. From the time that snaggle toothed little boy in the blue jeans and Napa t-shirt put on a glove, baseball was his one true love. Girls had come and gone and broken my heart, but baseball had never let me down. Life can be scary and unpredictable when you are growing up, but baseball was something I understood almost instinctively. But now it was gone for good. Although I had a few scholarship offers to some small colleges, I passed on them and realized I’d never play baseball competitively again. Add to that fact the realization that my best friends and teammates and I would be going our separate ways with graduation just a few weeks away. I would be in Alabama, Jode would be in Louisiana, and Brad would be at Paris Island. It was all just too much for me to bear, and I cried. Standing at home plate at the Loretto High School field, having just been defeated in the District playoffs, I took one last look. Like a rain cloud, pregnant will so much moisture that you could smell it, taste it in the air, the clouds of my emotions burst forth. On that day, there most certainly was a lot of crying in baseball.
Just a few weeks later I finally got to sit in the bleachers at Wrigley Field in Chicago to watch my beloved Cubs. This trip was part of a graduation gift and it was a dream come true. I stood on Waveland Avenue, I got to see Harry Carey. I was with my parents and the girl who would be my wife just six months later. Little did I know it was the pinnacle of my baseball life, and that less than two months later baseball would break my heart like no girl ever had. I was at work at my Uncle Fuzzy’s lumber yard, Old Mill Salvage, on a Saturday in August when I saw the news that Major League Baseball was going on strike. The strike was bad enough, but when it continued into October and resulted in the World Series being canceled for the first time in 90 years, I was crushed. I couldn’t understand how men who were privileged to play the greatest sport ever invented, and get paid millions of dollars to do it, could betray the integrity of the game over more money. Twelve year old me wouldn’t have been able to believe it, but on that day, I didn’t cry for baseball, I walked away from it and didn’t watch another game. But like any great love affair, you break up, but something always brings you back. For me that something was the home run race between Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa.
In 1998 one of the great baseball records seemed destined to fall, the only question was who would break Roger Maris’s 61 home runs in a season first, McGwire or Sosa? In a moment that seemed to be scripted by Hollywood, McGwire’s Cardinals faced off against Sosa and my Cubs in the friendly confines of Wrigley Field, with the power hitter sitting on 60 home runs. In the next two games he would hit 61 and 62 and Sammy Sosa would charge in from the outfield to hug McGwire in celebration. Brandon and baseball were back together again. They say love is blind, and I certainly was. Within the next few seasons something even more shameful than the strike would plague the sport I loved. Barry Bonds would electrify fans with an astounding 70 home runs in a season, but then Sosa was found using a corked bat and by this point the rumors were swirling that he, McGwire, Bonds, and essentially every other “great” player from my childhood was using steroids to achieve their unprecedented success. The one thing worse that quitting is cheating. And to borrow a phrase from George Jones, “This time, he’s over her for good. He stopped loving her today.” Other than my children, that was the last time I watched baseball, until tonight.
For many years sports were too important to me. Now they are just fun hobbies to enjoy, but I don't live and die by them anymore and I'm not obnoxious about them. I always remind myself it's just a game, but every once in a while you get reminded, it is a little more than just a game. It's learning how to lose and how to win. It's never giving up hope and giving it your all until the very end. It's about teamwork. It's about crushing lows and exhilarating highs. It's about traditions. But for me, most of all, it's about friends and family, making memories, just being together and being reminded you are on my team.
Tonight I sat here thinking about a 12 year old second baseman with his Ryne Sandberg poster over his bed. A 16 year old new driver with an airbrushed Ryno tag on the front of his Blazer. A 17 year old senior wearing the Cubs hat in his senior pics. An 18 year old newly graduated “adult” with his soon to be wife in the bleachers at Wrigley. And tonight, a 40 year old father of two sat next to his firstborn son and witnessed what none of those others guys ever thought he would see. My Cubs won the World Series! Tonight there most certainly was crying in baseball.
Addendum: I'm not a Cubs fan and I won't pretend that I am. I've been a die hard Red Sox fan for as long as I can remember. With that being said, this World Series was the first time in my life that I witnessed my dad willingly watch a pro baseball game. Growing up loving baseball and coming from a family of men who loved baseball, I never understood how my dad could have fallen out of love with a sport he had once practically dedicated his life to. He always told me that he lost the love for baseball because of the 1994 strike. To 9 year old me who sat watching the 2004 World Series in a hotel in Mississippi as the Red Sox won their first championship of my life, it still didn't make sense. I didn't understand how the actions of anyone, not even the players, could ever influence your opinion of the game. In my eyes, baseball was pure. Baseball was fun. Baseball was methodical and strategical. I never understood how anyone could "fall out of love" with the sport.
Tonight, however, I sat beside my dad as he stayed up until 1 AM to watch his Cubs win their first World Series in 108 years. I watched him cheer, clap and shout with excitement over base hits and strikeouts. I watched him overcome with joy for a sport he had once loved, for the first time in my life.
I didn't root for the Cubs because I'm a fan. I didn't root for the Cubs because I wanted them to win. I rooted for the Cubs because I knew a championship in Chicago would restore the faith and love of baseball into the eyes of the man who taught me how to play. I rooted for the Cubs for my dad, because he spent countless hours rooting for me, teaching me how to bat, showing me how to field ground balls, and teaching me how to love a sport that had once meant everything to him. I'm glad your Cubs got a win, dad. You and Chicago deserved it.
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