MADE ME BELIEVE

Dear Spike:

Here's to the misfits. The outcasts. The freaks.

Here's to surprise. To passion. To dreams.

Here's to the team that made me believe, again, in baseball.

Here's to the San Francisco Giants.

You'll not likely remember this moment, but I'd like you to understand it, so I'll fill you in on the particulars: You were sitting in your high chair, eating some bananas and chocolate chips, when Brian Wilson blew a fastball past Nelson Cruz to give the Giants their first championship since your grandfather was still in diapers.

You, your mother and I all exploded into cheers. Foot stomping. Hallelujah-making. Whooping and hollering and laughing and crying.

Yes, a little bit of crying.

Why should I care like this? About a game? About a game played by millionaires?

Well, maybe I shouldn't. And for a long time I didn't.

I grew up on this game, following the Giants and the more successful band of Bash Brothers on the opposite side of the Bay. I can still remember the lineups of both the teams that faced off in the 1989 "Bay Bridge" World Series. That series was interrupted by an incredible earthquake — but when it finally ended with an Oakland A's victory, I remember wishing that it could have gone on forever, so that night after night I could hide under my covers and tune my little red radio in to listen to Will Clark knock a Dave Stewart pitch over the center field fence, or to hear about how Carney Lansford snagged a rocket-shot off Matt Williams' bat that just should have gone up the third base line for a double. I had it all planned out: The A's would win a game, and then the Giants would win a game. And they'd just keep playing, forever and ever, marching from one side of the bay to the other, and back again.

Four years later, the players — many of them millionaires, many times over — stopped putting on their spikes over a dispute regarding revenue sharing with team owners. For the record, I think the owners were greedy pigs, but it was still a strike over a game played by rich men. And it resulted in the cancellation of a large part of the 1994 season, including the playoffs and World Series.

Sacrilege.

After that, it almost didn't matter when I learned that many of the players I'd cheered for in that all-too-short World Series in 1989 were using steroids. Mark McGwire. Jose Canseco. Traitors. Scum. Cheaters.

But I didn't need to know that Barry Bonds was on the juice to know that guy was a complete horse's ass. For 14 years, I couldn't look at The Giants.

But I fell in love again last year during a date with your mother at the Giants' beautiful ballpark at Willie Mays Plaza, right across the street from where your great grandfather once worked as a copy editor off Mission Bay. We ate hot dogs and Crackerjack and watched Tim Lincecum pitch a less-than-perfect game. Still, to watch that young man, uniform hanging off his skinny frame, hurl a baseball that fast. Incredible.

What a freak.

And a completely likable freak at that. Sure enough, as manager Bruce Bochy pieced together a ragtag gang of players for the 2010 season, they were all just...

... so damn likable.

Oh, they're still millionaires. And some of them are scoundrels, no doubt. But they keep it to themselves. And that's really all I've ever asked of my professional athletes.

So there was Edger Renteria, an aging and injury-prone infielder who not so long ago had been relegated to the minor leagues.

And there was Buster Posey, a 23-going-on-14-year-old kid with a swing as sweet as a honey-dipped Baby Ruth.

And there was Aubrey Huff, the veteran who had never even been to the playoffs and who didn't even have a team to play for nine months ago.

And then, this evening, there was Lincecum, pitching as perfect a game as I've ever seen in the Series. Eight innings against one of the best hitting teams in the big leagues. Ten strikeouts. Just three hits.

Oh, I could go on. And I will. Again and again. Not all bedtime stories are fairy tales, but this one will surely sound like one.

Love,
dad

A BALL GOWN

Dear Spike:

You: "What's this, mama?"

Your mother: "That's a ball gown."

You: "A ball gown?"

Your mother: "That's right. Where do you think you might wear a ball gown?"

You: "To the ball game!"

Love,
dad

I WAS HOPING

Dear Spike:

I finished our taxes — and with 22 hours to spare, no less.

After all was said and done, our little family ended up still owing Uncle Sam $450, while Uncle Zion owes us about $250. That's not quite the wash I was hoping for, but after itemizing everything short of the cat (Damn it! I forgot to itemize the cat!) I suppose it's simply as good as we're going to do this year.

It was a busy day for me, and between jousting with the IRS and trying to figure out why an F-16 pilot shot at a couple of soldiers at the local bombing range, you and I didn't get much time together today. I doubt you noticed — or cared — though, because your mom had the day off and took you to a baseball game, and it seems to me that you two had a really good time together.

But even though I've been rooting for you to get a full night's sleep for a long, long time, I'm also sort of hoping that tonight's not the night. I miss you and, if you wake up, I'll have a nice excuse to hold you and rock you to sleep (and then maybe hold you just a bit longer before I put you down again.)

Life sometimes gets in the way of the things that we like best. So, when we can, it's good to have a few moments to put things back in order.

Love,
dad

ON THE CREAM *

Dear Spike:

A few days back, your grandfather called with some disconcerting news. He’d gotten shingles — an adult skin rash caused by the same virus which causes chicken pox — and feared that he may have been contagious when he came to visit you a few weeks back.

Sure enough, that very night we noticed you had developed some small red dots on your back. And the next day it was worse. Chicken pox isn’t the most dangerous virus in the world, but it’s no fun for anyone — and it can be most dangerous for infants — so we were sure to bring you in to see the doctor that day.

To our initial relief (and I’m sure to that of your grandfather, whom we definitely would have bombarded with photos of your red-dotted back captioned “why, papa, why?”) we learned that you hadn’t contracted chicken pox at all. Rather you were suffering from eczema, a fairly common skin inflammation that can be caused by a variety of factors, including extremely cold and dry weather like what we get during the winters here.

But while chicken pox would have come and gone in a week or so, this equally itchy irritation might be around for a while — likely until you are about three and possibly for your whole life, particularly as your family has a bit of a history with this condition. Sorry kid.

The doctor has prescribed a topical steroid, which already seems to be working to beat down the rash.

No indication yet on how this will affect your batting average, but I’ve already received a letter from the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., indicating that any records you may set while “juiced up on the cream” will be considered null and void.

Love,
dad

Dear Spike’s Friends:
An update on my injuries: It turns out I had it backward — in fact, my wrist is fractured and my finger is sprained. The doctor’s prognosis is a week in a splint for the sprain and up to six weeks in a splint or possibly a hard cast for the fracture. In the meantime, I’m learning that everything — from changing Spike’s clothes to strapping her into her carseat to writing her letters on this blog — takes three times longer when you’ve got two arms in various states of incapacitation.
Sigh.
Love,
spike’s dad

EVERY LITTLE STEP

Dear Spike:

This week was an absolute explosion of development for you.

You’ve begun to sit upright without any help at all. You can now roll from your back to your front and then back again. You’ve started to slither, just a bit, in an attempt to grab out-of-reach toys. You study your hands as they open and close and have begun to experiment with moving one or two fingers at a time. And, just in the past two or three days, you’ve begun to scream — not in sadness or agony, but simply to demand attention and maybe to sing a little song.

I’ve pretty much given up trying to capture every momentous moment with the camera. And recently, I’ve had to abandon the fantasy that I’m even going to be present for every little step.

To wit, this exchange with your mother a few days ago:

Me: “Come quick! Look what she’s doing.”

Your mom: (rushing into the room) “What? What is it?”

Me: (proudly) “Look! Spike is crawling toward her toys!”

Your mom: (sighing) “Oh that? Yeah, she did that with me a few days ago.”

Me: “A few days ago? Where was I?”

Your mom: “Well, you were somewhere.”

Me: “So I missed it?”

Your mom: “No, you just saw it.”

Me: “It’s just not the same.”

Your mom: “Yes, it is.”

She’s right, of course. It seems that we’re often so obsessed with firsts that we tend to miss the significance, the joy, the struggle and the glory in everything that comes next.

Many people know, for instance, that Jackie Robinson was the first black baseball player in Major League Baseball. Far fewer can name the second black player drafted out of the Negro Leagues, Larry Doby, who played his first game for the Cleveland Indians on July 6, 1947.

The world had not, in the 11 weeks separating Robinson’s and Doby’s entries into the big leagues, suddenly become a more tolerant place for black baseball players. Doby spent the rest of the 1947 season – and indeed, a good portion of his Hall of Fame career — suffering through the same indignities as Robinson.

Robinson rightfully went down in history for his place in advancing the cause of civil rights for Americans of color. Doby’s role in the battle, meanwhile, was ignominiously ignored. And yet even in Robinson’s shadow, Doby still shined. He was a seven-time All-Star, twice led the American League in home runs and led the Indians with seven hits, including a double and a homer, in Cleveland’s 1948 World Series victory over the Boston Braves.

Many people know that Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay were the first men to summit Mt. Everest. Hillary and the expedition’s leader, John Hunt, were promptly knighted for their accomplishment. Nearly lost to history is the subsequent journey of Swiss climbers Ernst Schmied and Jürg Marmet.

The 29,029-foot peak had not shrunk a single inch in the three years that separated the first and second ascents of the world’s tallest mountain. Marmet and Schmied (and, the following day, climbing partners Adolf Reist and Hans Rudolf von Gunten) didn’t have the promise of being first to the top of the world to help drive them up the deadly peak. They climbed not for history but for themselves.

And at the risk of beating a dead horse ...

Many people know that Charles Lindbergh was the first person to make a solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean. The second person to make the solo hop hasn’t exactly been lost to history, but I think that’s likely because her name was Amelia Earhart.

To be certain, Earhart knew there was value in being first. “Never do things others can do and will do,” she once said, “if there are things others cannot do or will not do.”

But it seems equally clear to me that Earhart didn’t make her solo flight across the Atlantic — or any of her other “firsts” — simply to be the first woman to lay claim to those feats.

“Adventure,” she once said, “is worthwhile in itself.”

Being first — or being present to witness a first — is as good an excuse for doing something as anything. But being second should never be an excuse not to do something or appreciate something that is being done beautifully.

The last time our species set foot on the moon was in 1972 — six years before I was born. Someday I hope to see us (you?) return. And when that happens, I assure you, I won’t be disappointed that I’m not watching Neil Armstrong’s first “small step.”

A giant leap is a giant leap, after all.

Congratulations on all of your accomplishments this week. I can’t wait to see you do it all again.

And again.

And again.

Love,
dad

MISS THESE MOMENTS

Dear Spike:

People used to marvel when I’d tell them that you regularly slept through the night. Six, seven, eight hours. “Yeah,” I’d beam, “my baby rocks the party.”

But lately, I suppose because you’ve been growing so fast, you’ve been waking up to eat at least once a night — and sometimes two or three times. And since every bottle I feed you is another bottle that your mother will have to fill at some other point during the day, she’s been pretty insistent that she be the one to feed you at night.

I suppose that’s nice, because I get to sleep. Or have the opportunity to do so, at least.

Except here we are, it’s 3:06 a.m. You’re asleep. Your mother’s asleep. And, really, the vast majority of the United States is asleep. . .

And I’m awake. Up like the Red Sox in Game Three.

OK, Star Wars is partly to blame. At the moment, Luke and Han are searching the Endor Forest for Leia. In a few minutes, the Ewoks are going to open a can of yub nub on the evil Imperial Forces — and who would want to sleep through that?

But also — and more so — I simply enjoy lying here and watching you sleep.

These opportunities seem to be growing more infrequent. You’ve been spending fewer and fewer hours napping during the day. You still take a few 20-minute catnaps. And whenever we’re in the car for longer than 10 minutes, you’re out like the Rockies in Game Four.

But during the daytime, every moment you slumber is an opportunity for me to get a little bit of uninterrupted work done. And so I often miss these moments.

Thankfully, Friday night has become “slumber party night” in our home — the night when you get to escape your cradle and come sleep on the big bed between your mother and me.

And while we say it’s a treat for you, it’s really for us.

And particularly for me.

I love watching your tiny tummy move up and down and my heart melts at the way your sweet little lips curl into a smile while you dream.

I love watching as you curve your back up and stretch your arms out in a way that allows you to take up as much room on the bed as either of your parents — even though you're only five months old and you only weight 11 or 12 pounds.

I love listening to your soft sleepy snorts and your dreamy little squeals.

And I love it when you curl your skinny fingers around my pinky and we sleep together, hand in hand, though the night.

Yeah, my baby rocks the party.

Love,
dad

BASE TO BASE

Dear Spike:

My father likes to tell people that I was just three days old when I attended my first baseball game.

We waited a bit longer to introduce you (mostly because the local team has been on the road since you were born) but I’ll still be proud to tell folks that we took you out to the ball game when you were small enough to fit into my mitt.

The home team won, 7 to 3. You saw your first home run and your first 6-4-3 double play. And when the visiting batters were retired in the top of the seventh, you stretched out your arms as if, by instinct, you knew what to do.

And in doing so, you participated in a noble ritual.

There’s something religious about baseball. Maybe its the strict adherence to an ancient liturgy, to rules and seance and tradition. Maybe it’s the communion of peanuts and Cracker Jack. Maybe it’s the hymns.

You don’t have to love this game the way I do (and your grandfather does, and your great-grandfather does) but I hope you’ll understand it and respect it. It’s as important a part of our country’s heritage as our national anthem and our flag.

Maybe more.

Yes, I think more.

That might be patriotic sacrilege in these days of bumper-sticker nationalism, but I think it’s true.

Like our nation, the game was born of British stock. And like our nation, it quickly and hubristically came into its own, maturing during our country’s darkest hours as men gathered in Army camps and war prisons — officers with enlisted men, side by side.

When the Civil War ended, baseball survived — though like our nation it remained soiled by racism and segregation for generations upon generations to come. And like our nation, it ultimately righted itself of that evil.

It still remains segregated in one sad way: At some point along the line, women were relegated to the derivative game of softball. And with very limited exceptions at the higher levels of the game, they do not play alongside men.

Maybe you could change that. Like our nation, baseball is ever-changing.

Much as our Constitution has proven both supple and resilient, the game has proven able to evolve and yet remain affixed in ordinance and tradition.

Much as our government has proven stronger than any President, Congress or court, baseball has proven stronger than its players, its owners or its fans.

And much as our nation has increasingly come into the possessorship of corporate interests, so too has the professional arm of the game.

And yet it survives.

Three strikes, four balls, three outs. Nine innings, nine players. Ninety feet, from base to base.

Peanuts and Cracker Jack. The seventh-inning stretch.

Rules and seance and tradition. Suppleness and resilience.

No, you don’t have to love this game the way I do.

But I do hope you’ll let me take you again. And again. And again.

Love,
dad