Every day is a new opportunity. You can build on yesterday's success or put its failures behind and start over again. That's the way life is, with a new game every day, and that's the way baseball is." - Bullet Bob Feller
In the spring of 2019, my marriage of more than 20 years was over. It wasn’t over on paper, not over in the eyes of the law or anyone who knew us, it wasn’t over anywhere in the universe yet… but it was very much over in my heart, in my mind, in my body, and in my soul.
I was done. I couldn’t do it anymore. I wasn’t going to survive it much longer. The telephone poles I passed when driving alone were getting louder and louder in their asks for the front end of my Kia to be wrapped around them.
I had to get through the not dying part before I could even imagine the thriving part. It took a very, very long time to get where I am now, which is much more focused on the latter with whatever time I have left on this rock of ours.
Back then I didn’t know what the fuck “thriving” even meant and I didn’t have the first damn clue as to how to achieve it or even if I could. I don’t think I ever really believed I couldn’t. I’m just too goddamned stubborn to resign myself to a lot in life I don’t want.
I did that for the better part of 20 years, and it nearly cost me my life. So, I sure as shit am not going to go back to that shit now. But back then, I didn’t know for sure I could. I didn’t see the “how” I could. I still had to believe I could.
I still had to jump.
I wasn’t the woman enduring anymore. I was the woman standing. I was the woman choosing. That’s what I told myself day after day. I didn’t know what I wanted, only what I didn’t.
I didn’t want to be silenced. I didn’t want to be gaslit. I didn’t want to be ridiculed or demeaned. I didn’t want to be the “wife at home”, I didn’t want to be told I wasn’t smart, special or funny. And I didn’t want to lie awake every night wondering where he was and who he was with. I didn’t want to be punched for having the audacity to ask.
I didn’t want any of it. And I couldn’t take it. Not one more minute. Not even a second. It was life or death.
And so I decided to stand. I decided to live. And boy was that decision more than I had bargained for.
I had been with him since I was 19. I didn’t know how to navigate life alone. I went from my dad to him. I didn’t know fuck-all about being an adult on my own. I’m not “proud” of how ill-prepared I was. I’m just owning it.
I was just trying to land on my feet in any way I could. Trying to survive.
And then in the midst of me attempting to manage all of that, my son had decided to become a Yankees fan. The Yankees.
“The Yankees?!?” I moaned.
“How above the Mets?” I implored.
No deal.
He then decided he would also become a fan of the NJ Devils. (That’s leave you at the hotel breakfast buffet for a few hours until you wonder if your family forgot you and then you panic and then I laugh oh how I laugh, but I digress).
Ok, ok fine. I had to intervene. We were a family of Rangers fans, we certainly could not abide a Devils fan. Blech.
I’ll hold my nose and wait for him to outgrow this, I told myself.
He didn’t outgrow it. And I grew to love it.
To love them. The NY Yankees.
He wanted nothing more than to go to a game. I didn’t have two dimes to rub together. I was struggling to keep the lights on. But he was hurting. My wee little triumvirate of three was in pain. Reeling from the new reality of a “broken” family.
He told me then that it felt as though everything he has ever loved was being taken from him. He didn’t want to live anymore.
It crushed me.
I needed to make right what I could.
I couldn’t put our family back together.
But maybe I could show him how to love something else. Something so pure, so transcendent, so restorative, so much larger than the worry of daily life, maybe then I could help him see that some things he loved did stay. That they would always be there. Even when the season ended. We could still follow them and prepare for the season ahead.
I took them to their first game. They were 10 and 7. My boy’s eyes were so wide with wonder as he surveyed the expanses of manicured grass and combed dirt before him. The stadium rising like a coliseum all around him.
This living, breathing shrine to his heroes. To his team. To his sport.
I was watching my little dude come back to life. I could feel it. In this team I’d grown up hating, he had found his comfort. His escape. His joy. The kind that permeated all of life’s struggles.
I couldn’t afford tickets at all, but I sold some of my late mother’s jewelry, and I used that money to buy three tickets.
We were in the 400s. “In the clouds” as my daughter said. “Above the birds.”
And it was fucking terrifying for me. I have a crippling fear of heights you see. And every time Abbie had to pee or get a pretzel, I thought I was going to die. How did people afford those seats on the ground? How could I afford them? When could I? I was scared shitless and focused on changing my lot.
But they didn’t care. They got to see Aaron Judge hit one out of the park. They got to see themselves on the Jumbotron 4 times.
They were hooked.
They were happy.
They were ok. For nine innings at least, they were ok. We were all ok.
And then I was hooked too.
Over the years, new tragedies would visit us. I couldn’t bring our 12-year old Chocolate lab Otis back to life. I couldn’t make Covid disappear so his school could reopen. I couldn’t bring their uncle back to us.
But I could take them to a game. I worked to be able to take them. I worked to make my way down from the clouds and into the seats I had once upon a time marveled at anyone being able to afford.
My babies have grown up here, 9 innings at a time. Walks, homers, double plays and walk offs have punctuated their little lives for all these years. The crack of the bat and the thrill of the crowd and even the smell of the pot while standing in line, have become like the comforts of home to them.
And I don’t have the words to repay the Yankees for all they have given my little family. I’m sure I’m not alone in that.
There is a simple beauty to this game. A romance and magic to it. The skill it takes to send a ball over the right field wall. To stretch as far as your legs will go to stop a ball from getting by you.
As this team has grown and evolved over the years, my kids have too. And so have I.
We’ve grown into the reality of our splintered family. We have stumbled and fallen a hundred times in the process, but we’ve never wavered in our love for this team.
They have always been a thread that connects us to one another in a way nothing else ever could.
Especially for me and my boy. Who, like me, once upon a time thought he wanted for it all to just stop. He wanted to give up.
But he didn’t. I didn’t. We didn’t.
The New York Yankees didn’t.
And tonight, we are here. At home. Our home.
We are here at Yankee Stadium.
To watch our team play in the World Series.
And we may not be in the seats on the ground, but we aren’t up with the birds either.
OMG Jo, this 71 year old Dad is in tears.
Tears of shared experience. My boys are amazing grown men now, and we still share the love of going to the ballpark together.
Bless you, Mom.
What a cool mom! And no better way to impart life's lessons than through baseball.
Less importantly, Go Yankees!