To Baltimore

“Parting is such sweet sorrow.”
-- William Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet)

I admit it. I jumped on the bandwagon. Just once. I was young and in college. Everyone was doing it, and I succumbed to the will of the masses.

I can imagine my actions during the fall of 1998 were a bit like returning to an old lover. After several years of being bitter and broken-hearted, she comes back into your life, more refined, more interesting, yet still familiar. Somehow what you recognize in the most recent version is not the faults that destroyed you, but ultimately the spells and potions that first bewitched you. Only now it is more powerful, more intoxicating because novelty has once again replaced the mundane; intrigue alloys the commonplace.

It was in this manner, after years apart, that I returned to baseball.

The timeline of my love affair with the national pastime greatly resembles one of the few naïve fantasies which I still cling to, that of two people too ripe, too unprepared for their first go at love finally achieving a more mature, rewarding romance than they ever could have managed without first the loss and then subsequent maturation.

During my fandom as a youth, I could never fully commit. Too young and too distracted, I perpetrated unpardonable sins in the baseball world not out of malice, but out of ignorance. How else could I explain my equal reverence of both the Cubs and the White Sox? Sure, I grew up on the Cubs; my grandmother placed me in front of the television every day and allowed Harry Caray’s neuron-corroding effects to do their work. Still, as I sat on the cusp of my teen years, it was the South Siders who kept my attention. It was Black Jack and Robin Ventura (even after Nolan Ryan pummeled him), Rock Raines and Ozzie Guillen. Above all others, there was Frank Thomas.

On the football field in Junior High, I was anointed Trainwreck by my fellow players. The nickname came from a Reebok commercial starring Big Frank. In voice-over, he describes a collision between himself and an unlucky catcher to the impact of two trains running head-on into each other. As the dust settles on the impact and the ball rolls free Big Frank stands up confidently:

“I’m the big train,” he says.

After Ryne Sandberg’s retirement, I anointed Frank Thomas the new avatar of my romanticism with the game. My first trip to a major league ballpark was not to Wrigley Field, but to the new Comiskey Park. And I went to see Big Frank.

Then, suddenly, my romance with the game of baseball came to a crashing halt. During a season in which the White Sox seemed the prohibitive favorites to reach, if not win, the World Series, the now infamous strike halted the 1994 season as it approached its climax.

In my own life, after playing for an overly competitive JV coach who didn’t understand the inanity of obsessing over a sophomore Conference title, my desire to pursue the game slowly wilted. Now, every time I swing my Brainstorm Bat or pound my newest mit, I regret giving one jackass so much power that I turned my back on the game. That being said, I don’t believe I would love the sport as I do now if I hadn’t given it up.

After hanging up my spikes in the summer of 1996, baseball rarely entered my mind. I went and watched my best friend defy science and reason in center field, but that was the limit of my baseball intake. The spring musical quickly filled the void left by baseball, and Guys and Dolls remains one of the most rewarding projects of my life.

At 18, I thought baseball and I were through. Then, like an ex-girlfriend at a high school reunion, she strutted back into the room, twenty pounds lighter, in tip-top shape, with some great stories to tell. As if in a dream, this familiar love didn’t give me the cold shoulder, but welcomed me back with open arms.

And let’s not forget that tremendous gift: the race to 61.

I cannot lie. I would not be the relentless, obsessive fan that I am, if not for Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa. I jumped right into the middle of that bandwagon. Though the drama of the chase seems somewhat diminished now in the immediate shadow of Barry Bonds’ punishment of the pill and the Red Sox’ improbable World Championship, try and recall it if you can. Sammy and Mark, the two sluggers chasing Maris’ record were on the same field when Mark McGwire hit 61. Talk about serendipity. They hugged on the first base line, imitating each other’s trademark handshakes. I remember McGwire’s horrifying bear hug of his son, and Sammy sincerely congratulating Popeye after the game. It was baseball, thin and gorgeous, and suddenly it all came back to me – the romance of it all.

I returned to my first love, baseball, prepared to love it as never before. My life as an athlete had ended unceremoniously, so personal identification with the athletes was no longer the primary interest. And as much as I loved my experience playing football, baseball remained my first, deepest, and most sincere passion. Older, wiser, and willing to forgive, I dove back into the smell of leather and pine tar, of splitters and spitters, of beer and brats.

The love triangle I lived with the Cubs and Sox went to the North Side, if only because the 1998 incarnation of the Sox was completely unfamiliar to me (save for an underperforming Frank Thomas) and the Cubs were blessed with a more compelling storyline for my return, what with a rare (if uneventful) post-season appearance and Sammy’s home run chase.

After playing a major role in my reunion with the game, it was with understandable sadness that I learned this morning of Sammy Sosa’s impending departure from the Chicago Cubs. Now, it became clear that Sosa needed to go well before sneezing meant a DL vacation and grenades found their way over the ivy. Nevertheless, as I count the days till Sosa turns in his Blues, I can’t help feeling a numb guilt and disappointment that things ended this way.

The question bouncing about my brain is this:

How much importance is history to a relationship? Does the considerable time you’ve spent together, the good and the bad, the laughter and the tears, justify a cordial departure?

For me, I’ve been thinking about the last game of last season. Chicago had suffered an embarrassing breakdown to the New York Mets, handing the Wild Card berth to Houston. The game was of no consequence as far as the season was concerned, and Sosa made that abundantly clear when he walked out of Wrigley fifteen minutes into the contest. Sosa caught flak for letting his teammates down, letting the franchise down. Yea, I guess, but that was never what appalled me about it.

The game was of no consequence. As far as performance goes, he let the team down long before that. Sosa’s premature exit from that final game didn’t bother me because of team morale. No. What disgusted me about it was that Sammy took for granted the dreams of millions of boys and men who would have given untold number of digits and limbs just to be able to sit in the dugout of Wrigley Field as a part of a major league baseball team.

Sosa gets paid an inordinate amount of money to live out the dreams and fantasies of his fans, yet he didn’t feel up to it on that day. Had we booed him, started to talk about his substandard play? Absolutely. But we weren’t rooting against him. Nothing would have thrilled the whole of Wrigleyville more than to see Sammy bouncing homers off the Sheffield apartments. We wanted to see that. We needed that. And I’m sorry Sammy. You just weren’t getting the job done.

Cubs fans have a tradition of sulking. That’s what we do. It’s our gimmick. We sulk. We wine. We bitch and moan. But most of that is a manifestation of our need for a hero. We want to be inspired by our team. We bitch, you inspire. That’s our dynamic, and will continue to be. We saw glimpses of that heroism last year, but none of it came from Sammy. Instead, young bucks like Aramis Ramirez and Carlos Zambrano yanked that torch out of Sosa’s hands while he was busy sneezing us out of the post-season.

I like my team a whole lot more today than I did yesterday, and that’s a tragedy. The player who wooed me back into my affair with baseball has lost his place in my heart. Sure, I will remember what he did for me and forever be grateful. But sadly that is not enough to justify my continued loyalty. The past just isn’t enough, not when the future holds so many possibilities. Will I miss you? In a way, I’ve already gotten over your absence. You’re not the player we loved anymore, Sammy. You haven’t been for a long time.

It’s time for a change. We’ve had our time, Sammy, and now we must both move on. Say hi to the Yanks and BoSox for me. I’m sure they’re dying to K you. And try not to harbor any ill will when you hear the right field bleachers erupt this spring…

For Todd Hollandsworth.