Take me out to the ball game

On a wintry day in March I was reading Lynn’s blog and in it he mentioned that he longed for a sunny day at the ballpark. I sat by my snowy window that day and let my mind wander to that sunny place too and I could almost hear the crack of the bat and the muttering of the crowd. Mmmmm, that really warmed up a cold wintry day. We had another blast of winter yesterday, but the baseball season opened today, so sunny summer days can't be far away now. Yahoo!

We used to enjoy going to the old Tiger stadium in Detroit to watch major league games. It was a bit harrowing to drive in downtown Detroit, when we were accustomed to navigating quieter roads in our small Ontario town, but it was well worth every minute of the nervous drive, to sit in that fabulous old ballpark and watch the Tigers play.

Sunny afternoons at the park were great, but I think the night games in the summer were my favourite though. All the sounds seemed to be more intense at night and the field was dazzling under the lights. I would look up at the dark night sky all around me and seem to be in a magical bubble in the middle of the big city of Detroit. Oh yes, take me out to the ball game!!!

Most of the games I enjoyed were spent in little ballparks not major league ones though. Daughter #2 played ball and she was a member of a travel team, so we enjoyed many years of cheering her on in ballparks all over Ontario and a few in Michigan.

The travel tournaments were played in big fancy ballparks, but the home games were a different story. We have lots of farms around us here where we live, and when Daughter #2’s travel team played at home they played teams from all over the county.
We would spend two or three nights each week going to these little communities and playing on diamonds literally in the middle of a cornfield. I absolutely loved it.

As we drove down the country roads, we could see the lights for the field we would be playing on long before we could actually see the field. We would then turn a corner and there would be this ball diamond in the middle of nowhere. The lights would be on, the stands starting to fill up with people and the air alive with a certain kind of magic. It was like something out of "Field of Dreams", and I would sit there and expect ghost players to start coming out of the corn and want to join our game. The field would be all lit up, but if we turned around in our bleacher seats, the area around us would just be dark fields of corn. It was totally awesome.

I remember one time Daughter #2 was pitching in a big city tournament north of Toronto, while my dad was dying in a hospital in downtown Toronto. I had to miss the tournament to be with my dad but Daughter #2 and AC went to the tournament to face many big city teams with lots more talent than our little travel team had. Daughter #2 pitched her heart out for grandpa that weekend and her team won the gold medal and she took the tournament MVP award. She came to the hospital on Sunday night to see grandpa and tell him about her games. He was in a coma, but we talked to him and felt sure that he could hear us. She held her medal and trophy up for him and told him all about her games as tears filled her eyes, and ours too. Dad didn't move or respond in any way while she talked to him, but two or three minutes after she finished and we stood around his bedside talking, dad opened his eyes and said to me, "You must be so proud of her." We all stood in amazement and said yes we were and he then closed his eyes and slipped back into his coma.

Just a few days after that he died and two weeks after his funeral I found myself sitting in the bleachers at a ball diamond in the middle of a cornfield back home watching Daughter #2 play. I sat on the top row of the bleachers and felt my dad stepping across the universe to me, to sit right there beside me to comfort me and cheer his granddaughter on. I cried through the whole game and felt healing come with each tear I shed.

Ah such sweet memories and the magic of a baseball diamond on a summer's evening. A touch of heaven indeed! Lynn’s comment on his blog brought all those warm memories back to me on that cold wintry day in March and again today as I write this. I miss my dad a lot, but feel him reaching across the universe to me once more as I relive that special last weekend with him and Daughter #2.

Angels do visit us wearing all sorts of different coats don't they? Sometimes they wear yellow cloth coats we can see with our eyes, but other times they wear the mystical coat of a memory we can only see with our heart.

Batter up! Play Ball!