The
coronavirus has scuttled much of the 2020 baseball season. In the major
leagues, they're gearing up to play just now, what would've been four months
into the season, and I'm skeptical about it. Baseball is fun, but there's a
pandemic on and I'm not at all convinced that it's safe to play ball, even in
empty stadiums.
As
for minor league baseball, they've already cancelled the entire season, and I
don't have to wonder what Stephanie would think about that. We were agreed on
many things, Steph and I, certainly on baseball, and I know she'd be as
apprehensive about pandemic baseball as I am, and disappointed at having no
minor league games in Beloit.
Today's
entry is about Stephanie & baseball memories, so let's start in San
Francisco, where we first met. Girls aren't supposed to like sports, or at
least that's what people say, but Stephanie liked sports, especially baseball. She
didn't have to "try" to like it, as a favor for me. Nope, she just liked
baseball. We went to a game on our second or third day together, and it was
Stephanie's idea, not mine. We went to another game that week, and baseball was
part of every summer.
In
California, that usually meant Oakland A's games, in their huge, mostly empty
concrete stadium with the freaky tall seating section in the outfield, added to
placate the then-Oakland Raiders, who played in the same park.
We
usually bought a program, because Stephanie loved the "stories" of
baseball — that's what she always called anything she could glean about a
player's career. This guy hit a home run in his first minor league at-bat. This
guy's father played minor league ball twenty years ago. This guy overcame
pneumonia that cost him half of the last season. She enjoyed baseball just for
baseball, but she enjoyed it more when she knew a player's story, so —
"Program, get your program! — we always got the program.
The
A's had two brothers on the team, Jason and Jeremy Giambi. Jason was a fairly
big star, known for hitting home runs, and later revealed to be cheating by
taking steroids to jack more home runs. Jeremy was a lesser talent, but
Stephanie loved the story of the kid brother joining his big brother on the
same team. Steph said that the A's had "Giambi reserves" — a spare
Giambi on the roster.
She
sometimes asked me about the intricacies of the rules — long ago, I was an
umpire — but I think she was just flattering me. Stephanie knew most aspects of
baseball better than I ever did. She once asked me to explain the infield fly
rule, and I explained it wrong, saying "with runners on first and
second" but forgetting to say "or with the bases loaded." I
actually noticed that I'd misspoken, but I was blabbering fast and already onto
my next sentence, so I didn't bother to correct myself. Steph listened politely
until I'd finished, and then she said, "The infield fly is also in effect
when the bases are loaded, isn't it?"
She
liked keeping score, too. That's the baseball shorthand of jots and squiggles
and abbreviations, to record what every batter does, all through the game.
Steph was smart and curious and caught
on quick when I showed her how scorekeeping works — so quick I suspect that
she'd also researched scorekeeping on the internet. Whether I was her teacher
or Google, once she'd mastered it, she always wanted to keep score for at least
the first few innings of every game.
In
Kansas City, baseball was less fun than in California (everything about Kansas
City was less fun, to be honest). We didn't have a car for our first few years
there, and Kansas City doesn't have a fraction of the San Francisco-area's public
transit, so just getting to Kaufman Stadium was daunting, and also expensive.
Only
once did we actually see the Royals play, and it was kind of a disaster. Someone
was in our seats and wouldn't yield until we flagged down an usher, so we
missed the first half-inning. The lady in front of us and the man behind us were both loud jackasses,
screaming painfully and seemingly drunk. The concession stand sold us stale hot
dogs, and Steph only had two bites and got sick, so we left the game and waited
in the bus for an hour. You come by bus, you leave by bus, and the bus doesn't
leave until the game is over.
In
our part of Wisconsin, there's only minor league baseball. Madison has a team
called the Mallards — we went to one game, and felt really crimped by the
crowd. Went to a second game several years later, and the stadium had been
remodeled and made worse. The Mallards are wildly popular here, so we knew ours
was a minority opinion, but we just found Mallards games unbearable.
Instead
we went to minor league baseball in Beloit, fifty miles away, but we went quite
often. We must've made that road trip dozens of times, and almost always had a
fabulous time. But I've already written about baseball in Beloit, and about our
Mallards experiences, too, at this link.
What
I'd add about Beloit is, that's where we were attended baseball games both
before and after Steph became disabled. Because of that, I think, it held a
special place in our hearts.
Before
her amputation, she wasn't sure what life would be like after, but one of the
first things we did "after" was baseball in Beloit. She was tremendously
excited about going, returning to something normal in life, like baseball.
It
wasn't exactly the same; we sat in the disabled section, instead of wherever we
felt like sitting. The disabled stall in the ladies' room was tiny and cramped,
but she could pee there so, no worries. And she needed the ladies' room more —
before the amputation she'd always had a hot dog and a beer, but after she was
disabled, and I was driving instead of Steph, she could have two beers.
At
her first post-surgery baseball game, Steph had so much fun. She sang
"Take Me Out To the Ball Game" at the seventh-inning stretch, even
though she couldn't get out of her wheelchair to stretch. She shouted
"Hey, batta batta batta" to taunt the opposing team's hitters, same
as always. She even chatted with Snappy, the Beloit Snappers mascot who walks throughout
the stadium during the game, joking with kids and grandparents and pretty much
anyone who can take a joke.
"We
went to a baseball game," she said in the car, on our way home. "Just
like normal people, even though I only have one damned leg." She said it
with a gigantic smile on her face, positively giddy about how much fun she'd
had. And ten miles further down the freeway, she said it again. Stephanie was
maybe a little tipsy from the beers that evening, but mostly she was happy. Baseball
always made her happy, but especially that one time when she really needed some
normal-people happy.